Derek forced himself to keep walking and not turn back to see if she was watching him or had turned back herself. He shook his head at the nearly overwhelming desire to stop, go back to her and pull her into his arms again.
There was no reason to think she would be open to something like that.
She hadn’t slapped the crap out of him for kissing her the night before, that didn’t mean she wanted it. Or would accept it again. No. He needed to check with her before touching her like that again. Especially if what he suspected about her ex-husband were true.
Nothing he’d ever heard about Neil Sutton had been kind or anything but pushy and demanding. The last thing Derek wanted was to remind her of a man who had made most of her life unhappy.
He wanted to see her laugh and smile more, not be
