Page 33 of Lessons in Heartbreak

“Maybe you could ask why I hired ... James.”

I nodded slowly. “I could do that. You’re going to answer honestly if I do?”

Ruby nodded as well. Shorter and jerkier than mine, but enough so that I believed her.

“Okay. Why did you hire an escort, Ruby?”

She took a deep breath and finally met my gaze evenly. “I didn’t hire him for sex.”

“Excellent, because that’s incredibly illegal and I don’t think you’d last long in jail.” Then I assessed her with a shrewd look. “Actually, I take that back. You’d probably go in there and have all those women wrapped around your little finger on day one.”

Her reaction made me realize just how often Ruby sighed in my presence.

It was a lot.

“Oh yeah,” I continued. “You’d be holding court by the end of the first week. Ruling with an iron fist. No mercy. They’d be bending over backwards to be in your favor.”

“Are you done yet?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Hang on. Let me picture you in orange.”

Ruby started to get up, and I laughed, asking her to wait. She froze, that wariness back in her eyes. Holding up my finger, I paused for a second, then nodded. “Okay. Now I’m done.”

“I’m thrilled to hear that.” Seeing one of her eyebrows arched imperiously, I had to fight to hide a grin. Picking on her was fun. More fun than I’d had in a while. “I hired him for confidence. Take me on afew practice dates. Teach me what to do when you want something ... specific from a man. And then he was going to talk me through those specific things,” she answered delicately.

Sitting back on the couch, I extended an arm, much like I’d done on the bench. “Like sex.”

“Sort of,” she hedged. “I don’t ... I don’t have much experience, and what experience I do have isn’t good.”

Her eyes met mine, and hell if I didn’t feel it like a lightning bolt down my spine.

Arm dropping off the back of the couch, I leaned forward and kept my gaze steady on hers. “Someone hurt you, birdy?” I asked quietly, steadily, no hint of the violent reaction churning and thrashing under the surface. “You can tell me who.”

I might not have given any outward hints, but there was a flicker in her eyes that told me she heard it anyway.

“Not physically,” she answered. “You can stow the caveman reaction for the time being.”

Hands clenched in tight fists, I managed to sit back again. “I can understand wanting more experience, in that case.”

She nodded. “I need someone to make me ... sexier. More worldly. Help me get enough confidence where I don’t feel like I’ll jump out of my skin if someone touches me.”

“And you think I can help you with that?” I asked in a rough voice.

After a visible swallow, Ruby nodded again, more slowly this time. “When I was out with ...”

“Jimmy James the hooker,” I finished.

She gave me a long look, but the edges of her mouth curled up slightly. “James. I didn’t feel comfortable. Not even a little. He tried to talk to me and ask me questions, and I could tell he was smooth and used to being charming with women, but ...” Her shoulders shook slightly.

“But he gave you the ick.”

Ruby blinked. “Yes. He did.”

I nodded gravely. “You can’t ignore the ick when it happens. There’s no overcoming that with the opposite sex.”

She leaned forward, urgency lighting her eyes. “Ialwaysfeel like that, Griffin.”

My brows lowered. “Always?”

---