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After a series of disastrous dates with horribly abrasive and overly familiar men, she found Gregory’s retiring personality relaxing and was willing to see where this could lead. Single men in her age group were few and far between, and Lia couldn’t afford to be picky anymore. She had chosen to stay away from dating for more than a year after her non-wedding, and before that she’d been with Clayton. It was tough getting back into the swing of things.
This was her third date with Gregory, and he wasn’t exactly a scintillating conversationalist—he had a monotonous voice and enthused about his stamp collection a lot. As usual, Lia found herself surreptitiously checking her watch after about an hour. One hour with Gregory tended to feel like three. But he was nice. Very nice. And polite. And nice. So pleasant.
Okay, in all honesty, he was boring. Really, really boring. And if he once again spoke of his rare 1876 one-penny Cape stamp—the pride of his collection—and the “exciting” online bidding war he’d won to obtain it, Lia was going to scream. Or pull her hair out. Or maybe (probably) she’d just grin and bear it and listen to the tedious story for the fourth time in three nights, because he was nice.
And he was single.
MJ’s was crowded. He always brought her to MJ’s. He saw no need to leave Riversend for dinner when they had a perfectly good dining establishment right there in town. Never mind that MJ’s was a family restaurant with little variety to their menu. And that most nights the place was brimming with people they knew. She suspected the latter was the reason he enjoyed bringing her here. He always chose a table in the center of the huge room, where everybody could see them. She was Dahlia McGregor—not too long ago she’d been engaged to the heir to a multimillion-dollar family-run diamond company. She had been popular in high school, and had never exchanged more than a polite greeting with Gregory. Not until her friend Tilda had set them up on a date last week.
Lia didn’t believe in false modesty; she knew that people often referred to her as the pretty McGregor sister. They had believed that she would be the one to settle down and marry first. She had believed that. She’d been on course to do that, before discovering that her fiancé was a low-life snake who had harassed Daisy. That news, added to his arrogance and selfishness and controlling behavior, had forced Lia into making the bravest and scariest decision of her life and canceling her wedding the day before the actual event.
People had been treating her like a broken doll since then and, until Sam Brand showed up and displayed not one iota of sympathy or concern for her “fragile” state, she had allowed it. Had felt like it was her due. Until she recognized that it was doing her more harm than good.
Brand had been the catalyst to release her from the depths of self-pity. His response to the news that her engagement had been broken had been so refreshing: “Good to know you’re a free agent, sweetheart. Married women are off-limits.”
That pragmatic and unsympathetic sentiment was all it had taken to lure her into bed with him. It would have been easy to blame the alcohol for her lowered inhibitions, but in all honesty, she had never made a more clearheaded or cynical decision in her life. And the rewards had been unforgettable and phenomenal. But at the same time, she had felt embarrassed by the tawdry encounter. And to repeat the mistake at the wedding? She shuddered at the recollection. Allowing him to take her in a filthy barn had been so sordid.
And yet the very memory of it had the power to bead her nipples and . . .
“Are you ready to go?” Gregory asked while Lia was still caught up in her confusingly raunchy and scandalous memories of Sam Brand.
“Yes,” Lia said with a quick smile. He scrupulously added up the bill before telling her what her half would be and generously informing her that he would cover the tip. Lia tried not to cringe when he circled a possessive arm around her waist and steered her through the restaurant. She couldn’t help feeling like a prized possession that he was showing off, an all-too-familiar feeling after Clayton’s posturing.
Clayton had outright referred to her as his soon-to-be trophy wife, and Lia had initially thought it was a term of endearment. Until she’d recognized it for what it was—a claim of ownership. He’d seen her as nothing more than a thing, a shiny object to shelve in his trophy cabinet and neglect until he wanted to show her off when he played his games of one-upmanship with his friends.
