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His question was fair, but she still felt sick inside. "Dozens! Everybody knows I'll sleep with anybody who asks!"
In two long strides, he was at her side. "Dammit, don't do this! How many?"
"You want names and addresses?" She drew up her lip, trying to look hard and tough.
"Give me numbers first."
Her eyes began to sting. "You're going to have to trust me. I've told you that you don't have anything to worry about. My sexual history isn't any of your business."
"Right now, it's very much my business." He caught her arm, not hurting her, but letting her know she couldn't get away. "How many?"
"Don't do this to me!"
"How many, dammit?"
"There haven't been any! Just you."
"Right," he drawled.
His skepticism was the final drop in a night that had been an emotional roller coaster, and tears spilled over her lower lids. "Believe what you want to." She pulled away from him to head for the door.
His voice softened and he caught her before she could get away, turning her in his arms until she was pressed against his chest. "Don't cry on me. You don't have to cry, honey. Just tell me the truth."
"There hasn't been anybody for a long time," she said wearily. "A very long time."
He pulled back just far enough so he could gaze into her eyes, and she saw that his anger had been replaced by bewilderment. "You're telling the truth, aren't you?"
She nodded.
He slid his fingers into her hair and gathered her against the shoulder of his robe. "I don't understand you at all."
"I know you don't," she whispered.
He drew her over to a cozy arm chair and pulled her into his lap. "What are we going to do about this? You've turned me inside out ever since the day we met." He tucked her head under his chin. "When you said it's been a long time, are we talking more than a year?"
She nodded.
"More than two?"
She nodded again.
"A lot more?"
Another nod.
"I'm starting to get a glimmer here." He stroked her hair. "You really loved Flores, didn't you?"
"More than I've ever loved anyone." Until now, she thought.
"Are you trying to tell me there hasn't been anyone in your life since then? Is that what this is about? Phoebe, he must have died six or seven years ago?"
She was going to have to do this. They had no hope for a future together unless she had the guts to tell him the truth and let him see her as she was, scars and all. But revealing so much scared her to death.
He didn't try to restrain her as she rose from his lap and crossed to the bed. She sat on the edge so that she was facing him, with her knees pressed together and her hands clasped in the shirt folds that lay in her lap.
"Arturo was gay, Dan. He wasn't my lover. In every way that counted, he was my father."
She had never seen him look so bewildered. "Then I don't understand anything."
