Page 37 of Broken By A King

"That's different."

"Uh huh. Am I all clear now?" he asks after rubbing his hands together and holding them up for me to see. I think he's teasing me although you can never be quite sure with Stone. I'm learning that his face seems to always hold the same expression.

Clear of emotion.

Intimidating.

Beautiful.

"All clear." I look away from his face. "Let's eat."

After he takes a few bites I can tell that he's holding back, trying his best not to devour my meal. I think he may be really hungry or he really likes it. I'm not sure which it is.

"This is good," he finally says. Giving himself permission to at least enjoy it.

"I'm glad you like it. Please eat as much as you want. There's plenty since Savannah isn't eating."

He takes a long gulp of his bottled water. Watching me carefully while he slowly swallows. Holding me stock still in my seat with his stormy gray eyes.

"Why does Savannah call you Tiny?" he asks coolly.

"Umm, well that's my nickname."

"Nate doesn't call you that."

I place my fork down.

"It's not a family nickname. It's a school nickname."

"When you went to college?"

"No, high school."

I'm starting to lose my appetite from this line of questioning.

"You know Savannah from high school?"

"Yes." Unfortunately, I do.

She was always the snarky little badass in school, who had plenty of sex, yet never seemed to get a bad reputation for it. Meanwhile I was easily holding onto my virginity. In fact, I barely had a date to my prom.

"So why did Savannah, or girls like Savannah, give you that nickname?"

I take a sip of my water.

"You sure are curious about meaningless things from the past."

He stops chewing and watches me carefully.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want."

"No–I mean it's not a big deal," I explain defensively. "It's just that...I was always a little bigger than the rest of my friends. I'm not even sure who came up with the name, but for some reason it just stuck."

"So, since they, whoevertheywere, didn't consider you a small girl they started calling you Tiny?"

I haven't given serious thought about my nickname in a long time, but now that he brings it up, I consider for a moment why I continued to allow it to follow me into adulthood. Why did I tell my college friends that was my nickname when they had no idea and would have never called me that if I hadn't told them? I never liked the name.

"Yes," I admit.