She sipped her wine slowly, and her voice was hesitant when she spoke, her brow furrowed. “The relationship was doomed from the start.”
“Was it? Why?”
She bit into her lower lip so even then, despite the suspicion that was running through his veins, he felt a rush of longing, a physical need borne of their insatiable chemistry. He quelled it. There were more important things to consider.
“We just weren’t compatible.”
Her answers were so guarded. She was doing everything she could not to discuss this, and yet he wouldn’t let it slide. He couldn’t. He transferred his attention to her other hand then dropped it, assured she’d scratched herself a little, but nothing worse.
“How long were you with him.”
“Almost a year.”
Nico concealed his surprise. “That sounds like a long time for a relationship that was doomed from the start.”
“What can I say? I’m a fighter.”
He didn’t turn to look at her. “Are you?”
Silence.
“Does your Yaya ever come here?”
He understood. She needed to retreat for a moment. He sipped his viognier, his eyes trained on the placid water that made up the surface of the ocean just off the coastline. “No. I think there are too many memories here for her.”
“Sad memories?”
“Even happy memories can cause a rush of nostalgia that is sad, at times.”
She was quiet again.
“How did you meet?”
“Meet who?”
“Your ex. What was his name?”
“I’d…” Her eyes flashed, then she looked down at her feet. “I’d prefer not to say it here.”
Certainty was a blade in his chest. It was such a strange response, but not if her ex had done something so heinous she couldn’t bear to invoke him by giving him a name.
“Okay.” He looked at her, smiling in what he hoped was a reassuring way. “So how did you two meet?”
“At a bar.” She fidgeted her free hand in her lap, her eyes trained on her fingers. “I’d been out with my editor. I was pretty buzzed on champagne.” She shook her head in a way that could only be described as self-condemnatory. “I’m sure you know the story.”
A muscle clenched in his jaw. Unfortunately, he did. For Nico’s part, he had some hard and fast rules in life and not sleeping with a woman who’d had enough to drink that she might not know her own mind was one of them. He liked his partners to be fully engaged in the moment, not affected by alcohol consumption.
But there were some men who felt the opposite, who saw tipsy women as easy quarry, who purposefully pursued women who had obviously been drinking. It fit the mental image he was building of Maddie’s ex that the guy would have been one of the latter.
“He was charming, and handsome, and funny.”
Despite the realisation he was having, Nico felt a burst of jealousy. It surprised him for its force and uniqueness – he was not prone to envy. “Love at first sight?”
“I think I probably thought so, back then. I don’t believe in anything so stupid now.”
“No,” he agreed with muted approval.
“I was…so naïve.”