Page 80 of The Rogue and His Flower

“You guess?” she queries, searching my gaze.

“Can we get out of here? I’m not really in the mood to pick out a wedding dress right now.”

“Of course we can. Do you want to arrange an appointment for another day?”

“Perhaps if we come back later? I could murder a cup of tea,” I offer, knowing that I must choose a dress today, given ourwedding day is in just three weeks and the store needs time for any alterations needed.

“Sure let me just tell the assistant,” Lia replies.

Once we’re outside of the bridal shop, Lia links her arm with mine, offering her silent support as we search for a place to grab refreshments. Five minutes later we’re settling down at a corner table in a nearby cafe, with a pot of tea and a plate of freshly baked scones with jam and clotted cream in front of us.

“So things with Dalton are better?” she asks, picking up a scone and slicing it in half before spreading cream then jam across the surface of each half. She plops one half on my plate, whilst placing the other on hers.

“It is,” I nod, taking a sip of my tea.

“There’s a but in there somewhere,” she points out. “It might make you feel better if you talk about it?”

“After the evening at Bandits Bar when we watched Harlow sing, I told Dalton about what happened to me as a child,” I explain, resting my cup of tea back on the saucer.

“And how did he handle that?” Lia asks. She’s the only other person apart from Drix, and now Dalton, who knows the full details of my past.

“He was shocked at first, but then he listened to my story. There was no judgement at all, in fact he was kind. He offered to pay for therapy.”

“I’m glad,” she replies, reaching over to squeeze my hand.

“Then the next day he took me to the racetrack, introduced me to his friends and took me for a spin on his motorbike,” I say, avoiding the fact that I asked him to fuck me the night before that, and he’d refused, and the fact I came all over his motorbike seat.

Lia’s brows lift. “That sounds fun.”

“It was,” I admit. “Also, eye-opening.”

“How so?”

“Dalton seemed different at the track. At ease.Happy. His friends were welcoming, he was fun to be around.”

“You sound surprised,” she laughs.

“I guess I was,” I admit. “I enjoyed myself. I enjoyed his company, and it felt good. Then yesterday after we went to meet with the vicar at St Augustine’s church, we ended up watching Stardust at the cinema.”

“Dalton agreed to watch Stardust with you?” Lia chuckles. “Wow, that’s unexpected. I didn’t peg Dalton for a cinema-going type of guy.”

“Neither did I. He surprised me again…”

I shuffle in my seat, my body flushing with heat at the memory of his warm hand on my thigh, his nose pressed against the pulse in my neck and his lips hovering over mine. I’ve been thinking about that moment ever since it happened, about why he’d wanted to kiss me then, but hadn’t wanted to fuck me the night I asked him to.

“Surprised you how?” Lia asks, her brows lifting as she studies me.

“We almost kissed.”

“You almost kissed?”

“Yep,” I reply, wincing a little.

“And the fact Dalton tried to kiss you is a surprise?”

“No, the fact that he didn’t steal a kiss from me, was. The fact that I wanted him to kiss me was.”

Lia gives me a knowing look, her scone forgotten on her plate, and I’m reminded of our conversation back in the playground the other week.

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