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"That may be, but he's not ready to become involved in a serious way again, and frankly, I'm not interested in anything less."
"I know. I don't blame you. Look," she said and leaned closer to me. "Luke was hurt by what happened, devastated for a while, but the fact that Jenna had been cheating on him for months destroyed anything he felt for her before. Seriously. He feels nothing for her any longer. He told me you must have seen her touching him, but believe me, he did not touch her. He hates her at this point."
"Honestly, it's not that. Really. It's that I realized there was no future for us and I didn't want to get hurt when he leaves for his trip."
She frowned. "You could still see each other. He told me he'd fly you to meet him any time you had a break from your classes. He's going to be even more ridiculously wealthy once the deal goes through."
I felt frustrated, unable to tell her that it was all a sham. That we were pretending and that it was because of her bastard of a husband that we met at all.
Instead, I had to make up excuses.
She told me all about Luke and Jenna, going over everything I already knew.
I shrugged, never having heard of the Marshall family before or Jenna's family. "I didn’t read the gossip pages in the paper. I had no idea who Luke was when I first met him."
"He liked that about you. He's proud of our family business, and of his own business, but he was never about the celebrity. He always wanted to do something bigger than himself." She sighed. "It was Jenna's betrayal that convinced him that he could never trust a woman to be faithful. Especially considering the one woman he thought loved him had been secretly fucking her ex for months…" She raised her eyebrows. "He was devastated, and then he was really reclusive for a couple of months, keeping his head down, working hard on the startup."
"I can't imagine finding out she cheated on him a week before the wedding."
"Jenna wanted to get married. Her ex didn't want to get married. So, she decided to start seeing Luke again. But she never stopped loving her ex, I guess. How someone could betray the person they were going to marry, I'll never know."
When she said that, I felt incredibly guilty that I knew about Eric cheating on her with the real Lexi911. It made my throat constrict, and I wished I could tell her the truth. But what good would it do? She was not far from giving birth for the first time – something she didn't think she could ever do. Finding out Eric cheated on her with an escort would only ruin what should be one of the happiest and momentous times of her life.
Then she turned to me. "What about you? Luke said you had some drama in your past around a former boyfriend?"
I smiled, but felt incredibly reluctant to talk about Blaine. "Luke told you, did he?"
"We tell each other everything."
I pushed my food around on my plate, knowing that in fact they didn't tell each other everything. "Blaine and I started dating in high school. He was a few years older than me and became really controlling once he graduated. Because he was no longer in the halls at school, I guess he couldn't be sure I was being faithful to him. Things went downhill from there and I was too in love with him to see it. What I thought was affection and attachment was really a desire to control me, it was sick instead of a sign of love. You know, the same old story…"
I didn't tell her the part about Blaine stalking me, eventually abducting me, and holding me prisoner, or of me escaping and going to the police. I didn’t mention that they arrested him and that he went to jail. Nor did I mention that he got out of jail and started stalking me again. I had to leave home and move away without telling anyone where I was going except my parents.
That part I'd rather not tell anyone. I hated even acknowledging it myself because it made me feel like such a bad judge of character. How I thought I still loved him when he started trying to control my every move. How I had been so wrong and realized it only too late.
She gave me a soft smile and then reached out to squeeze my arm. "I know that love can blind you to the flaws in your partner. Believe me, I know Eric's no saint. He's a man with flaws like every other man." She turned back to her plate of food and cut some bacon. "One thing my mother told me before she died was that if I wanted to have a happy marriage, I had to decide what to fight over and what to let slide."
I watched her for a moment, wondering if she had some inkling that Eric had cheated on her during her pregnancy. But I couldn’t imagine that a woman would look the other way if she knew her husband was cheating on her.
"How do you decide what to fight over and what to let slide?"
She took a sip of water. "I want a family. Eric's given me that. As long as he's good to me and to our child, I'll accept his faults and flaws."
"What flaws does he have, if you don’t mind me asking?"
She laughed softly. "Oh, he's a bit pompous. Well, a lot pompous, to tell the truth."
I didn't know what to say in response. He'd struck me as a bit of a snob, but he was rich, and that explained a lot.
"And, he's obsessed with appearances," she added. "He cares about labels, and good press. He's vain, always looking in the mirror and worried that he doesn’t look good from behind." She gave me this wicked grin. "I know it's true. I love him anyway. Besides, I have my flaws too. If Eric expected perfection in me, he'd be really disappointed."
I smiled at her, wishing that Eric would realize what a gem he had in Dana. "What flaws could you have?"
"Oh, believe me," she said and chewed on a piece of bacon. "I have my own faults. Both of us look the other way. That's how we stay together. I think a lot of couples expect perfection in each other. They're bound to be disappointed."
"But you wouldn't blame Luke for being upset that Jenna cheated on him with her ex?"
"Could you forgive someone for cheating?" She turned to me and looked me directly in the eye.
