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“I’m sorry.”
Her voice breaking, she explained, “They thought I should stay with Neil. In their eyes, I should have appreciated how lucky I was to be married to a successful doctor no matter what he did.”
“If you felt the need to leave, your parents should have helped you pack.” And her dad should have kicked the guy’s tail. Jack reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “What did he do?”
Taking a very deep breath, she shrugged. “He was himself. I just didn’t see the real him until it was too late and I’d married him.” She exhaled sharply. “I was a possession, meant to do as he said when he said, and should have been okay with his infidelity, among other things.”
Jack winced. “He cheated on you?”
“Several times that I know of and who knows how many I never learned of?”
“He was an idiot.”
Taylor laughed, but there was no pleasure in the sound. “Actually, he’s a brilliant plastic surgeon and apparently does amazing work.”
Something in her tone told its own tale. “He never operated on you?”
She glanced down at her moderate-sized chest. “Do these appear enhanced to you?”
Jack glanced at her breasts and fought gulping. “I found—find—your breasts just right.”
Taylor snorted. “Well, he didn’t and wanted to lift and enlarge them. He also offered to pad my bottom and freeze the fat in my thighs and make my nose smaller and my lips fuller and make my chin not so boxy and—”
Jack’s finger went over her lips, stopping her words. “You’re perfect the way you are, Taylor. He was the one who had problems. Not you. I’m glad you never let him take a knife to you.”
Taylor sighed. “Sorry, I got on a rant, didn’t I?”
“You deserve to rant. If a woman is unhappy with her body and wants to make changes, that’s her choice and more power to her. So long as she is making the change for herself. But a man pushing a woman to change?” He shook his head. “A man should never make a woman feel she needs to make those changes because she’s not good enough.” He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss there. “You are good enough, Taylor. Way better than he ever deserved.”
Better than Jack deserved, too.
“Sometimes I wonder if you’re for real,” she mused, eyeing him as if she thought he might disappear any moment.
Not sure what she meant, he waited for her to elaborate.
“You seem to know what to say to make me feel better about myself, to be justified in my outrage.” She shrugged. “You make me feel better inside, Jack. Thank you for that.”
Her compliment made him feel better inside, too. She made him feel better.
“You’re welcome.” He wasn’t sure what else to say. He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to hold her, kiss her, make love to her right here on a blanket in the middle of nowhere with a babbling little waterfall in the background.
But he’d told her she had the power, that he wouldn’t push or do anything until she gave the word it was what she wanted. He wouldn’t force himself on Taylor in any way.
So he settled for holding her hand and consoled himself that lying on this blanket, holding her hand in his, was more precious than all the kisses in the world from anyone else.
Which slapped him in the face yet again with the reality of how she affected him.
Taylor had been suppressed her whole life and had never been given the opportunity to just be. Whereas he’d grown up with no boundaries, with parents who’d encouraged him to step outside society lines, she’d been stuffed inside the box of others’ expectations and forced to stay within those tight confines.
That she had so newly torn free of that box made her vulnerable, made making sure he did nothing to cause her to stumble and possible fall back into those confines all the more important.
For the next month he intended to help her rip down as many of those walls as possible. To show her the world from his perspective.
After his time was up in Warrenville, well, he hoped when she thought of him, she would smile and feel he’d made her world a little brighter place.
* * *
Taylor fiddled with her keys outside Amy’s apartment door. “Thank you for today.”
