AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Valerie placed a bit of cheese onto a cracker and topped that with a piece of salami.
“Where do you live now?” he asked. Anything to steer the conversation to a less erotic place. If his nuts ached any worse than they already were, he would soon be seeking an ice bath.
“Just outside of D.C.,” Valerie said. “My sister and grandmother still live there. My grandmother was so tickled to find out my developer was building on the river. When she lived here, there was nothing but little shacks and fisheries on that part of the shore. She couldn’t imagine people with money living there, and then I told her how much the company paid to get those folks to sell their land. Her dentures fell out when she dropped her jaw.” Valerie laughed so hard that her shoulders shook, and her eyes lit up.
She was so pretty when she laughed like that. It was a laugh that made him ponder about what other things she found funny so he could say them.
It was the kind of laugh he wanted to watch from the other side of a table at a fancy restaurant or from the seat beside her at a baseball game. It was infectious and warm, and…and it made him worry. Restaurants and sporting events were places for dates, and he didn’t date.
What is she doing to me?
“What about you?” she asked. “You have Clay and your parents in Florida. Is that all the family you have?”
He couldn’t lie. In spite of what Carine had suggested, he wasn’t going to hide the facts. He wasn’t ashamed, but he understood why he should tread carefully. “I’ve got an ex-wife who lives near me in one of those new condos I mentioned earlier and an eighteen-year-old son. He’s around…somewhere.”
She stopped chewing.
Tick, tick, boom?
“How…long have you been divorced?”
She tried to sound light but failed.
Every woman he dated asked that.
“Long enough that I’m not on the rebound,” he said levelly.
“Oh.” She bit down on the knuckle of her index finger and stared at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Go ahead and spit it out. If you want to ask a question, go ahead.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“We’ve already breached a hell of a lot of rules of etiquette tonight. What’s one more?”
She cringed and fixed her stare on the plans, tracing the line of the river-facing wall with a finger. “How long were you married?”
“Seventeen years.”
“She sucked in some air and pulled her plate closer. “That’s…a long time. Were you only married once?”
He grunted.
Solitude wasn’t his choice. He would have married again and had a couple more kids if the right woman had stuck. No one had been right. He’d stopped looking.
“Most of the divorced men I know should stay single indefinitely.” She laughed again, but it wasn’t like the other laughs. It was short and mirthless, and she wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“Maybe you should keep better company,” he said dryly.
“What’s that say about you?”
“I guess I set myself up for that one.”
She lifted one narrow shoulder in an elegant shrug and pushed a cracker around her plate.
