Page 54 of Fit for Love

I grit my teeth.“Why would I lie?”

She shrugs.“To make me feel safer about having slept with you?”

I blow out a breath.“Youshouldfeel perfectly safe.Hell, I’ll show you my clean bill of sexual health as soon as there’s internet.”

She waves that away.“Just because you never caught an STD doesn’t mean you didn’t stick a condom-shielded cock into every hole in Manhattan.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose.“If you had bothered to get to know me, you wouldn’t be saying all this.”

Is that a glimmer of doubt in her eyes?

“Listen,” she says.“Who you sleep with—or not—isn’t any of my business.It was just… I felt like there was something between us that day, and when that woman told me about your ‘situation’, I felt?—”

“But again,” I say insistently.“What she told you is something that’s in the past.”

She scoffs.“How would you have felt if our roles were reversed?If some guy had told you I?—”

“Short of learning that you were a sex worker or something, I would’ve spoken to you.”

Her expression reminds me of the recent storm.“So… sleeping with a training client, you don’t consider that sex work?More importantly, ifIwere a sex worker, you would’ve ghosted me?”

Why do women like to trap men with such hypotheticals?This is just like when an ex-girlfriend asked if I would’ve slept with Marilyn Monroe—and then started a huge fight with me because I said yes.

“If some guy told me such a thing about you, I’d give you the benefit of the doubt,” I say carefully.

More like I would’ve beaten the truth out of the fucker, but we don’t need to get into that.

Her eyes turn into slits.“And if you knew that I was, without any doubt?”

Deeper into hypotheticals?What’s next: If we got married and I suffocated as I was giving you the best blow job in history, would you remarry?“I guess in such a scenario, I would have a problem with your job,” I tell her.

“Is that so?”

“If you were mine, I would not share you with anyone else,” I say with finality.

She narrows her eyes.“What if I needed the money?”

Seriously?“There are other hypothetical ways to make money.”

“You sound just like a pampered Vancroft,” she says, words dripping with disdain.“You’ve clearly never had to work for anything in your life.Everything’s been handed to you on a silver platter.”

I glare at her.“I’ve worked my ass off for what I have.”

“Ass?Are you sure it wasn’t your dick?”

My jaw ticks.“I think you’ve gotten so used to hating me that you’re just looking for any excuse to do so.”

“More like someone doesn’t like the truth.”

I blow out a frustrated breath.“What truth?”

“That your family is old money,” she states.“And didn’t you complain about the ‘revenue growth’ of your business—like it’s a bad thing?”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” I say.

My family cut me off when I dropped out of business school and chose my own path in life.What I’ve made of my business I’ve done on my own.If it were up to my parents, I’d be married to Gwyneth and working for my father.Do I hate it that my choice inadvertently led to riches?Yes, I do—because it’s made my parents far too happy and proud of me.

Money is how they measure a person’s worth in life, and I’ve finally become worthy in their eyes.But that’s neither here nor there.

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