“I thought you didn’t care one way or the other,” she retorted.
Scott’s jaw moved again. “How did I ruin your night? Before that.”
“Fine,” Claire said, realizing that they needed to have this out before they could move on. He was still weeks away from finishing her house, and they couldn’t go on like this. “You really want to know? You made me feel pathetic. You danced with me, and you—it felt like maybe—I felt—”
His gaze sharpened. “What did you feel?”
“It doesn’t matter! Because then your date showed up, the date you couldn’t even bother to mention.”
To warn me about so I could protect myself. Which wasn’t fair. She knew it wasn’t fair. Scott didn’t owe her loyalty or explanation. And yet knowing that on the rational level didn’t take the sting out of imagining Scott with the supermodel.
He rubbed his free hand over his face, looking tired. “Ivet and I have known each other for years. She’s my go-to when I need a date, and if she’s in town . . .”
“Exactly my point. It’s okay for you to have someone on speed dial when you need companionship, but you shoot daggers when I try to find that for myself.”
“I didn’t! She was just a companion. I didn’t sleep with her,” he ground out. “I haven’t slept with Ivet in months.”
Claire’s breath whooshed out, and she both hated and relished the relief that coursed through her. “She’s very pretty,” Claire said a little stiffly.
“Yes. She is.”
Claire searched his face, trying to figure him out, to see if she was all alone on this precipice of confused want. “At the gala, you said you’d known I’d be there.”
He nodded once.
“Why—” She licked her lips nervously, then went for it. “Did you ever think about asking me to go? Instead of Ivet?”
He flinched slightly, and it was all the confirmation Claire needed. “Got it.” She jerked her arm free, but this time when he came after her, it was to move in front of her, physically blocking her path with his body, just inches separating them.
“I’ve told you, Claire, I don’t get involved with people I consider friends. Or even friends of friends. You’re not—you’re not the kind of woman you mess around with and then leave.”
“I never said I wanted to mess around.”
“You sure?” he asked boldly, bending his knees slightly to put them at eye level. “Because I was there for that dance, too, Claire. That wasn’t nothing.”
“No, it wasn’t!” she said angrily, shoving back at him, frustrated when he didn’t budge. “But I don’t want this any more than you do, Scott. I don’t even like you. I don’t like that you can’t seem to figure out what you want from me. I don’t like that somehow I’ve come to think you look just as good in this stupid farmer flannel as you did in that tux. I don’t like that you go home with your model, and then get pissed when I try to kiss a guy, which I can’t even seem to do by the way. They’re either bad at it, or I don’t feel it. Brayden got to sleep around all over the place, and yet he’s been dead for a year and I can’t seem to find . . .”
She broke off and Scott took a small step closer, his gaze intense. “What can’t you seem to find?”
Someone who makes me forget what he did to me. Someone who makes the hurt of Brayden’s betrayal stop.
But casual sex with a random stranger wouldn’t fix that for her. She knew that now. She’d known it when Brett stood on her porch, charming and willing and likable.
She hadn’t wanted him. She wanted someone who mattered. Someone who made her feel . . .
Like Scott made her feel.
The realization was surprising, unavoidable, and she didn’t have the faintest clue what to do about it.
His question seemed to stretch between them in the silence. And though she didn’t verbally answer, his gaze locked on her mouth as though he knew. Knew what she was thinking, knew what she wanted—
He caught her sigh with his lips, his mouth moving gently over hers in a searching, searing kiss. Scott kept his hands to himself; his lips did all the coaxing, leaving her free to step away if she wanted. She didn’t want.
Scott’s head lifted slowly, and she took her own time opening her eyes to meet the question in his