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“Grady, wait! Please.”
I stopped. “You’ve said what you have to say Margot and now I’m leaving.”
“No you’re not,” she growled and shuffled across the kitchen to block my path. “I’ve only just begun with what I need to say to you and this isn’t easy so you damn well will listen to me.” Her chest heaved up and down, the pulse in her throat fluttered like butterfly wings and I could see how difficult this was for her.
I took a step back and nodded. “Fine. Talk.”
Chapter 27
Margot
I sighed heavily but I refused to let my shoulders sag or my hope fade in the face of Grady’s reluctant tone. Fine, talk wasn’t exactly the sign of a man willing to listen and to hear what’s being said to him but I had the captive audience I wanted and I had to make it work. He stood on one side of the kitchen and I stood on the other, a vast ocean between us that I was desperate to close.
Now.
I swallowed around the gigantic lump in my throat and nodded until I felt the confidence within me rise to the surface. This was Grady. He was a good man, a fair man who would hear me out without being mean or cruel. The only thing he could do was reject me and it wouldn’t be the first—or the last—so I could handle it.
Mostly.
Hopefully.
“I grew up with parents who were great. They had plenty of money and they were a little older than my classmates’ parents which was weird but it was all I knew. My parents though, they were, let’s just say that disapproving would be an understatement. I’m not blaming them but I need you to understand that when you grow up feeling as if you can never do anything right, it makes it difficult to trust other people. To trust that you’re good enough, that you’re worthy of their feelings.”
Grady remained stone-faced and my confidence wavered.
“That probably explains a lot about my three failed marriages,” I said and tried for a laugh that sounded more like an anguished squeak. “I already explained to you a little about Michael.”
Finally he showed signs of life with a nod. “The ex who recently adopted twin girls.”
I nodded. “Yes, that’s him but that’s not it. Michael was my best friend, probably the closest friend I ever had in the world. We shouldn’t have gotten married and we’re both to blame for that mistake, but he didn’t even have the decency to tell me he’d fallen in love with someone else, that I wasn’t enough in our marriage until it was too late.” My shoulders fell as that particular betrayal played in my mind all over again. “It was painful to hear him tell me all about the man he’d fallen in love with and it obliterated my trust, Grady. If you can’t trust that you’re enough for your best friend or your parents, who can you trust?” My heart raced as the last of the words left my mouth, my mouth had gone dry as I waited for his response to the mess that was Margot.
Grady shook his head and I couldn’t tell if it was disgust or disappointment or something else entirely. He pinched the bridge of his nose for a long moment before he lifted his gaze to meet mine. “I don’t know Margot, you could try trusting each person as they come into your life. I judged you based solely on your actions, not based on the other women from my past.”
I nodded. “That’s fair and maybe if I was more balanced or had a healthy outlook on relationships that’s what I would have done. But years of putting up walls and barriers to keep people at a distance made it really difficult to stop doing that, even when I could see what I was doing and the consequences I would face if I didn’t stop.”
“So you’re a product of your childhood and you can’t change?” His tone hadn’t thawed even a little and a little more hope faded.
“We’re all a product of our childhoods, Grady but no that is certainly not what I’m saying. I’m just trying to make you understand that the scene at the bar wasn’t really about me not trusting you, so much as my own insecurity. I didn’t trust that I was enough for you. I saw a beautiful blonde with big boobs and no stomach to speak of and assumed she was better than me and that you would think so too.”
“I get that, I really do but you have to understand that’s not what it felt like to me.”
“I know,” I told him and took a step forward as I shook my head. “I shut off my emotions when it came to all personal relationships after Michael with just one goal, never to feel that sting of betrayal again. If I closed myself off and kept people at a distance then I wouldn’t get hurt again.”
