"The dinner invitation," Lucas said, bringing us back to the original problem with the persistence of someone who understood that avoidance never solved anything. "What's really stopping you from simply asking?"
What's stopping me? The answer was complex, layered with forty years of isolation and twenty-seven years of careful control over every aspect of my existence. I'd grown accustomed to commanding rather than requesting, to having my wishes anticipated rather than having to voice them.
And you're terrified she'll say no, my conscience supplied with uncomfortable accuracy.
Because that was the truth beneath all the careful rationalizations. I was afraid that Catherine would refuse, that she would choose the safety of distance over the risk of proximity. That she would see through wh
