“You can walk away, but it doesn’t change anything.”
“You are un-fucking-believable,” she says as she turns her back and starts walking away.
“I’m pretty sure you said something like that before.”
She stops and turns to face me. “Because it’s true. Seriously, since we met, you choked me?—”
“You liked it, don’t lie to yourself,” I interject.
“That’s beside the point. You punched my ex-boyfriend, took me to breakfast, ignored me, came into my work for no reason, and now clearly you have been following me. How does any of that make sense?”
“It makes sense to me.”
“Well, it doesn’t to me,” she snaps and turns her back to me and starts walking again.
“I’ll explain it to you.”
She laughs as I follow behind her. “Please don’t.”
Stepping closer to her, I grab her arm, so she stops. “I don’t let people in. Ever. I have my sisters and a small number of people on the island. That’s it, and has been for a long time. I had no intentions of adding to it.”
She doesn’t say anything, just stares at me, waiting.
“Then you showed up, and you are a force to be reckoned with. Vero doesn’t scare you, and you talk back every chance you get. You challenge me like no one else ever has. Notice things others don’t. But you never try to impress anyone—you don’t want anyone’s approval. I see those things and I need to be around you. I wish I could explain it better, but all I know is you’re mine and I won’t let anyone else ruin you. You’re fucking perfect just the way you are.”
She opens her mouth.
“I’m not finished,” I say, closing the distance between us. “You can argue against me calling you mineall you want, but it will just turn me on. You can tell me it’s not normal and I will fucking agree with you, it’s not, but I’m not going anywhere. When I’m in, I’m all in—for the good, the bad, and the ugly. I won’t walk away.”
She stands there in silence for a minute, then smirks. “You know that’s called stalking.”
I smile back. “I will add it to my resumé.”
“You don’t even like me.”
Fuck, she is so wrong. I like her a lot, and I might like this version of her even more. “I like you just fine.”
“You have a strange way of showing it.”
“I know, it’s just who I am.”
She looks down at the bag of potatoes in her hand and then back up at me. For a second, I think she might swing them at me again before she says, “I’m not ready for whatever this is. I have a lot going on.”
“Fine, I will back off, but I won’t disappear—so don’t ask me to.”
She nods. “You should get your face looked at.”
“It’s fine.”
“I hit you pretty hard.”
“I know, it was a good shot.”
The corner of her mouth curves up with pride that she got one up on me. Honestly, I am just as proud; I wasn’t expecting a bag of potatoes to almost take me out.
“Goodbye, Clay.”
She turns and walks away, and this time I let her, giving her a few minutes’ head start. I walk back to mycar before I circle back around and watch her walk up the stairs to the loft.