Brock looked up just then, a slight smile on his face. “I know. I can hear all the excitement in your voice. Have fun looking at . . . artwork.”

I had this distinct feeling he was baiting me, but I really didn’t understand why. “I will.”

His head tilted to the side. “You deserve better.”

“What?”

Putting the papers down once more, he held my gaze. “You deserve better than him.”

For a moment, I couldn’t even respond, and then I laughed. “Are you feeling okay?”

His jaw tightened. “I’m feeling perfectly fine.”

“I’m asking because you’re telling me I deserve better than a man you don’t even know anything about.” Anger, sweet and empowering, rushed me. “And frankly, it is not your place or your business to even suggest something like that.” On a roll, I lifted my chin. “And if you really want us to be friends, you can’t say crap like that to me.”

Silence stretched out between us and then he spoke.

“I don’t know you anymore,” he said quietly, and when I didn’t respond—couldn’t because the statement caught me off-guard, he tipped his head back. “I know the old Jillian. Could sit here all day and tell you about her, but this Jillian? I don’t know her.” A wry grin appeared. “But I want to.”

Thinking maybe something went wrong with his brain, all I could do was stare at him.

“By the way, I want something to be clear between us,” he said, holding my wide gaze. “There is not a single moment in the last two weeks that I’ve looked at you and seen the little girl I used to throw in the pool. I see a woman—a beautiful woman. Don’t tell yourself otherwise.”

* * *

That night, as I lay in bed, unable to force my brain to slow down long enough to fall asleep or to get engrossed in the book I was reading, I stared up at my ceiling, slightly obsessing over what Brock had said to me before I left.

It wasn’t the beautiful part.

Brock tossed out flattery like it was going out of style. Considering what had happened to my face, I wasn’t bad. I could be passably pretty on a good day. Beautiful I was not.

No, it wasn’t that at all, even as nice as it had sounded coming from those well-formed lips. It was the part where he said he didn’t see a little girl when he looked at me, and all I could think about was the day I’d thought I was going to change that between us.

Standing in my old bedroom, I didn’t need to look around to see that it looked exactly like it had when I left three years ago.

Little girl bed.

Little girl dresser.

Little girl nightstand.