“You all right, Tess?” he asked with that smile on his face and his chest on full display.

I set the baskets to rights and straightened up, putting my own smile on. “Yeah. Uh-huh. Just the adrenaline, I think. I mean, I did almost just die.”

“That would make me a hero.”

I rolled my eyes. “Let’s not get crazy.”

“And that would make you the damsel.”

That earned him a mocking laugh and a flash of annoyance that I’d actually needed saving.

“I mean, I did catch you in a princess hold after you fell dramatically from that ladder.”

I ignored my curiosity over how he knew what a princess hold was in favor of, “And what, you’re the prince?”

He narrowed his eyes like it was a real pickle. “I’d say more of a knight.”

“More like a pirate.”

“With a heart of gold,” he added.

“Well, thanks,” I said. “For catching me.”

“Saving you,” he corrected.

“Saving me,” I amended, rolling my eyes hard enough to almost hurt.

He stepped to the crates, inspecting one. “Is there anything specific you need me to do for the planters, or can I just go nuts?”

“Go nuts—as long as you don’t get mad if I make you redo them.”

A smirk cast down the line of his shoulder, straight at me. “Impress Tess or else. Got it. Meet me back here tomorrow at eight, if you want to help paint the shop.”

“I’ll be here,” I promised.

“Thanks,” he said. “For the help.”

The echo of my own thank you brought an unbidden smile to my lips. “You’re welcome. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Until then, Tess.”

I turned, needing out of the room. Out of the building. Off of this block. And even then, I didn’t know if the space between Luke and me would be enough.

The mixture of emotions was like cheap concrete—everything from the smooth sand of almost kissing him to the gravel of the fact that him was Luke Bennet. I wanted to like him. I really did. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was, on some level, being manipulated by force of his will and charm. It felt disingenuous somehow.

I had no reason to believe him to be anything but sincere, but I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, and he weighed as much as a baby elephant.

A thought struck me as I hurried out of the greenhouse: I had been operating under the assumption that he wanted to sleep with me, a presumption that had no merit or foundation. He’d kissed me once, drunk on whiskey and full of teenage hormones. That didn’t mean he still wanted to kiss me a decade later. He’d been married since, for God’s sake.

Maybe he just wanted to be friends.

The thought gave me both a thrill and an aversion. A thrill because I found that part of me did want to be friends with him, and if I wiped away the notion that he wanted something other than that, my claws retracted. And an aversion because sixteen-year-old Tess wanted him to kiss her again and wanted him to regret forgetting. She wanted vengeance, I figured, and who could blame her?