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“She told me she got pregnant when I was on leave.”
“Oh,” Eleanor said. “So, you had to wait until the baby was born to find out who was the actual dad?”
“No,” he said. “I knew I wasn’t the father. The timing was off, only by a week or two, but she couldn’t get away with the lie like she thought she could.”
What he told Eleanor was the truth, although there was more irrefutable proof of why he couldn’t have been the father. When their relationship started to become serious, Juliet had told him she didn’t want children. He’d been relieved. He didn’t want children either, but more importantly, he was medically incapable of having them. He hadn’t bothered to tell Juliet about his low sperm count diagnosis. There hadn’t seemed to be a point. She was adamant about never wanting to be a mother.
When she’d tried to convince Wes he was the father and discovered the truth that he couldn’t have kids, she was beyond pissed that he had never told her and accused him of lying to her about it. Of course, considering she was pregnant with another lion shifter’s child, she hadn’t had much of a leg to stand on when it came to the lying thing.
“So, what happened to her and the baby?” Eleanor said.
“She married the father, and they went on to have six more kids. As far as I know, they’re still married,” he said.
“Seven kids? Holy cannoli,” Eleanor said. “I’m sorry she cheated on you. That was a shitty thing for her to do.”
“How about you? Ever been married?” he said.
“No. Not even engaged,” she said. “Hell, I’ve never really had any serious relationships either. The longest I ever dated someone was a year and a half.”
“So, you’re not looking for a relationship?” he said. Selfishly, he was kind of happy about that. He wasn’t sure he could sit in Eleanor’s car twice a day while she talked about her boyfriend.
“Oh, I totally am,” Eleanor said. “I’m ready for the long-term commitment thing and have been for a while. It’s just…”
“It’s hard to meet people,” he said.
“Actually, no. I’m signed up to a couple of different dating sites, and not to brag, but guys usually swipe right on me.” She grinned at him. “The problem is the first date. I don’t make a great first impression, and if by some miracle, the guy does want to see me again, by the third or fourth date, he usually bails. My friend Andrew says I have the looks but not the personality to keep a man’s interest.”
“He’s not a very good friend,” Wes said.
Find out where this Andrew lives so I can kill him, his lion urged.
You are not killing a human because he’s an ass to Eleanor.
“What did your lion just say?” Eleanor asked.
Wes cleared his throat. “He agrees with me that Andrew is a bad friend.”
“He isn’t. Just very blunt. Besides, he’s right. I try hard to be likable, but, as you’re well aware, I always talk too much, and I’m socially awkward. As much as I try not to be like my dad, I inherited his habit of being a total weirdo in social situations. Even as a little kid, I had a hard time keeping friends. Part of the reason I do the job I do is that I thought it might help improve my social skills. Talking to strangers all day, you know? Only, it hasn’t worked. At least not in the boyfriend department. I’m too obnoxious for a long-term relationship.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your social skills,” Wes said.
“Says the man who before a few days ago, hadn’t said more than a hundred words to me in almost a year and a half,” Eleanor said teasingly.
“Are you trying to say I’m socially awkward too?” Wes said.
“We make quite the pair,” she said. “I talk way too much, and you don’t talk enough. Maybe it’s why we’re friends?”
“Maybe,” he said. He wanted Eleanor to think of him as her friend, so why did it piss him off so much to hear it?
“See,” Eleanor said with a sigh, “there I go again. Screwing up and saying the wrong thing.”
“You didn’t,” he said. “We are friends.”
“Then why do you look so annoyed?”
“I don’t,” he said.
“That’s your annoyed face.”
