Page 18 of Betrayed By the Wolf

He had a bad feeling about taking her into the storeroom's dark, close quarters. There’d be nowhere to hide. But the look in her eye said it was that or face her wrath, so he led the way into the back and opened the door for her.

She clucked her tongue, standing with her hands on her hips in the doorway. “Seriously, Rami? It’s a mess. How do you find anything back here?”

At least they’d moved on from all the things she’d probably wanted to say to him when she’d walked in. This, he could handle. He leaned against the doorframe, watching her walk into the storeroom. She was wearing a tight little skirt, knee-high boots, and a sweater under her jacket, which she shed and tossed to him.

“Hang that up,” she ordered. “And make sure it doesn’t get dirty.”

“Vera,” he warned, squeezing the jacket.

He knew what she was doing. Being bossy to spur him into a reaction. Goading him so he’d be forced to show some emotion. It was the song and dance they’d done a hundred times during their relationship.

She pretended not to hear him, bending over to open a box marked “Holiday Stuff.” He watched her dig through all the crap he’d accumulated over the years, most of it things he should’ve gotten rid of a long time ago.

“Why are you hanging on to all this junk?” She lifted a strand of lights that was missing half its bulbs, the wire tangled into a knot. “Learn to let go.”

“Hey,” he protested when she tossed it onto the floor in a pile he was certain she’d be sending to the trash can. “I can probably still use that.”

“A mouse chewed through the wire, so unless you’re secretly an electrician, I don’t think so. What even is this?” She tossed it, a warped and bent Valentine’s heart, into the pile beside the lights.

He gritted his teeth. If he argued about the junk she was tossing, would she switch into attack mode about something else? Sometimes, it felt like all the things he loved about her were the same things that drove him crazy, just dialed up. Intensity, drive, the way she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind were all traits he admired in her. But damn if they didn’t get under his skin when she wanted to be a pain in the ass.

“You can’t be tearing this place apart when a customer could walk in at any moment.” One look back at the window told him that the event was unlikely to occur, but it was the best shot he had.

She rolled her eyes. “No one is coming out in this weather.”

“You did.” He pointed out. And did she have to wear that skirt for the trip? She knew how weak he was against those legs.

“But I had reasons.” She turned around to face him, a streak of dust across her nose. “Why did you do it, Rami?”

Guess that distraction couldn’t last forever. “Do what?”

“You know what. You dumped me. Everything was going perfectly,” her voice cracked, and she looked so delicate, so broken that it took everything in him not to go to her. “Then you just left me. What did I do? What did I do wrong? Was I too much or—of course, I was too much. Iamtoo much.”

Fingers of ice clenched around his heart. How did she not see that it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with him?

“It wasn’t like that.”

But that wasn’t enough for her. She moved toward him, and he took an unconscious step back, bumping into the doorframe.

“What was it then? You can’t just walk out the door like that with no explanation. You know I need reasons, facts, something that can make sense of it all, or I’ll just drive myself crazy going over it.”

He could picture that, actually. The same way she’d get on about trying some new technique at her clinic, she’d focus on the breakup and dig until she was satisfied.

“It wasn’t about you at all.” He could see her disbelief, head cocking to one side and eyes about to roll again. “Look, I just can’t commit to anyone. I can’t be trapped in some relationship that turns into contempt on all sides, picking each other apart until you’re both just shells going through the motions.”

Her nose wrinkled in confusion. Rami pressed on.

“My parents didn't set the best example for love, let me put it that way. I spent every day wishing they’d just gotten divorced. But the worst part is I remember when it wasn’t like that between them. I remember when they were happy. And I watched it all change because they just stayed together too long.”

And he’d seen the same cycle happen to so many others. Hell, in his own relationship attempts before Vera, he’d watch it happen on a smaller scale, before he’d learned to get out before it got to that point.

“But it doesn’t have to be like that.” Vera frowned up at him. “If we talk about things when they come up instead of letting them fester. If we work through things together.”

“I don’t like talking about that sort of thing.” He interrupted. “I’m sorry, Vera. I care about you, obviously, I do, but we’re better off apart.”

It seemed like she was going to argue. He could practically see the gears turning in her mind, picking up steam before she let loose. Instead, she nodded. A sharp, short gesture that made him more nervous than any tirade could’ve.

Her signature implacable mask dropped over her face again, any hint of vulnerability vanishing. The dust streak looked more like warpaint.

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