let Trent take the day off so they could sort this problem out. It was funny to see two men as big and powerful as the Walters brothers so terrified at the prospect of angering their little sister.
So she and Trent were now cruising with the windows open down the winding, tree-lined streets on the way to his parents’ house. The scent she’d come to associate with the town—briny sea air, eucalyptus, and something uniquely floral that she couldn’t quite identify—danced in her nostrils. Cora sighed in total and utter contentment.
She’d wanted her vacation to provide some much-needed rest and recuperation, but there was no way she could have anticipated how good it would be for her. But maybe that had nothing to do with the vacation itself and everything to do with Trent. He’d given her the recuperation. He’d breathed life back into her, warming her so the ice thawed around her heart and she slowly started to recognize herself in the mirror.
At one point in her life, she’d been hopeful about her future. And now, under his care and attention and desire, she was becoming hopeful again.
“Have you thought any more about that architect Nick told you about?” she asked, watching the way the wind streamed in through the driver’s side window, rippling his blond hair.
“Not really.” Hidden by the darkly tinted lenses of his glasses, Trent’s eyes stayed on the road. “I’ve been a little…preoccupied.”
Hmm. That made two of them.
“But you’re hoping to start work on it soon?” she prodded.
“Well, as soon as I’ve gotten everything else off my list. Fixing up Liv’s place is priority number one. And then Nick’s been talking about this big project he wants to get off the ground and I promised Jace and Angie I’d give their granny flat a facelift.”
“Do you always put everyone else before yourself?”
“Helping my family makes me happy.”
“And it’s an easy excuse for avoiding making a decision.” The words popped out before she had time to think about the consequences.
Having sex with someone does not give you permission to psychoanalyze them.
Trent pulled into the driveway of his family home and killed the engine. Turning to her, his eyes still obscured, he tilted his head. “I like to think things through before I make a big decision. I don’t know why people find that so strange.”
“It’s not strange, it’s smart…so long as you don’t get stuck in the thinking and never get around to the doing.”
He pushed the door open to get out of the car, and Cora followed. “You sound like Nick,” he said. “He would have bought that land, fixed it up, and sold it for a profit before I even finished working through all the pros and cons.”
“You struck me as the spontaneous type,” she said, walking up the driveway beside him.
“Commitment should not be spontaneous. Learned that one the hard way.”
Cora pressed her lips together, trying to keep the barrage of questions inside. Trent hadn’t been too forthcoming with information about his relationship past, but then again, neither had she.
“Bad breakup?” she asked, almost immediately cursing herself.
“You could say that.”
She wrinkled her nose. She really, really shouldn’t pry. It wasn’t polite to intrude on someone’s personal affairs… “How bad?”
Dammit.
Trent let out a sound that was half laugh and half something a whole lot more derisive. “Bad, bad. Like, a whole lot of Jägerbombs and getting hauled out of the pub by security bad.”
“Yikes.”
“It’s a good thing I’ve got friends who wouldn’t let me take it too far.” A strange expression crossed over his face, like he was remembering something important. “Anyway, I don’t make the same mistake twice.”
Cora fingered the fabric of her maxi skirt, knowing she should shut her mouth and leave the topic alone…but being way too curious to actually let it go. “What was the lesson?”
He jangled his keys in his hand before finding the right one and sticking it into the front door. “That relationships aren’t for everyone, and I’m not interested in trying to be someone I’m not just to make another person happy.”
For some reason, the words settled like a stone in Cora’s stomach. She was still playing that eternal tug-of-war between wanting to be her own person and wanting to belong. A string of breakups hadn’t changed her desire to find love.
And last night, she’d really felt something.
You went into this knowing it would be a fling. Stop trying to turn everything into forever.
“If it’s the right person, then you shouldn’t have to be someone you’re