And then he’d said it meant nothing. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. This is what she got for letting people in.
“Arianna?” he murmured. He’d put the privacy screen up so Joe couldn’t hear them.
She kept her gaze down on her fuzzy-clad feet. She was wearing the cutest bunny slippers. When he’d realized that she couldn’t stand to put her high-heeled boots back over the small burns on her feet, Tom had given her these. He’d told her they were brand new, that he’d bought them for his wife. She’d objected to taking them, but Tom had assured her he could get a new pair.
She loved them. Tom had been so kind to her. She’d have to do something for him.
She sighed. She was so lonely. Maybe that’s why she’d made the mistake of kissing Bain. It couldn’t be that she was attracted to the asshole.
Except, he wasn’t always an asshole. That was the problem. Sure, he could be a bossy, arrogant prick. Then other times, he could be funny and kind.
Which was the real Bain?
“Arianna, look at me.”
Nope. Nuh-uh. No way.
“You can’t ignore me forever.”
Just try me.
Wasn’t like he’d be around forever, anyway. He was leaving soon. Sooner the better as far as she was concerned.
Right. You keep telling yourself that, Ari.
“Fine. Guess we can have this talk without you looking at me. Might be easier anyway.”
She stayed scrunched up against the door, staring down at her fuzzy slippers. She wondered if they made puppy ones.
“I was married. Her name was Jillian.”
Why was he telling her this? What happened?
“We were childhood sweethearts. I was the quarterback for our football team. Jillian was a cheerleader. It was meant to be, everyone said. A perfect love story. I thought so too. When we left high school, neither of us were that interested in college. I joined the Navy. Jillian started working in a shoe store. I thought we were happy. Saving for a deposit for a small house. Then we’d have kids. It was going to take us a while to get there, but I thought we had shared goals.”
She chewed her lower lip, wondering what went wrong.
“Seems Jillian didn’t share those goals. Only she didn’t let me know. I was away a lot. Training and overseas deployments. Left all our accounts in her hands. If she went out and bought some pretty things, I didn’t mind. Wanted her to be happy.”
“What happened?” she whispered.
He let out a small sigh. “The money I thought we’d saved for a deposit didn’t exist. She’d been running up credit cards and personal loans and never told me. She rang me, told me she’d been laid off, in tears worried about what would happen. Told her it would be all right, I’d take care of her.” He tapped his fingers against his leg. “First of many lies as it turns out. Seems she was always late getting to work. And there was money missing out of the till. No proof it was her, but she was fired. Once she was gone, the money stopped disappearing.”
“Oh no. What did you do?”
“Confronted her. That’s when I discovered the true state of our accounts. And all the lies. Jillian didn’t want the small house with the two kids and the dog. She wanted a mansion. She wanted flashy cars and expensive shoes. A life I couldn’t afford to give her.”
Oh no.
“She wanted a divorce. Took me years to get myself out of debt. Credit cards had been in both of our names. She’d forged my signature. Ended up leaving the Navy, taking a job at JSI. Gave me back a family. A home.”
He cleared his throat. “I don’t talk to anyone about that. About her.”
So why had he told her? Because he wanted her to understand why he wasn’t interested in her? She guessed to him she must represent everything he hated. Everything that had cost him his wife.
Thing is, she’d give all of this up in a heartbeat just to be happy. To have someone who loved her just for her.
Maybe he thinks you’re like Jillian. Maybe he thinks you only care about material things.