Page 36 of Wolf's Forbidden Curse

I laughed. “I love Matt, and he’s been known to be a good wingman every now and then, but I would be utterly shocked to hear that he told you to come surprise me at the pool and… well, you know.”

She shook her head. “No, that’s not what he told me to do. Really, he sort of told me to do the opposite, which was what I intended to do until I actually got there and saw you swimming laps. Then I sort of forgot why I came in the first place.”

“Wait, what do you mean he told you to do the opposite? What does that mean?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know… he just didn’t want me to keep toying with your feelings or whatever.”

“Toying with my feelings?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not doing a good job of explaining what he said, and I don’t want to get your friend in trouble or anything. He was just looking out for you. He told me to stop leading you on if I didn’t think this was going to go anywhere, or something to that effect.”

I scoffed. “He said that?”

“Maybe not in those exact words, but yeah.” Her eyes widened a little with concern. “But don’t get upset. It’s not like he sought me out or anything. We just ran into each other on the beach and got to talking. It was totally harmless.”

“What else did he say?”

“Nothing.”

I shot her a look. “Tell me.”

“Nothing, really!” she insisted. “I’m sorry I even brought it up. Besides, you were the one who told him we had sex! I was happy to keep that little piece of information between us, thank you very much. If you hadn’t told him that we hooked up, he never would’ve talked to me about you in the first place.”

Before I could respond, Emily reappeared with a steaming pot of hot coffee. She poured us each a cup and then asked if we knew what we wanted to order.

“I’ll have the loaded grilled cheese,” Katrina said, pointing to her pick on the menu. “But without the tomato.”

I smiled. “That sounds good. I’ll have the same.”

“Okay then. Easy enough.” Emily took our menus and walked away.

“You don’t like tomatoes either?”

“Not on sandwiches,” I said, knowing that she was trying to change the subject. “Now—where were we?”

“We were moving on from this,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about your friend Matt anymore. No offense, but I’m not about to get in the way of a very close friendship by saying the wrong thing. He’s a good guy who’s looking out for you, and you should consider yourself lucky to have such a great friend. End of story.”

I breathed in and took a sip from my coffee, knowing that I had no choice but to agree with her. “You’re right. Matt’s great, and I’m sure he wasn’t trying to do anything that would fuck me over or embarrass me. Even if he failed.”

“You have no reason to be embarrassed,” she said. “I wish I had people like Matt trying to protect me.”

I bit my tongue, waiting to see if she would elaborate any more on that statement. She did not. “Either way, I’m sorry if I put you in an awkward position by asking you so many questions about what he said. We can talk about something else.” I leaned my elbows on the table. “In fact, let’s talk more about you.”

She sipped her coffee and avoided eye contact. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything.”

She laughed. “Well, that narrows it down.”

“We’ll start off simple then,” I said. “Tell me where you’re from.”

Katrina seemed to have to chew on this one for a second, which I found odd, but refrained from saying as much out loud. Eventually, she cleared her throat and answered. “My family moved around a lot, so I never really know how to respond to the question of where I’m from. I’ve lived in a lot of cool places, though. I’ve traveled through Europe and South America, and before I came here, I was living in Guatemala, which did really start to feel like home after a while. I think if I were to ever settle down somewhere outside of the States, that’s where I’d want to do it.”

“Army brat?”

“Huh?”

“I thought maybe you moved around a lot because your mom or dad was in the army?” I said. “No?”

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