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“It didn’t matter,” she said. “I can’t change how people think or feel about me. I can only change my reaction to it.”
“It doesn’t sound to me as if you did though,” he said, lifting an eye at her.
“No. But I needed money and had to figure out how to get out of the mess I was in. And here I am.”
“Standing strong and doing it your way,” he said. “Which means you should tell your parents the truth.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know that it matters, but I should. When it was all said and done, my parents were calling me and wanting to go to the services. I didn’t even go. His family didn’t tell me when or where they were. They hated me for the things that Eddie had said about me to them. It was closed anyway. I was the jerk that broke up with him in their eyes. No one knew what happened.”
“And it wouldn’t make a difference if they did know. But why didn’t you tell your parents?”
“Again, nothing would have changed. It was over at that point. I was already looking for another job, but it wasn’t panning out as I thought. I just needed to get away. I thought if I came back here I could do exactly what I’m doing. Well, just working for my parents. They didn’t tell me what they were doing either. Not until I’d made the decision to come home.”
“Shit,” he said. “Would you have stayed if you knew they were selling?”
“Probably,” she said, pushing the bowl aside. She’d eaten enough of it now. She stood up with her plate to rinse it off and put it in the dishwasher.
“You take a bullet for people all the time, don’t you?” he asked. He had her against the counter, his hands on her waist.
“I never thought of it that way before, but I suppose so,” she said. She just didn’t like conflict and yet she was the one that always got the raw end of the stick poked into her eye after it’d been lit on fire.
“You need to change that about yourself,” he said.
“I’m trying. My parents know all about the debt and that I was left with it. They don’t know that Eddie cheated on me. Or that I broke up with Eddie a month before he died. My father wondered why I didn’t get any money for the debt and I said it never occurred to me. My guess is his parents were the beneficiaries of his policies just like mine are of mine. It’s all in the past now. I’d like to keep it there.”
“You should let your parents know,” he said. “Your father came here because he feels you’re fragile and he needs to look out for you.”
“And that is the reason they don’t need to know. He’ll feel horrible that he didn’t know what was going on before. He’ll blame himself. They want to cover the debt and I won’t let them. I can manage it. Living for free and working is more than enough.”
“You’re a pretty special person,” he said, his mouth lowering to hers.
“Thanks. Not many think that.”
“Then they are idiots,” he said.
“Do you believe me? Looking back now I can see where you were probably mad and annoyed that I was lying to you, but I wasn’t. I guess I was really lying to my parents, but I don’t think of it that way either.”
“I do believe you. I don’t think you’ve got it in you to be mean to anyone.”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure about that. Everyone can be mean if pushed enough. But I’m glad you believe me and I hope you believe me when I tell you I want you to take me to your bed now.”
18
Fall Where They May
Duke was trying to process everything that Hadley had just told him about her ex.
There was part of him that knew he would have hunted the bastard down and had more than a few words with him if he was still alive.
What mattered to him was the fact that Hadley told him what she had and when it was all done, she asked him to take her to his bed.
Which of course he had no thought in his mind would happen today.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m more sure of this than any other decision I’ve made in my life in the past ten years. You told me to stand my ground or stand up for myself and that is what I’m doing.”
He laughed and kissed her on the lips quickly. “It’s not quite the same thing.”
