But it was always easier to see what other people needed to do. It was also easier to cope with his own problems when he was focused on someone else’s. Tia had given him a renewed determination to set a better example. Ironically, considering how he’d felt about her the day they met, he was glad she was here. Otherwise, nothing in his life would’ve changed. And he’d desperately needed...something.

Seth was waiting in the pool when Tia returned fifteen minutes later. His dark hair was wet and slicked back, highlighting the bone structure of his face, which was inarguably masculine and yet classically beautiful, especially his cheekbones and strong jaw.

But she didn’t want to think about beauty—his or anyone else’s—not when she’d been robbed of hers.

“Is the water warm enough?” she asked, shivering against the cold as she stripped off her towel.

“It’s perfect,” he said and immediately pulled his gaze away from her, pushed off from the side and started swimming.

Surprised that he wasn’t a little more welcoming, considering she’d made the effort to come over at his insistence, she dipped her toe in to test the water and was relieved to find that it was at least eighty degrees. “Oh, you’re right,” she muttered in relief and hurried around to use the steps.

Seth cut cleanly through the water, flipping over at the opposite end of the pool each time he reached it with a natural grace she knew she did not possess in the water. “It feels great, right?” he asked when he finally stopped and hung off the edge.

She got the impression he was hesitant to come too close, which was odd. He hadn’t acted that way before. But maybe that moment at the breakfast table had made him conscious of her in a whole new way. It had certainly made her conscious of him—and reluctant to get her hair wet in front of him. She knew having it slicked back the way his was would show her scars in the worst possible light. “Surprisingly good.”

“I told you.” He cocked an eyebrow. “But sitting on the steps isn’t swimming.”

“I’m working up to it,” she said drily.

He chuckled. “How about you start now?”

And let him see her face without her hair to help cover it? She didn’t want to do that, and yet...she had no idea why it would matter so much to her. Regardless of what’d happened at the kitchen table, her love life was over. Who would want her now?

Although she knew that was self-pity talking, and people found love despite scars and other physical differences all the time, she felt so ugly. And physically, Seth was far above average. “I think I’ll wait and see if I warm up to the idea.”