Page 14 of Rufus

The older woman nodded. “If you change your mind about the tea, just let me know.” She walked away. “If I had a Daddy who looked like you, I probably wouldn’t want to let him out of my sight either,” she called out cheekily as she disappeared into a room farther down the hallway.

Leaving an awkward silence behind her.

* * *

Molly wasn’t sure if she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her or to break into hysterical laughter.

One look at the discomfort of Rufus’s expression, and the latter won out.

He initially scowled his displeasure when she began to laugh, but then seconds later, he joined in, and the two of them laughed together for several minutes.

“The look on your face was priceless!” Molly eventually managed to gasp, her hands resting on her thighs as she bent over slightly, trying to catch her breath.

“I have no interest in being your Daddy,” he grumbled.

She knew that, but that one kiss they had shared told her he was definitely the man Molly knew she had been falling in love with for the past three months.

The same man she now realized she had told far too much about her past.

Why had she done that?

Molly knew exactly why.

Because no matter what happened next, she didn’t want Rufus to think badly of her after she was gone.

Even as she recognized it was a futile hope if Rufus ever learned the truth about her and the real reason she had jumped at the chance to work at Mia’s animal shelter.

She had been living a lie these past three months, indulging in a life she knew she couldn’t keep and forming a friendship with Mia that she also knew had to end.

Kissing Rufus meant she had now started something much deeper with him that most definitely couldn’t be allowed to go any further.

She straightened. “I don’t need or want a Daddy either,” she assured him coolly. “Real or kink-wise,” she added dismissively. “But I do need to get back to the shelter. I told Meg I’d only be gone a couple of hours.” She was effectively refusing his invitation to go home with him without actually saying the words.

Rufus frowned his frustration with that statement for several seconds before nodding tersely. “I’ll drive you.”

“No, thank you.” She gave him a brightly insincere smile. “There’s a bus stop directly outside the hospital.” She didn’t know that for certain, but she hoped there was.

“Then I’ll come and see you later this evening.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Molly said, and immediately had to harden her heart against the look of disappointment now shadowing Rufus’s eyes. “I have a lot to do when I get back, plus I have to spend time loving on Honey this evening to make up for Mia and Darius’s absence.” She would have rather spent time “loving on” Rufus, but she’d never held too many expectations of her wishes coming true.

Which was not self-pity, because she refused to indulge in that if it could be avoided. It was simply a fact that she rarely, if ever, received what she most wished for.

Which was ungrateful of her because she had just spent three months getting to know and become friends with Mia. Something she had never thought possible.

But now she would seriously have to start thinking about packing up her stuff and moving on. After she’d helped out with the open days at the shelter this weekend, of course. She wouldn’t let Mia down by leaving before that.

And what about her feelings for Rufus?

They, and he, were something else she couldn’t have.

* * *

Rufus didn’t like Molly’s plans for the evening one little bit. Mainly because they didn’t include him.

At the same time, he couldn’t dispute the fact that not only had Molly verbally turned down his offer to go home with him or for him to visit her at her apartment later this evening, but the determination in her eyes told him she was absolutely sincere in that refusal.

He should never have kissed her!

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