He’s been avoiding me. Not wholly, but enough to spark insecurity. What had he and my dad talked about? I needed to know, but when I asked my dad, he only said they were “getting to know each other.”

I know better. No one gets to know Aleck.

And when he sat, neck deep in conversation with his father and Hayden, I joined Midge for a while, hoping he would come to me, thinking I needed him near. Like he had at our beach house dinner. But he only dropped a kiss to my temple and moved on to talk to a mutual friend of his and Preston’s.

If this is his way of saying I’m not what he wants, he’s doing a fine job. I get the message loud and clear. Though, I wish he would just say it. His silence has ignited something resembling uncertainty in my veins, and I feel like a teenager pining for my boyfriend’s attention.

“Dance with me.” It isn’t a question, but a demand. His low tenor melts my insides and settled low in my belly.

I turn around and hold my hand out, and he takes it.

Aleck leads the way, broad shoulders and perfect posture. We face each other in the darkest corner of the dancefloor where the shadows complimented his sharp, chiseled features. It seems the darkness loves him. His arm wrap around my waist, pulling me into his body while his other hand slides into mine before bringing it to his chest.

He feels like the same Aleck who called me his.

I hesitate before curling my arm around his neck, and he takes notice. He tilts his head, studying my expression. I’ve always felt so raw in front of him, like I couldn’t possibly hide the way I feel. His eyes have a way of finding my skeletons.

The dim light engulfs us almost as deeply as the dread of hearing what I felt was coming.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” I swallow down the lump in my throat, ignoring the unshed tears behind my eyes.

“I’ve been mingling.”

“You don’t mingle, Aleck.”

He sucks in a deep breath—a breath that sounds an awful lot like rejection—and exhales it against my ear.

“You’re letting me go…” I say, the words leaving my lips as if they had been soaked in acid, scorching my throat on the way up, and burning my tongue raw before they were gone.

Aleck pulled his face back, his light azure eyes now as dark as the deepest most undiscovered crevices of the ocean. “I could never let you go.”

“Then what is this? Did my toast make you feel—”

“Your toast was beautiful, Winter.” A hint of impatience clear in his tone. “This is nothing. Maybe I was keeping my distance, but that’s because there are a lot of eyes on us here, and you in that dress… Shit, Winter, I’m just trying to keep my fucking sanity.”

“Because you don’t know how you feel about us…”