Page 125 of Stolen Harmony

“I know that too.”

“I'm too old for you. I was married to your mother. There are a dozen reasons why this is a terrible idea.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”

His grip on my wrist tightened, thumb brushing across my pulse point in a touch that sent fire racing through my veins. “Both, probably.”

“And how's that working out?”

Instead of answering, he let go of my wrist and stepped back, running both hands through his hair in a gesture of frustration that made my chest ache. The loss of contact felt immediate and sharp, like stepping from warmth into cold.

“I should go,” he said, but he didn't move toward the door.

“Should you?”

“This... whatever this is... it's not going to work,” he said, and something in his tone had changed. Gone was the warm, uncertain man who'd shared breakfast with me, who'd laughed at the pier, who'd looked at me like I was something worth wanting. In his place was someone cooler, more distant, speaking words that felt rehearsed.

For a second, I thought I'd misheard him. “What are you talking about?”

“It's complicated, Rowan. The timing, the circumstances, everything about this situation.”

“That's not an answer.”

“It's the only answer I can give you.”

“Bullshit,” I said, heat rising sharp in my chest. “Just say you don't want me. Don't hide behind excuses.”

“It's not that simple.”

“It is that simple. Either you want this or you don't. Either I matter to you or I don't.”

He didn't raise his voice, didn't get angry, didn't give me anything to push against. That calm, that unbearable steady calm, made me want to tear the walls down just to get a reaction.

“You matter,” he said quietly. “More than you know. That's why this has to stop.”

“That doesn't make any fucking sense.”

“It makes perfect sense. You're twenty-six years old with your whole life ahead of you. You don't need to get tangled up with someone like me, someone with baggage and complications and a history that would follow you around for the rest of your life.”

“What if I want to get tangled up?”

“You don't know what you want. You're grieving, you're vulnerable, you're not thinking clearly about the consequences.”

The condescension in his voice, the way he was dismissing my feelings like I was a child who couldn't be trusted to make my own decisions, sent rage flooding through my system.

“I was finally...” I started, then stopped, my voice cracking on the words. “I was finally trying to get my shit together. Finally starting to feel like maybe I could be something other than just a walking disaster. And now you're pushing me right back under.”

For a moment, I saw something break in his expression. But it was gone before I could name it, replaced by that same terrible calm.

“I'm sorry,” he said, and the words sounded like they were being torn from his throat. “I never meant for it to go this far.”

“So what was today? What was breakfast and the pier andall of it? Just you feeling sorry for the pathetic kid who can't handle his emotions?”

“No. Today was...” He stopped, shook his head like he was clearing it of thoughts that were too dangerous to speak. “Today was a mistake.”

Everything we'd shared, every moment of connection, every look that had passed between us, reduced to a mistake. Something to be regretted, erased, forgotten.

We both ended up with tears in our eyes, standing on opposite sides of my small apartment like there was an ocean between us instead of a few feet of hardwood floor. Neither of us was willing to cross that space, to bridge the gap that had opened up between what we'd had this morning and what we were destroying right now.