He was standing at the window in damp clothes because he hadn’t wanted her to walk out of this bathroom and see anything that made her feel like she owed him something.
“You didn’t change,” she said.
“Didn’t seem right.”
“You’re soaked.”
“I’ve been wetter.”
She almost laughed. “When?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Swimming.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, the robe bulky over the damp dress underneath. The room was comfortable, the air dry and still after the steam of the bathroom. The distance between them was maybe twelve feet, and he wasn’t closing it. Wasn’tdoing anything to make her inch her hand closer to the pepper spray.
“Thank you,” she said. “For this. The room, the shower. I needed it more than you know.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do, though. Because I’m about to leave. I even have my dress on under this robe. But I want you to know it’s not—” She stopped. Started again. “It’s not about you.”
He watched her. Those hazel eyes were dark gold in the glow from the window, and he was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t file into any category she recognized. Open and unhurried, like wherever she took this next, he’d meet her there.
“Okay,” he said.
One word. No argument. No push. Just the quiet acceptance of a man who’d offered what he had and was willing to let her walk away from it.
She didn’t move toward the door.
Her shoes were right there, beside the bathroom doorframe. Three steps, slip them on, drop the robe, say goodnight. She could be in the elevator in under a minute. A cab in five. Gone.
Her feet didn’t move.
“I had a plan,” she said. “I was going to come out here and say thank you and leave.”
“That sounds like a solid plan.”
“It was.” She pulled in a breath. “Itis.”
“But?”
“But you’re standing at the window soaking wet, and you didn’t open the wine, and the bed is still made, and I—” She pressed her lips together. Started again. “No one does that.”
“Does what?”
“Gives someone a room and then stands as far from the bed as physically possible like they’re afraid of sending the wrong signal.”
“I wasn’t afraid. I just wanted you to have the space.”
“I know. That’s the problem.”
The silence between them was charged and full of something she couldn’t outrun. She could feel it in her sternum, the pull, the specific gravity of this man and this room and the fact that he’d been standing at a window for thirty minutes in wet shoes because he cared more about what she felt than what he wanted.
She crossed the room.
Her dress shifted against her bare legs as she moved. His eyes tracked her but he didn’t step forward, didn’t reach for her, didn’t do anything except turn to face her fully as she closed the distance.
She stopped a foot away from him. Close enough to see the damp fabric of his shirt still clinging to his chest and shoulders.
