“There’s nothing to think about,” he said dismissively. “You were on the rebound. We hung out.”
“Wow.” Hearing him distill what they’d shared into such simplistic, unemotional terms was like being kicked in the chest. She actually flinched. She’d spent four blissful weeks having her heart stitched back together, until it beat only for Grayson, and he’d just been ‘hanging out’. For Abby, Charlotte had been born out of love, but for Gray, it had been nothing. Nothing.
Was this a mistake? Maybe her first instinct had been right? Telling him the truth wouldn’t achieve anything. She didn’t want his money, even when she had to scramble to make ends meet. And he clearly didn’t want to be a dad.
“Maybe this was a mistake.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you got me here to say, and I’ll help you decide if it was a mistake.”
“Then the horse will have bolted.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“Probably.”
“What if I guess?”
“I doubt you will.”
“Let’s see. You want to start things back up again?”
Her heart stammered. “No. That’s not it.”
“Because I had fun last month, but I think it’s best if we leave the past in the past.”
And out of nowhere, the sting of hurt lashed her. She hadn’t come here wanting to rebuild a relationship with him, but his preemptive rejection stung like hell.
“You are such an arrogant jerk.”
He lifted his thick, dark brows.
“I didn’t ask you here to ‘start things up again’. I learned my lesson two years ago.”
Thankfully, he wasn’tsoarrogant that he reminded her of the alley again.
“Then why did you call?”
She expelled an angry breath, knowing she just needed to blurt this out and move on with her life. She couldn’t stand another sleepless night, another moment of self-recrimination and blame. “When I found out that Eric had cheated on me, I was devastated. I thought I loved him, and to have to cancel the wedding a week before it was meant to happen. Well, suffice it to say, I was in a pretty vulnerable place when I met you.”
“I know.” His tone of gentle sympathy surprised her.
“I wasn’t looking for anything to happen between us. I mean, Eric and I were together five years. We were high school sweethearts. He was my first kiss, my first lover, my first everything.” Heat flooded her cheeks and she stared at the table, so missed the tightening of his expression. “But then I met you and you made everything seem better. I thought we could just have fun together, that I deserved that after what I’d gone through with Eric.”
“I wanted that for you, too.”
“And it was fun. But even then, I got to know you. I got to understand you. All the little things, like how you like your coffee and your eggs, to some of the bigger things,” she frowned, remembering how cagey he could be about his time in Iraq, his family, his upbringing. “Enough to know that you didn’t want the white picket fence life I did.”
His only response was a slight narrowing of his eyes.
“And when you dumped me, you spelled that out, over and over again. Do you remember?”
His jaw tightened and he nodded once.
“I mean, I guess you thought you were being kind, because you got to know me, too. And you knew that I wanted everything I’d never had as a little girl. Happy marriage, babies, a house with a yard, a Labrador. Everything.”
He took a drink of his coffee, his eyes staying locked to hers. “I wanted that for you.”
“But you were never going to be that man for me.”