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He was still the man who had shattered under pressure. Who had destroyed his own marriage.

A disaster.It had been said.

A selfish bastard.That had also been said.

You couldn’t keep it together for me? Not even for me? You aren’t the man I married.

And he’d been selfish yesterday, watching her try on dresses. Saying what he’d said to her.

Catching her. Holding her.

He took a breath and watched Rory as she shook her arms out.

“I hope you get what you want out of it,” he said. “The date, I mean.”

It would be better if she did. Better she did hook up with that guy. If she got exactly what she was looking for.

Because he had to stop this.

“Well, I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow when we go on the hike.”

“Great. I can’t wait to hear about it.”

“I can’t wait to tell you.”

She turned away from him, and he felt like something inside him had torn in half. He couldn’t explain it. Didn’t want to.

But he did find it all kinds of inconvenient that he was suddenly having feelings that he hadn’t had for years, with a woman whose heart he simply couldn’t risk.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

RORYDECIDEDONthe green dress for her date. Because the black one just felt too sexy in the end, and she didn’t want to lead with sexy. She couldn’t explain that. Especially not after what she had sort of thought she wanted from this whole thing.

But the last two days had thrown her off-kilter. The whole thing with Gideon was a knot she was having difficulty untangling.

I would fucking kiss you.

Did he want to kiss her?

The heat in his eyes had been undeniable, but what did she know about heat? She’d been honest in what she’d said to him. No one had ever been nice to her just for the sake of it outside of her family or best friend.

But he was being nice. And then he’d gone and said that and it had been like someone had flipped the light switch on inside her, and she had seen all these things lit up clearly.

Kissing and sex and desire.

When she’d had a crush on Gideon, she’d been a kid. Her crush had not been about sex. It hadn’t even been about a kiss.

She just thought he was beautiful. She just wanted to marry him, and at thirteen that had been divorced entirely from the physical—at least it had been for her.

Now it was all rattling around inside her, and she was having difficulty sorting her thoughts out.

She and Mike were meeting in Mapleton at Jack’s Grill because she had just thought that committing to driving that far with a guy she had only shared a very brief conversation with was not the best idea.

And she just wanted to have her own car. Just in case.

She had trust issues. She came by them honestly.

Fia gave her the whole be-careful speech, and she waved her off as she went down to the car, and started another drive to Mapleton. It felt like too many back-to-back.