Prologue #3
I kept walking.
“Dammit.”
His footsteps came through the wet grass behind me. He moved around me and stopped in my path, not touching me, not crowding me, but close enough that I had to tilt my head to meet his stare.
His jaw ticked once. Then again.
“What?” I asked.
“That.” He pointed between us. “That thing you keep doing.”
“Walking?”
“Leaving.”
The word landed harder than it should have.
“We’ve known each other for five minutes.”
“No. We’ve spent five minutes at a time pretending we don’t know exactly what this is.” His voice stayed low, controlled, but the restraint in it had gone taut. “I find you. I ask. You say no. You look at me like you want me anyway, and then you disappear.”
Heat crawled beneath my hoodie. “Maybe you’re reading too much into it.”
“I’m not.”
The answer came instantly. Absolute. Infuriating.
I tried to step around him.
He stepped aside and let me.
That should have made it easier.
It didn’t.
“I don’t know anything about you, Kate,” he said behind me. “Not where you live. Not what you do. Not why you look at me like kissing me would ruin your life.”
I stopped.
Silence stretched through the orchard, filled by wind moving through leaves and the hard beat of my pulse.
“It might,” I said.
When I turned, something in his expression broke open.
Not triumph.
Hunger.
Weeks of it, banked behind that polished suit and arrogant mouth.
He came toward me slowly, giving me every second to back away. I didn’t. He stopped close enough that the heat of him pressed through the cool morning air, but his hands stayed at his sides.
“Tell me you don’t want me,” he said.
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
His gaze dropped to my lips. His jaw flexed so hard I saw the muscle jump.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Wanting you isn’t the problem.”
His eyes snapped back to mine.
There it was. The truth I had been swallowing every time he found me, every time he smiled like the world had never denied him anything, every time I walked away before I did something reckless.
“Then what is?” he asked.
Everything.
The land. His family. My name. The secret sitting between us like a lit match in dry grass.
“I can’t do this.”
His nostrils flared. For one charged second, he looked like a man who had finally reached the edge of his patience and hated what waited on the other side.
But he didn’t touch me.
He didn’t block me.
He only held my gaze and said, very quietly, “Can’t isn’t the same as don’t want to.”
“For me, it has to be.”
I picked up my coffee and walked past him.
One step.
Two.
“Keep walking, Kate.”
I froze.
His voice followed me through the trees, roughened now, the control finally cracking around the edges.
“I’m not going to stop you. I’m not going to put my hands on you when you’ve told me no.” A beat passed. “But I’m not pretending this is over just because you’re good at leaving.”
My fingers tightened around the cup.
“You don’t even know me,” I said without turning.
“Then stop running long enough to let me.”
I couldn’t.
Because if Michael Waters ever learned who I really was, wanting him would become the least dangerous thing between us.
So I kept walking.
And this time, I could feel him letting me go.
Not giving up.
I didn’t slow down until the orchard disappeared behind me.
Even then, I could still feel him.
The heat of his stare between my shoulder blades. The rough edge in his voice when he told me to keep walking. The absolute certainty behind his promise that he wasn’t letting this go.
And God help me, some reckless, starving part of me didn’t want him to.
That was the problem.
Michael and I weren’t flirting anymore. Flirting was harmless. Temporary. Something two people could laugh off when it became inconvenient.
This was combustible.
Every time he came near me, the air changed. Every time he pushed, I gave a little more. A laugh. A truth. One extra second beneath his stare. Today, I’d admitted I wanted him.
Next time, I might not walk away.
I couldn’t keep sleeping under the same roof as him, passing him in hallways, hearing his voice through the walls and pretending my body didn’t recognize him before my brain had a chance to intervene. Physical distance was the only defense I had left.
By the time I reached my car, my decision was made.
I pulled out my phone and opened Airbnb.
I didn’t need anything extravagant. Just a locked door, a separate address, and enough miles between Michael Waters and me to remember why wanting him was such a terrible idea.
A small cottage near the opposite end of the island popped up. Private entrance. Ocean view. Available immediately.
I booked it before I could talk myself out of it.
The confirmation landed in my inbox seconds later.
Seven nights.
Seven nights away from his searching eyes, his relentless questions, and that maddening confidence that told me he already knew this wasn’t over.
Maybe a week would be enough to extinguish whatever had caught fire between us.
But as I started the car, I knew better.
Distance might keep us apart.
It wasn’t going to make me want him any less.