Page 35 of Wolf's Forbidden Curse

“Shh! Someone’s going to hear you!”

He put his hands up in the air, grinning. “Sorry, but that’s how I’m going to react if you start saying sorry for things you really have no business being sorry about. I’m very fucking glad you came and tracked me down here at the pool.”

I tucked my chin into my chest to try and hide my smile. “I don’t recall using the word sorry…”

“Good. Because I’m not sorry it happened. Are you?”

After a couple of seconds, I shook my head.

“Alright then. Now that we’ve got that settled, we can move on to the next issue. What are we going to eat for lunch?”

I raised a brow at him. “Lunch?”

“Yeah, I worked up quite an appetite,” he said. “And since you were putting in a lot of work back there as well, I figured you did too.”

I said nothing but knew I was probably blushing profusely.

“I thought maybe we could head into town, and I’d buy us something to eat. How does that sound?”

My knee-jerk reaction was to say no. I’d never meant for things to go this far with Rory in the first place. Again. But now that he’d mentioned getting a bite, I realized I was pretty hungry. Not to mention, if he was offering to pay, I really wasn’t in any position to turn such an offer down. So, against my better judgment, I told him yes and followed him towards the parking lot.

“You good to walk?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“It’s just such a nice day.”

I smiled, and we fell in step together. “It really is.”

CHAPTER 15

RORY

Igave Katrina a choice between three different places and was secretly very relieved when she chose the cheap corner diner instead of one of the more expensive options. I would’ve paid for her meal no matter what, but I was supposed to be saving most of my money to cover rent since Cornelius was still out of a job. If my friends found out that I couldn’t keep up with the bills because I had been wining and dining the new girl in town, they would never let me hear the end of it.

We were seated at a booth by the window, and she ordered a black coffee before the waitress even handed us our menus.

“Same,” I said, flipping my mug right side up. “Thanks, Em.”

“You’ve got it.” Emily, who had been working here for years and always gave me a free slice of pie, smiled and walked away.

Once we were alone, I leaned back into the green vinyl bench seat and looked at Katrina. Her short blond hair framed her face perfectly, and her cheeks were still slightly flushed. I didn’t know if it was because of the sun or if she was still a bit overheated from everything that took place in that hot shower. Either way, the color lit her up from the inside and stole my breath away.

“I have to ask you something,” I said.

“You have to?”

“Yeah, I do.”

After a couple of seconds, she nodded once. “Alright. Go ahead.”

“Why did you come to the pool today?” I had wanted to know the answer to that question since the moment I spotted her sitting on the edge with her feet in the water—looking as beautiful as ever, if not a little out of place.

“Truth?”

“Always.”

“Something your buddy Matt said got me thinking. I wanted to come see you after I ran into him on the beach.”

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