Her lips are swollen and her eyes are dilated. She wants this, but she doesn't trust me.
I shake my head. “Why are you so afraid of this?”
“Because I can’t lose myself again,” she says, trembling against the balcony railing. “If I wasn’t willing to do it for my siblings, then I’m certainly not going to do it for a man. Even a man like you.”
“I think you’re the one you don’t trust, Olivia,” I say in a low voice. “You don’t trust yourself around me. Because I show you what you could be if you just stopped locking the best of you inside.”
She skirts around me, giving me a wide berth as she goes for the French doors. “I’m going to my room now. It’s not like you have anything to discuss with me. All you really need is Jen—"
She stops short when she realizes that Jennifer has just entered t
