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Or his father would find another way.
“I found her, you know,” Brian said quietly.
There was no question who he was talking about. Tasha. “I told you, I’m not going to pursue a woman who doesn’t want me. I’m not some creepy stalker.”
He’d been accused of many things. He didn’t need to add that to his list of supposed crimes.
“Her social media profile is public,” Brian pointed out. “And so is her cousin’s. Kara Trent. Finally got a last name. She seems way friendlier on her socials. And she has a weird thing for Survivor. Did you know they have one of those here, too?”
Americans. “Yes, other countries have their own shows. Canada has its own, too. And she might be friendlier on her socials because she didn’t like you. I get it, man. You’re a woman magnet. You can pick up almost any woman you want. Except that one.”
“Maybe that’s what I like about her.”
Yes, that’s what Dare was worried about.
“Yet you should still stay away,” Dare advised. “Because it will shock you to discover that women get to pick who they want to be around. We’ve moved past the ‘Neanderthal, club the woman you want over her head and drag her back to your cave’ stage of humanity.”
“And that is where we went wrong, my friend.” The waitress came by and took Brian’s order of whiskey neat. When she was gone, Brian turned back to Dare. “And I think staying away might be a real problem.”
“It’s not.” He was proof positive of how easy it was to stay away from a woman he wanted. “I’ve managed to not even try to track Tasha down.”
He’d wanted to. There was a part of him that was angry she hadn’t even bothered to stay and tell him good-bye. She’d slipped out while he was sleeping and hadn’t given him the barest chance of convincing her to stay with him. The thought had run through his head that he could call up someone in the company’s investigations unit to send him a complete dossier on her. They dug up crap on potential clients all the time. He was fairly certain his father used the unit to do surveillance on the whole family.
That was precisely why he hadn’t done it, though not being anything like his father wasn’t the only reason he hadn’t made that call.
He could have had at least a week with her. His father, for all his assholery, wouldn’t care about him sleeping with a woman while he was away on business. Hell, that was practically expected of him.
You don’t want to fuck your wife? She’s not doing it for you? Go find someone who does, but not in one of those fucking clubs. It’s one thing to cheat on your wife. It’s another to be a pervert.
His dad was such a dick.
But he’d had a point. A certain amount of vice was expected in their world. It would be tolerated and ignored, but there was a line that shouldn’t be crossed.
When he’d been with Tasha, it hadn’t felt like crossing a line. It had felt as natural as breathing to pin her down and give her a nip that got her panting.
“Is this about your ex?” Brian asked, his gaze narrowing. “I’ve been trying to figure this part out. Tasha was obviously into you, and you’re still thinking about her. Yet you easily let her go. I have to wonder. Is it because you’re still in love with your ex-wife?”
Dare snorted. “I was never in love with her in the first place.”
“Ah, I thought that might be the case. Did you marry her for family reasons?”
Dare took a drink of his beer. He’d spent a lot of time with Brian recently, but they’d never gone deep into his history. They’d had some great talks about politics and sports, but they’d avoided breaking this particular surface. “What’s the sudden interest?”
Brian seemed to consider the question for a moment. “We’re friends. I don’t have a lot of those. Working in Canada has been a transition for me, and you’ve made that way easier. We’ve been hanging out for six months now. You’ve listened to me complain about everything from my dating life to my mom nagging me about when I’m going to get around to giving her grandkids. I thought you should know I’ll listen too.”
Brian was the closest he’d had to a friend in a long time. Too many times he got chummy with someone only to realize their families had close ties to his and therefore couldn’t be trusted. It could be the same with Brian. He could be concealing his ties. Still, it wasn’t like he was telling Brian anything his father didn’t already know. “I married Audrey because my dad thought it was time, and Audrey was the daughter of a business associate he wanted closer ties to.”
