Page 47 of Finding Happily Ever After

“Wait. What?” His brain caught on one word. “Virginity? You lost your…you were a…”

“Yes!” She wiped her nose roughly with the back of her arm. “I was a virgin, okay? And I thought you were…oh God. I thought you were different and it was…”

Too many feelings flashed through him all at once. Panic that she would leave. Confusion that she wouldn’t hear him out. Hurt that she hadn’t trusted him with the secret that she was a virgin. Anger that she’d lied.A lie by omission.

But that wasn’t fair, was it? He hadn’t told her something, too. He hadn’t told her about Brenna. That was different. It wasn’t a…

Shit.He’d been rough. He’d been—dammit. He never would have taken her so hard had he known she was a virgin.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Nat?” He ran a hand through his coarse hair and tugged the ends a little. “I would have taken my time, and been—”

“That’s just it!”

She was sobbing uncontrollably and more than anything, Aiden wanted to pull her close to him and erase the last few minutes. To start over, in bed with her, only their naked bodies with nothing between them. Now there was so much between them.

Toomuch.

“You would have treated me differently,” she continued. “And I…it doesn’t matter. I made a mistake. You lied to me and—”

“You lied too.”

That stopped her.

“What?”

He crossed his arms, more to keep from reaching out to her—the need to touch her so undeniably strong—than anything else. “You lied, too,” he said again. “You didn’t tell me you were a virgin.”

“It’s not the same.”

It wasn’t. It was worse. Or maybe it wasn’t. He didn’t know. Everything was so jumbled up. He couldn’t think straight.

“You’remarried, Aiden!” Her hands fell to her sides and in that moment, with her coat over her bare legs, her hair still tousled from their night of passion and tears streaming down her face, she looked so lost and broken that it caused him physical pain not to touch her. “How could you be married?”

“I’m not married.”

“But Brenna—”

“Is my ex-wife.” His voice was gentle. “I’m not married, Natalie. I wouldn’t do that to you. I would never lie to you.”

A lie by omission.Hehadlied. And shehadlied.

They’d both kept something from the other person. Maybe he didn’t know much about relationships, but hedidknow that was the kiss of death. They were just starting out and they were already…it was too much. He couldn’t do it again. He couldn’t go through that type of relationship again.

And there it was.

This time he’d put a stop to it before it went too far.

They stood in silence for a moment, but finally Aiden shook his head. “Maybe you should just go.”

He regretted the words the moment they came out of his mouth. He didn’t want her to go. He wanted her to stay. He wanted them to talk about this so they could both explain. But also…

He’d spent too long cleansing himself of one bad relationship to jump back into another one that clearly wasn’t what he thought it would be. Maybe Natalie just wasn’t the woman he’d thought. And maybe he wasn’t ready yet either.

Damn. The idea that he could have been wrong about her, aboutthem,hit him in the gut. But there was no way. He couldn’t have been so wrong when it felt so…fuck.

“Natalie, I—”

“No.” She cut him off. “You’re right.” Again, she wiped her nose roughly with the sleeve of her coat. “I should go. This is…this was…”

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