more than once. If I were smart, I would actually listen to them, but I’m the queen of lost causes.
Sutton looks away, toward the land. “I can’t say no to you, but it isn’t for the good of the damned city. And it’s not even for Christopher Bardot. Not anymore.”
“Why would you have done it for Christopher?”
He smiles without humor. “Why indeed?”
I take a step toward him, close enough that I have to look up to meet the sky blue of his eyes. “You never did tell me why you went into business with him.”
“My reasons don’t matter.”
That’s the only warning before his head lowers, before his lips touch mine. Warm. Insistent. He kisses me the way the sun shines on the land, certain of its welcome. My body opens toward him in instinctive surrender, pleasure washing over me in waves.
As quickly as he claimed me, he’s gone again. He steps back, leaving a cool breeze between us. There’s nothing sensual or intimate in his expression.
I touch my lips as if I can hold some of his warmth there. I told myself I wasn’t interested in dating, but I can’t deny that I want this intimacy. It feels like breathing after being so long underwater. It feels like air. His blue eyes track the movement, hungry, belying the air of indifference in his stance.
“You stopped,” I say, a little relieved, mostly sad. “Because I kissed Christopher?”
“That was a wake-up call for me, but no. I’m not angry with you, if that’s what you’re asking. You can kiss whoever you want. And I’m the last person to judge you.”
“Then why—”
“I’ll restore the library because you asked me to. Like I said, my reasons don’t really matter. But I can’t be with you, Harper. Not like before. I can’t go there again.”
My stomach lurches. I would have said I already knew that. That I’m not looking to be with any man, but the rejection hurts all the same. “Before, when you courted me.”
A slight nod.
That was the word he used. Courted. It only stopped when he found Christopher kissing me. And me kissing him back. Sutton may claim not to be angry about it, but what other reason could there be for him pulling back? Why else would he have left?
“That’s good,” I manage to say. And I almost mean it.
I’ve always been the girl every boy chased. The one who could always walk away.
I needed to be that girl so that I could keep myself safe, so that I would never end up desperate and alone and scared like my mother. Then two men made me fall for them. Hard. They both walked away at the same time. And look, I could handle the hit to my pride. I can pull up my big girl panties to deal with the humiliation of that.
It’s the blows they dealt to my heart that left me broken. Shattered. I’m like a cartoon statue that’s been hammered. There’s a crack at the impact. The crack spreads into a thousand fractures, until I’m made of a million pieces. There’s a moment in the show when I’m frozen in air that way, and that’s how I’ve been living these past six months—the pieces suspended, waiting to fall. There’s no way to avoid it; the killing blow already happened.
For a moment he looks bereft. “Good,” he repeats.
It breaks my heart a little, that this handsome, virile, charming man would doubt himself. That I ever let him think I wanted Christopher instead of him. “You were enough for me, Sutton. You were enough for anyone.”
He gives a slight shake of his head as if waking from a dream. “It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing between us except the library now. Nothing holding us together anymore.”
It makes me wonder what had held us together before. Attraction? Chemistry? We’d had those in spades, but I remember the wry tone when he’d said, I’m the last person to judge you. It makes me wonder if it had been Christopher binding us together all along.
“There’s something I should tell you. The library…” My breath catches. “It’s more than a restoration. More than rebuilding the front wall. It’s in bad shape. I think the wrecking ball made the building weaker, in places we can’t even see.”
He studies me. “Are you saying you think I can’t save it?”
We aren’t only talking about the library. “I’m asking you to try.”
“And if it can’t be saved?”
The thought sucks the air out of my body, leaving me hollow and