Page 72 of Tell Me Something True

“Will you listen?” she asked, copying his quiet tone. “Later?”Jaw clenched, gaze still on the couch, he didn’t move. No affirmation. No denial. He wasn’t ready to give her anything, not even the smallest piece of himself.

She edged closer, bringing with her the enticing scent of flowers and spice. “Miles, I need you to promise you’ll listen to me later.”He stiffened. Slowly, slowly faced her, regretting it immediately as they were so close, her breath washed against his cheek. So close he could make out the thin scar on her chin.

Too close.

And somehow, still not close enough.

“You don’t get to ask for a guarantee of my time and attention. You don’t get to ask for my promise after breaking every one of yours.”

“You and I both know that’s not true,” she said, soft and scolding, like he was a toddler who’d colored on the wall, and while she wasn’t mad, she was disappointed. “I never broke my promises. Because I made sure never to make any.”

His entire body went hot, then cold as that truth rolled through him.

Once more, he turned away from her.

“Ready?” he called down to Walsh.

The kid nodded. Miles felt Tabitha watching him as he and Walsh lifted the couch. Then she finally turned and walked up the steps.

But she was right. She’d never promised him anything. She’d never told him she loved him, though he’d told her often. When he talked about the future, their future, she remained silent.

He was the idiot who’d seen something that wasn’t there. Had believed what he’d so desperately wanted to believe.

But she’d let him do it.

He may be an idiot, but she wasn’t to be trusted.

Chapter 14

After two hours and over two dozen trips up and down a flight of twenty-one steps, any vanity Tabitha may have had was completely wiped away.

She was a mess. Hot and sweaty, red-faced and disheveled, her once smooth ponytail now a haphazard knot of her wildly waving hair. She had two broken nails, a blister forming on her right big toe, and a streak of soil on her tank top from carrying her precious dieffenbachia.

So much for her plans to look like a tasty snack the next time she saw Miles.

Climbing the stairs—trip number twenty-seven—wearing a cross-body purse and carrying her vintage glass table lamp in one hand and a large, black garbage bag containing her bedding in the other, she snorted.

So much for any of her plans.

She’d planned on her and Reed quickly and efficiently moving her possessions into her new apartment in under an hour.

She hadn’t planned on coming face-to-face with Verity Jennings again, and she certainly hadn’t planned on Verity holding her apartment key hostage and then, in another unexpected twist, apologizing for it. Or that Verity would offer to help after seeing Tabitha struggle to hold up her end of the couch—literally—as she and Reed carried it down the sidewalk.

She’d planned on going to Miles’s house tonight so she could apologize for what happened the morning she’d snuck out of his bed, and for stretching the truth the last time she was here. Then she’d planned on letting him know she was staying in Mount Laurel for the foreseeable future.

She hadn’t planned on him showing up in all his hot cop glory and spending the past hour and a half moving her furniture.

Since that moment on the stairs when she’d tried to talk to him, he hadn’t so much as glanced her way. As far as she knew, anyway. Hard to tell what was going on behind those dark sunglasses of his.

No more plans for her. From now on, she was winging it.

It couldn’t possibly go any worse than this.

Stepping into her new apartment, she set her lamp on the small kitchen island and turned as Reed and Miles came in carrying her banged up, four-drawer dresser.

She moved aside so they could get past, then followed them through the open living room to her bedroom on the right.

“Where do you want it?” Reed asked.

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