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My gaze narrowed. “We had sex, and I didn’t think of you once.”
“Really?” He glanced over at me.
“Really,” I said. I turned my head toward the window to keep my heated face from his view.
Hunter leaned over and breached my personal space while driving. “What’s that you’re doing with your left hand right now?”
I froze. I was picking imaginary damn lint off of my jeans. Having no response to being caught lying, I simply scowled at him.
He gloated a smile in my direction.
After a few minutes, he sighed. “Let me take you to dinner tonight.”
I ignored him. “Did you take the garter I caught from Anna and Derek’s wedding? I couldn’t find it when I left my hotel room.”
“Nope. Didn’t see it.”
“Damn. I really wanted to keep it.”
Hunter changed the subject back. He really had a one-track mind. “So…what do you say? Let me take you to dinner tonight.”
“No.”
“You’ll let the poor bastard you don’t even like kissing take you to dinner, but you won’t let me take you out?”
I nodded. “That’s right.”
“I’m attracted to you. You’re attracted to me. I don’t get it.”
I decided to be honest and not filter my response. “When I was twelve years old, I came home from school early. We had a half-day for parent-teacher conferences. My mom kept a calendar on the refrigerator with all our schedules and activities. With four girls, there was scribble on most days. But that particular day, Mom had forgotten to write that we had a shortened day. Both my parents worked, and I was a latch-key kid, so I walked home from school and let myself in. There was noise coming from my mom’s room, so I figured she’
d left the TV on like she sometimes did. I went to turn it off and walked in on my father having sex with one of my mom’s good friends.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
“My father begged me not to tell my mother, swearing it was the one and only time. He said if I told her she’d be heartbroken, and I’d break up the family.”
“That’s shitty. He should have manned up and told her himself, not put that on you.”
“Yeah. I know that now.”
“Did you tell her?”
“Not for a few weeks. One night the woman was over, and I saw the way my Dad was looking at her. I couldn’t let my mom be humiliated like that. I knew it wasn’t a one-time mistake he’d made, even though I was twelve. When I finally told her, he admitted it and said he was in love with her friend. Dad moved out, and Mom went into a state of depression that lasted a really long time.”
“Sometimes doing the right thing sucks.”
I forced a smile. “Yeah.” I stared out the window, watching the trees pass for a while. “My husband didn’t cheat on me, but he also didn’t tell me the life we were leading was funded by money he’d stolen from unsuspecting clients, or that he’d been running a scam for years. Nor did he mention that the penthouse we lived in was on the verge of foreclosure or that he’d run up a fortune in debt on credit cards under my name. I had to move two weeks after his arrest, my bank account was overdrawn, and my credit was complete crap because he’d been having the credit card bills sent to his office and wasn’t paying any of them. Even borrowing money from my mom, I couldn’t get an apartment on my own because of my bad credit. Lucky for me, my wonderful husband’s best friend was very supportive and was nice enough to help me find a place to live. In exchange for that kindness, he thought I should have sex with him.”
“The men in your life have been shit. I get it.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “I have definite trust issues. But it’s more than that. I didn’t go away to college like I would’ve liked to because I didn’t want to leave my mom alone. She never asked me to do that. In fact, she pushed me as hard as she could to go away. When I married Garrett, he wanted a stay-at-home wife even though I was just getting my therapy career started. So I left my job because of him. I’m just at a point in my life where I need to focus on me. I love my job. Izzy needs my attention. I can’t get involved with anyone, even if I’m attracted to him.”
Hunter nodded, and I could see from his profile he was disappointed. “There’s just one thing I don’t understand.”
“What’s that?”
“Why go out with Marcus then?”
