Page 441 of His Virgin Romance Series

“Of course, he denies it,” Gregory nodded. “Because he’s very clearly in denial. The man’s a fool. He insists that he has no feelings for you, he insisted as much this morning, too, and yet he can’t contain his rage when he sees you with another man.”

“What happened this morning?” I asked, jumping on that.

“Seth visited me in my suite,” Gregory said, flashing me a smile. “Basically he wanted me to stay away from you.”

“Did he give you a reason as to why?”

“He said it was because he felt a brotherly obligation to protect you from the likes of me,” he said. “He feels that I’m not good enough for you.”

“He said that?” I asked, horrified.

“He most definitely did,” Gregory nodded. He seemed amused rather than offended. “He was in quite the mood, too.”

I shook my head. “I don’t get him.”

“He’s a complicated man,” Gregory agreed. “But he’s also a man who’s never committed to a woman his entire life. I think the thought terrifies him. I think that deep down he knows that he can’t just get away with a fling if he gets involved with you. He knows it will lead to something—and he’s terrified.”

“That can’t be the reason.”

“I think it absolutely is,” Gregory nodded. “But one thing is certain, and that is that he has feelings for you. He probably has for some time, based on his reaction.”

“Could it possibly be that he says what he means?” I suggested. “Maybe this really is just brotherly concern. I mean, it’s not like he reacted like that to any of the other men I dated.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“He didn’t know any of those men,” Gregory explained. “He couldn’t vouch for them one way or the other. And the fact that you never dated the same man twice might have made him complacent. It shows that you were never serious about anyone. But I think he sees you differently now.”

I frowned. “I don’t know about that.”

“Trust me,” Gregory assured me. “He realizes… He’s just stubborn. He doesn’t want to give in to his feelings for you because he’s convinced himself that it would only lead to disaster.”

I sighed. “I don’t know why I’m continuing with this plan of Alani’s,” I said. “What does it serve? I’ve been thinking about the possibility of Seth and me for a while now and…”

“And?”

“It’s very possible that it would end badly,” I admitted. “We’re so different.”

“Maybe that’s why it’ll work out between you,” he said. “My wife and I were polar opposites, too.”

I looked at him in surprise. “You’re married?”

“Was,” he corrected quickly. “I was married. We’re divorced now.”

“Oh.”

“We got married really young,” he explained. “We were both still in college, and we eloped in Vegas one day on a whim. It was the most spontaneous thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. We were as different as night and day, but that was made the relationship interesting. All the differences between us is what created the passion and the fire that made our lives fun.”

I raised my eyebrows. “But you got divorced,” I pointed out gently.

He smiled. “Because we let the little things get to us,” he said. “Because we were too young. And too immature to realize what it took to make a marriage work. We started to get on each other’s nerves. We decided to quit instead of fight, and in the end… We ended things prematurely. I was only twenty-two when the divorce was finalized.”

“It sounds like you regret the decision,” I pointed out.

“I do sometimes,” he nodded. “In a way, my way of escaping the pain of the divorce was to bury myself in work. Which is probably the reason I became so successful. But sometimes I can’t keep thinking that if I’d chosen differently, I’d be living a quiet life in the suburbs with my wife, a couple of kids, and a minivan parked in the drive.”

“Where is she now?” I asked.

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