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God, was she that transparent? Could the floor just turn into lava now?
“She wants him to want her,” Jana continued.
Sophie’s gaze swung between the two other women. “But he does.” She focused on Cassie. “You said he gave you an orgasm and offered to have sex with you.”
Jana gasped. “Another orgasm?”
Realizing the futility of fighting the inevitable, Cassie gave her friends an abbreviated version of the previous day’s visit. When she finished, the two women stared back at her dumbfounded.
“I swear, if either of you squeals or says oh my God…” She left the threat hanging in the air between them.
Finally, Sophie, who never could go long without talking, asked, “So when are you going to sleep with him?”
“Did you hear what I said?” She’d clearly explained why she couldn’t, and therefore wouldn’t, have sex with Ryan. To him, this was a casual one and done, but for her… sex with Ryan could never be casual. Years ago, she’d dumbly thought she could give him her body and keep her heart. She’d been proven an idiot. Ryan had done more than invade her body, he’d burrowed into her very soul, stolen her heart, and then trampled all over the damn thing. And she had no one to blame but herself.
“Correct me if I get anything wrong,” Sophie began. “You said he wants you and you want him. He promised not to make you do anything you don’t want to do. He’s hot as all bloody hell. Have I missed anything?”
As Cassie remained silent, glaring at her friends, Jana shook her head. “That’s what I heard,” she replied.
Exasperated, Cassie threw her hands in the air and spun away. They didn’t understand. They couldn’t. When they looked at Ryan, they saw a good time. A hot man. A, no doubt, phenomenal lay. For her friends, one time with Ryan would probably be enough. In their story, sleeping with him once might actually work to get him out of their system. But her narrative with Ryan didn’t work that way. They had too much backstory, too many chapters leading to where they stood today. And sleeping with him could screw up all the good they’d created.
“You said it was the best sex you ever had,” Sophie reminded her
“For me. Not for him.” She confessed. Because yes, for her, sleeping with Ryan had been the single best sexual experience of her life. But he said sex was better with someone you love. And for him, that woman wasn’t her.
Sophie nodded. “I mean, he has had a lot of women. I wouldn’t really —”
“Sophie,” Jana chastised.
The other woman gave an apologetic shrug.
Jana returned her attention to Cassie. “Ryan said that to you? That doesn’t seem like something he’d say. Besides, if he didn’t enjoy sleeping with you, why would he want to do it again?”
She relayed their conversation, how he talked about this mysterious woman he loved who hadn’t loved him back. When she finished, Jana and Sophie both rolled their eyes.
“What?” She’d just bared her soul and they rolled their eyes?
“Did you ever think you’re the woman he loves who didn’t love him back?” Sophie asked.
The question hit her like a punch. No. Of course she hadn’t thought that, because she wasn’t the woman. “I do love him,” she countered. “He knows that.”
Jana shook her head. “He knows you care about him as your friend, as Ellie’s dad. Have you ever told him you’re in love with him?”
“I’m not,” she responded reflexively.
“Maybe you’ve actually convinced him of that,” Jana surmised.
Cassie sank onto one of the small chairs in the children’s section. Could Ryan possibly love her, bein lovewith her, but think she didn’t feel the same way?
“He did propose to you,” Sophie reminded her.
She shot her friend a steely glare. “Saying, ‘we could get married’ is hardly a proposal. Besides, he only offered because I was pregnant.”
Sophie raised an eyebrow. “Maybe. Or maybe Ryan really did want to be with you and you shot him down. Hell, you even told him to never, ever mention marriage or a relationship again.”
And he hadn’t. For five years, he’d kept the relationship perfectly platonic, holding her at arms’ length while they raised their daughter.
“You know why I said that.” Sophie had picked her up at the airport and sat with her on her couch while she mourned a future with Ryan that had never been within her grasp.
