Reid frowned and sat down beside her. He let his hand find her thigh. She didn’t think anything about it. He was a tactile person. “You’re beautiful, love. How can you doubt that?”
She huffed. She knew she sounded like a brat, but she was so frustrated she couldn’t help it. “I can doubt that because I can’t get a date in what amounts to a sex club. It should be like shooting fish in a barrel, but my aim is off.”
“Gideon wants you,” Reid pointed out.
Jessica managed a humph.
“He’s trying to woo you.” He gestured to the table that held a stunning arrangement of lilies. “Did you like the flowers he sent?”
The card attached had asked for forgiveness. She could forgive him, but she wasn’t sure she could ever forget. The hurt ran deep. “I love lilies. You told him, right?”
“I didn’t have to,” Reid replied. “He already knew. Can we talk about it now?”
She was well aware Reid had wanted this discussion since the morning after her and Gideon’s personal Armageddon. Since it looked like she was going to be friends with Gideon again, it was probably time. “I suppose so. It’s been six months.”
He growled to show his frustration. His hand played idly at her knee. He ran it up her pajama bottoms so they were skin to skin. “You’re the most frustrating thing. Do you know what he was doing the morning you resigned?”
“Of course not.” She assumed he went into work and breathed a huge sigh of relief when he realized she was gone without a big scene.
“You would if you had been brave enough to face him. But no, you had to give me your letter of resignation and take the coward’s way out.”
She sat up, irritation flaring. “He made it plain…”
“I’m talking now.”
She settled back down. When he used that tone, she tended to do what he wanted. When he used that voice, she started to think of him as something more than a friend. “All right.”
“He was hurting. Anna had just broken up with him. It was so much worse than a broken engagement, but he needs to tell you that story. He was hurting. He was afraid, too.”
“Of getting hurt again?” There was an empty feeling in her gut. She hated how jealous she’d always been of the blonde socialite Gideon had planned to marry. Anna had been everything Jessica wasn’t—slender, polished, sophisticated. She and Gideon had made a gorgeous, golden couple.
“You don’t read the papers much, do you, love?” Reid’s fingers drummed against her thigh. “Everything would have been easier if you read the freaking society pages.”
Now he was losing her. “Why would I read that crap? I don’t care who showed up wearing what.”
“How about the lavish descriptions of weddings some people seem to love?”
She reached out and grabbed his hand as she finally got his point. “Anna married someone else.”
“Yes,” Reid sighed as though weary. “Anna Michaels is now the golden girl of Birmingham society.”
Her heart seized. Tears welled in her eyes at the humiliation Gideon must have gone through. “She left him for his brother?”
Reid nodded slowly. “Gideon hasn’t been welcome in his family since then. He wasn’t in love with Anna. Of that I am absolutely certain. But losing his family hurt him quite terribly. Even though they weren’t good to him, they were his.” He turned to her, looking her straight in the eyes. “I’m going to say the things to you I should have said then, but I was terrified you would leave me, too.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She cupped his face in her palms. “I love you. I would never leave you.”
She couldn’t imagine it. He was her best friend, her secret fantasy. Beyond any of that, Reid was the foundation of her world. He’d been that for years.
“Never say never,” he muttered under his breath. “You left Gideon pretty damn fast and when you cut him out, you didn’t look back.”
“That’s not fair. He wanted me to leave. He said he didn’t want me.”
“Yes, I’m sure he said a ton of things that were awful and hurt your feelings. Did you think about the fact that it was completely out of character for him to treat you that way? Had he ever treated you that way before?”
A sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. Gideon had never spoken to her that way before. Gideon had fired a contractor for being rude to her. Gideon walked her to her car at night. Gideon was a gentleman until that day. Now she thought about the desperation in his touch that night. He’d fallen on her like a starving man. “No. You know he was always protective of me.”
“He was your friend. Why did you run away? I don’t want to hear that bullshit about making it easy on him. You didn’t run away to keep the peace. You ran away to punish him.”