‘She and Jasmine and a handful of others who always seemed to have some kind of agenda. Between them, they destroyed my faith in women, yes,’ he said flatly.
‘So you thought you’d put me to the test?’ she asked, still finding it hard to reconcile the warm attentive man she thought she’d got to know over the last few weeks with this cold, suspicious and obstinate version.
‘No. Of course not. You’re being ridiculous.’
‘I’m being ridiculous?’ she said, now feeling her anger beginning to fire at his constant denial of what she was beginning to think was transparently plain to see. ‘I’m not the one who’s letting eight-year-old hang-ups influence their life.’
‘No,’ he said, suddenly icy in his defensiveness, ‘you’re the one who let fifteen-year-old hang-ups influence her life.’
‘And I dealt with them,’ she said. ‘So why don’t you try dealing with yours? Because I don’t need to be put on trial.’
‘Can you honestly say you haven’t been putting me on trial too?’
It was the arched eyebrow that accompanied his words that did it. ‘Of course I can, you jerk,’ said Zoe, feeling her blood pressure hit the roof as she scraped her chair back and stood up. ‘If you wanted to have complete faith in me you could, because it’s there. So as much as you proclaim otherwise I don’t think it’s a case of not being able to trust women, I think it’s more that you just can’t bring yourself to. And ultimately it’s just safer not to try, isn’t it?’
Dan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you calling me a coward?’
‘Damn right I am.’
And with that she left.
TEN
What the hell did Zoe know about anything? thought Dan grimly, standing in the kitchen and listening to the slam of the front door echoing around the house. She didn’t know what it was like to have the heart ripped from you. To have the choice of parenthood removed without even a discussion. To feel so utterly betrayed by someone you thought you loved.
And as for all that crap about putting her to the test... She was being ridiculous because he wasn’t into games like that. He’d never seen the point and he didn’t need the stress. He couldn’t be bothered with games or the people who played them.
So why hadn’t he just asked her about the pregnancy test outright, then? Why had he waited for her to tell him?
The questions struck him like a blow and he glared at the floor, unable—no, unwilling—to answer them.
He tried to ignore them, but they hammered away until he had no choice but to address them. So he skirted round a vaguely possible response or two involving rubbish about wanting to give her time, it being her decision to tell him, blah blah blah. Weak answers and wholly wrong ones too.
Feeling the denial disintegrate beneath the pressure of the truth Dan caved. God, he had been testing her, hadn’t he? Unconsciously perhaps, but nevertheless he had been testing her, because he desperately wanted to be able to trust her.
So why didn’t he? Why couldn’t he? Was he a coward?
Maybe he was, he thought, narrowing his gaze at the floor, because Zoe was right. She hadn’t given him reason to doubt her once in the six or so weeks they’d known each other, and so maybe he ought to take a look at the evidence rather than letting his hang-ups screw up his judgement.
Zoe was very different from the other women he’d dated. She was honest and upfront and direct, and refreshingly straightforward. She didn’t play games and she didn’t dissemble. She’d said she’d wanted fun and passion, which was precisely what she’d gone for and precisely what she’d stuck with. She hadn’t let him down, and wouldn’t.
He’d thought a while ago that it had been time to address his wariness and cynicism with regards to women, and it seemed he couldn’t put it off any longer. Because what was he going to do? Spend the rest of his life alone just because he couldn’t bring himself to trust someone? If anything was ridiculous, that was. It would suggest that his past experiences had a grip on him that he couldn’t escape. That he was somehow beholden to them and the thought of being beholden to anything made his stomach churn.
He wanted Zoe. For how long he wasn’t sure, but if they were going to continue with this then he needed to address this problem he had with trust, and apologise. See if she’d be willing to forgive his idiocy and give him a second chance. Basically he needed to pull himself together, step up a gear and show her he could—and did—trust her.
Dragging his hands through his hair, Dan looked up and his gaze fell on the invitation to his cousin’s wedding that had landed on his doormat a month ago. When it had arrived he’d answered it, sorted the logistics, then propped it up on the mantelpiece and pretty much ignored it. Now, though, he was thinking about the ‘and Guest’ that followed his name.
Generally the idea of taking a date to a family event was about as appealing as swimming through soup. The grief he got from his mother and various random aunts about his perennial bachelorhood made his insides curdle at the best of times, and if he were to ever show up with a date at something they’d all have him up the aisle within seconds.
But maybe that was another hang-up he ought to get over, he thought, because making it his life’s mission to avoid the female side of his family was a bit pathetic for a man of thirty-three, surely.
He was the CEO of one of the country’s leading advertising agencies, for heaven’s sake. He managed people and handled challenges on a daily basis. Deflecting the speculation of female relatives—ignoring them if he had to—was something he should have no problem with.
Besides, he was sick of always going to these things by himself. Sick of being an object of speculation and talk, and the target of unwanted female attention.
So tomorrow he’d ask Zoe to go with him. Because he would ordinarily go alone, introducing her to his family would show her how much he liked and valued her. It would show he trusted her. It would certainly prove he wasn’t a coward. She might well say no—probably would, in fact, given his recent idiotic mule-headedness—but he’d just have to work on her, because, unless she genuinely didn’t want to go, now he was set on this course of action there’d be no dissuading him.
* * *