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She amused him. That was the part he couldn’t seem to get past.
“I was prepared to commit myself to a vanilla life,” he told her, because now this was becoming another way she could entertain him, and he had no intention of analyzing that, thank you. “Vanillameans—”
“I know whatvanillameans,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. Cute, but unacceptable. He filed that way “I’m pansexual, hello.”
“How foolish of me to forget.” Her eyes narrowed a bit at his dry tone, but he ignored it. “I picked the perfect vanilla bride, prepared to march happily down a vanilla aisle, and had I done so, I would have carried on dutifully, vanilla to the end.”
The truth was a bit more complicated than that. Lady Jenny Markham, his perfect vanilla bride, was perhaps a bit more delightfully twisted than he’d anticipated. Or known, since he’d never touched her during their whirlwind courtship.
When he’d had the distinct displeasure of walking in on her and the man she’d ended up marrying, he’d recognized their dynamic instantly. It certainly hadn’t been anything he’d sensed in her on their few dates, though he did wonder, now and again when he thought of that strange period in his life, if that was why he’d chosen her. When he could have chosen anyone.
But then, he’d always had an eye for submissives hiding in plain sight. Like his house cleaner, for God’s sake.
Not that any of it mattered now. He and Jenny would have married for convenience’s sake, but she’d chosen someone else. Someone far less convenient who clearly made her far happier than he ever would have. And he couldn’t help but think that despite the considerable embarrassment of being so publicly jilted, he’d had a lucky escape.
Because here, now, he couldn’t imagine how he’d ever imagined that he could be vanilla for an evening, much less a lifetime.
“No one should have to spend their life pretending to be someone they’re not,” Rory told him, very seriously. And he let her, because she didn’t realize that she ought to have been intimidated by him, and for some reason he found that charming. “The world is filled with people who are withering away and dying because they think they need to wear masks all the time. I think it’s a good thing that you’re living your truth.”
Conrad endeavored not to wince at that. “Yes, thank you. ‘Living my truth,’ indeed. How... American.”
Rory shrugged, and gifted him with another eye roll. “I know, I know. Americans, so embarrassingly in touch with their feelings. How gauche. Whatever is the world coming to, with all this maudlin sentiment?”
That she had a point was one more thing Conrad chose not to examine. He concentrated on her, instead.
“You keep pushing us away from the conversation we ought to be having,” he pointed out mildly. “If you’re having second thoughts, you know where the door is. I will continue to enjoy my evening, uninterrupted. You can go back to doing whatever it is you were doing.”
“I was on a date.” He’d spent years perfecting his facial expressions—or rather, his lack thereof. And yet despite that he must have donesomething,because she grinned. “I’ve had a lot of dates since I last saw you. I’ve always liked dating. It’s like a social media post, but in person.”
“I’m happy to say I have no idea what that means.”
“Everyone knows that social media is all about curating, yes?” She waited for him to shrug and clearly took that as assent. “Picking the best parts, leaving out anything that’s sad or weird. Which I think is a good thing, by the way. Some things youshouldsave for your friends. And dating is the same. You have to take all the best parts of you and kind of act them out for an evening. They do the same. Then, if all the performances match well enough, you get to have sex. It’s fun.”
“That sounds delightfully progressive-minded,” Conrad murmured. “I applaud you. But I can’t help thinking about the fact that all that curation led to you against my wall, begging me to make you come for the first time. So was the curating worth it?”
She sighed a little. “I’ve been having some trouble coming to terms with that myself.”
“Did you experiment with your dates?” And he was amused at the little scrape of something inside him that almost felt like possessiveness.Possessiveness.He’d been sure he’d left that far in his past. The closest he’d come in recent memory was walking in on Jenny and her lover in that club in Sydney. And not because it had hurt him, because it hadn’t. At all. But because she had agreed to marry him, and when Conrad claimed something, he preferred it remain his.
He’d only collared one woman, long ago. If he ever collared another, it would be for good.
And because he was in no rush for that unlikely event, he kept his scenes intense but his relationships with the women he played with otherwise casual.
There was absolutely no reason he should care if she’d gone out and slept with half of Europe since he’d last seen her. He’d intended to do much the same himself.
“I really wanted to experiment,” Rory told him, again with that solemn expression. “But I couldn’t do it. I kept meaning to. I was certain all through each dinner that I would, but then it was just so... Boring. So I kept going home. Alone.”
Conrad assured himself that he felt nothing upon hearing that. That this was about gathering information, nothing more. “And then? What did you do when you got home?”
“I spent a lot of time online.” Her eyes got wider, her voice rougher. “Looking at a lot of pictures. And some videos.”
“And?”
“And...thinking about you. About what happened here.”
“Did you, now. I like that. But tell me, where were your hands while you entertained these thoughts?”
She was red-faced and sweating with it. She was lovely.
