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“You my friend,” she said lightly, “are not what you seem.”
“Really?”
“Really” she repeated.
“And what exactly am I?”
Abby took another gulp of champagne, liking the diversion.
“You’re a callous man-whore who only sleeps with women who are technically unavailable. Women who are married or attached.”
“Is that what Tucker told you?”
“He might have mentioned it. He might have warned me about you.”
“Maybe you should listen to him.” Cooper was no longer smiling.
“Why would I?” Abby asked. “He’s got you all wrong.”
Cooper stared at her for so long that Abby shifted her feet, uncomfortable and wondering if she’d gone too far. After all, she’d only met Cooper the day before.
“And what is it that you think he’s got wrong?” Cooper asked.
Abby considered shutting the conversation down right then and there, but Cooper had started it. And since she preferred to focus on something other than her sorry situation, she decided to let it all out.
“Honestly, Tucker’s got a lot right. You are a callous man-whore who only sleeps with married women, or women who are technically not available.”
“So what’s he got wrong?” Cooper asked casually, but she saw how his fingers gripped the tumbler so tight that his knuckles were white.
“It’s not the what…it’s the why, and Tucker doesn’t know it.”
“And you do,” Cooper said, his voice a little stronger as he squared his shoulders and stared down at her.
Something flashed in the depths of his eyes, and Abby zeroed in on it like a bear after honey.
“Someone hurt you. Badly, I’d say.” She shrugged. “And because of that, you’ve closed yourself off from the possibility of ever having a healthy relationship again. You don’t want to get close to anyone, let alone a woman. So you sleep with the ones who can never belong to you. The ones that are already taken. You sleep with them because you think that keeps you safe.”
He didn’t say anything so she continued.
“I’ll bet you’ve slept with several friends’ girlfriends and when they get too clingy, you pull out the ‘he’s my buddy, this will never work,’ card and move on to the next.”
She thought of a comment flung toward Cooper from his brother Rick, one that was off the cuff and not meant for her ears.
“I bet you’ve even slept with one of your brother’s girlfriends.”
“Two actually,” Cooper answered without missing a beat.
Wow. Abby shouldn’t have been shocked but she was.
“And I bet you told yourself you were doing your brother a favor when you did it. Maybe you thought that if they were willing to sleep with you, then Rick was better off without them.”
“No.” Cooper shook his head slowly. “I slept with them because I wanted to.”
“I call bullshit. Just like everything else, you bullshit your way through it all. You hide behind your pain because you’re a coward. Because you’re afraid to put yourself out there. And unfortunately, you end up hurting people that you care about like your brother.”
“I think you missed your calling,” he shot back. “You should be charging by the hour.”
“The sad thing is that you’re hurting yourself the most. Whoever that woman was…whatever she did to you, it’s not right to use that as an excuse to be an asshole just because it’s easier for you to live that way. You’re so much better than that.”
