Page 81 of The Rogue and His Flower

“So you wanted him to kiss you?” she repeats.

“Everything just felt… right,” I confess, twirling my teaspoon nervously in my tea.

“So why didn’t you kiss?” she asks.

“Because…”

“Because?” she persists gently.

“Because I didn’t want to complicate our fledgling friendship.” A friendship that has been blurred by me coming on his motorbike.

“Things are already complicated, don’t you think?”

“You’ve no idea,” I admit, chewing on my lip.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” she says, eying me.

“The night I told him about my parents and what happened to me as a child, I also asked him to sleep with me,” I blurt out.

Lia’s eyes widen. “Sleepwith you or…”

“At first I just wanted comfort, but then I practically threw myself at him and he refused me. He said he didn’t want to take advantage whilst I was feeling vulnerable, and so he didn’t…”

“Sounds to me like he was being a gentleman, Daisy.”

“But then he wanted to kiss me at the cinema,” I add, frowning.

“You’d spent the day together having fun. You weren’t feeling vulnerable then, right?”

“Right,” I agree.

“So he didn’t want to sleep with you and take advantage of your emotional state at the time, but he wanted to kiss you when you were feeling better emotionally.”

“Yes…”

“So what’s the problem? You were both in a better place. He wanted to kiss you, you wanted to kiss him…”

I let out a sigh, trying to unravel that for myself. “It was easier when we hated each other. I knew where I stood then. I could pack this whole arrangement up into a neat little box, and shove it to the back of my mind so that I could get through this whole ordeal.”

“But feelings are creeping in?”

“For me, at least,” I admit, before rushing on. “It’s not as if I’m in love with him or anything…”

“There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that even if you were,” she says softly.

“I’m not,” I insist. “It’s just, there’s more to him than I originally thought, and maybe you were right about the attraction between us. The trouble is, I don’t know if any of it is real or not. I don’t know if he wants to kiss me to keep up the charade of us being in love, or if he’s so desperate for physical intimacy that I’m just another woman he can use like all the others?—”

“If he wanted to use you, then he would’ve taken you up on your offer when you asked him to sleep with you, Daisy,” she points out.

“I just don’t know if he truly likes me forme.”

“Okay, then ask yourself this, what if he does truly like you for you, what then? Would knowing that change things?”

“I’m not sure,” I admit.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know if I like him for who he is, or if I like the kindness he’s showing me, theattention, whether it’s honest or not. I’ve always desperately wanted to feel loved, and I have a tendency to overlook the worst in people. I’m worried that my own past has screwed with me so badly that I can’t trust what is real, and what is pretend, or even my own judgement for that matter.”

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