oaf!” I screeched. “Walther is my brother!” I shoved him with the flats of both hands, and he reeled back.
I fled toward the creek. This time there were no footsteps behind me. No demands that I stop. Nothing. I felt ill, as if the greasy pigeon was batting its way back up from my stomach. A lover.
He’d said it with complete contempt. Had he been spying on me? Did he see what he wanted to see and nothing else? What he had expected of me? I retraced every step of my reunion with Walther, wondering how it could have been misconstrued. It couldn’t, unless you were looking for something unseemly. I had run to Walther. I called his name. I hugged him, kissed his cheeks, laughed and whirled in joy with him, and that was all.
Except that it was a secretive meeting, deep in the woods.
When I reached the creek, I planted myself on a boulder and rubbed my ankle. It throbbed from my careless stomping.
What had I done? My throat twisted into a painful knot. Rafe only saw me as a fickle, dallying maid who played with a multitude of inn guests. I closed my eyes and swallowed, trying to force the ache away.
I would own up to my mistake, and I had made a perfectly glorious one. I had presumed too much. Rafe was a guest of the inn. I was a maid who worked there. And that was all. I thought of the terrible scene in the dining room. My shameless flirting with Kaden, and everything I had said to Rafe. Heat flushed my face. How could I have made such a mistake?
I slid from the rock to the ground, hugging my knees and staring at the creek. I had no interest in cold or hot baths anymore. I only wanted to crawl into a bed where I could sleep forever and pretend today had never happened. I thought about getting up, walking to the cottage, and melting into the mattress, but instead my eyes stayed locked on the creek as I thought of Rafe, his face, his eyes, his warmth, his disdain, his vile presumptions.
I had thought he was different. Everything about him seemed different, every way that he made me feel. I’d thought we had some sort of special connection. I was obviously so very wrong.
The sparkling color of the creek dimmed to shadowy gray as daylight receded. I knew it was time to go before Pauline worried about where I was and came looking for me, but my legs were too tired to carry me. I heard a noise, a soft shuffling. I turned my head toward the path, wondering if Pauline had already hunted me down, but it wasn’t her. It was Rafe.
I closed my eyes and took a long pained breath. Please leave. I couldn’t deal with him anymore. I opened my eyes. He was still there, a bottle in one hand, a small basket in the other. He stood tall and still and so beautifully and irritatingly perfect. I looked at him blankly, betraying no emotion. Leave.
He took a step closer. I shook my head, and he stopped. “You were right, Lia,” he said quietly.
I remained silent.
“When we first met, you called me an ill-mannered boor.” He shifted from one foot to the other, pausing to look at the ground, an awkward worried expression crossing his face. He looked back up. “I’m everything you could ever call me, and more. Including stupid oaf. Maybe especially that.” He walked closer.
I shook my head again, wanting him to stop. He didn’t. I got to my feet, grimacing as I put weight on my ankle. “Rafe,” I said quietly, “just go away. It’s all a big mistake—”
“Please. Let me get this out while I still have the courage to say it.” The troubled crease deepened between his brows. “My life’s complicated, Lia. There are so many things I can’t explain to you. Things you wouldn’t even want to know. But there’s one thing you could never call me.” He set the bottle and basket down on a patch of grass. “The one thing you can never call me is repulsed by you.”
I swallowed. He closed what gap was left between us, and I had to lift my chin to see him. He looked down at me. “Because ever since that first day I met you, I’ve gone to sleep every single night thinking about you, and every morning when I wake, my first thoughts