Page 12 of Choosing the Rejected Mate

“I can lie if it helps.”

“It doesn’t.”

“I’m bad at it anyway.”

She stares at me, and I stare back.Then she sighs, and some of the fight drains out of her shoulders.

“It was a long time ago,” she says.

That’s a lie.

Not the time part, maybe, but the wound is not old.Not to her.Some pain does not understand calendars.It lives fresh under the skin, waiting for the right scent, the right word, the right memory to tear it open again.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She flinches.“Don’t.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t want pity.”

“You don’t have it.”

Her eyes search mine again, and I let her look.Whatever she sees there makes her swallow.

“What do I have?”she asks softly.

My answer comes too fast to be anything but truth.“My respect.”

The bakery noise rushes back in around us.Someone laughs near the front.The espresso machine hisses.Maisie drops a spoon and swears quietly enough that only wolf ears catch it.

Holly looks away again, but her scent changes.Warmer and less sharp.More dangerous.

“Well,” she says, clearing her throat.“That’s annoying.”

“My respect?”

“You.”

I smile.“I’ve been called worse.”

“I believe that.”

“I deserved most of it.”

“I believe that too.”

The mixer makes another grinding noise, saving me from saying something reckless like,I would never deny youbecause that is not helpful.Not now.Not on the day we meet.Words are easy, and Holly has clearly had easy words used as weapons before.

So I do what I know.I fix what I can.

I kneel again and adjust the belt, buying her a few more hours of production and myself a reason to stay in the room.She moves around me, close but not too close.I learn things about her in pieces.

She hums when she concentrates.She mutters insults at pastries that misbehave.She calls the oven Patricia when it takes too long to heat.She tastes frosting from her thumb and closes her eyes for half a second like pleasure is something she allows herself only in secret.

That one nearly kills me.

By the time the morning rush clears, my hands are smeared with grease, my knees ache from kneeling on tile, and I have mentally rebuilt half this kitchen.