Page 55 of The Hookup
“So you had the cute little boy thing going for you?”
Savannah shrugged. “Jacob helped, yes, but I didn’t use my son to ensnare Tobias.”
“I’m kidding, Sav. Where’s your sense of humor?”
“Sorry. I get asked all sorts of stupid questions from women who still think I’m a gold-digger.”
“Bitches.”
“Yes, you’d be surprised at the reaction I get from some women.”
“Go on,” Kay prompted. “You didn’t think he was good-looking at first, so how did things develop?”
“We had months of … moments.”
“Moments?”
A smile lit up Savannah’s face as if this conversation had picked her up and set her back in those early heady days of getting to know Tobias Stone. “We shared those looks, those smiles, those quiet moments…it was all unspoken, so sexy and yet so frustrating at the same time, trying to figure out if he could see, and sense what I was feeling and thinking.”
“What were you feeling and thinking?”
“That he was an intense man, he was cold, and stand-offish, and yet he was so gentle and caring with Jacob. He drew me in slowly. I wasn’t desperate to find a partner. I didn’t focus on any of that. I just wanted a better life for Jacob. My son had seen so many nasty things, I wanted happier times for him. He was my focus, my everything. That’s all I wanted.”
“And you ended up with everything. The perfect man, the perfect life. The perfect future. Married to a billionaire, for goodness sake, Sav!”
“It was never about his wealth and status. You knew more about him than I did!” She fiddled around with her glistening rock of a ring on her finger. “Because even if all the riches fell away, and the external trappings were gone, it wouldn’t matter to me. I would be happy with Tobias wherever we were. I was happy with Colt, once, at the beginning. Even in our cramped little apartment, with both of us struggling to make ends meet, even when he still had a job. I was so happy.”
Kay understood that, to a degree, but she had never been short of money, and had never needed a man to give her security. Having the kind of body that interested men, it was her experience that they often didn’t know what to make of her. Men couldn’t handle beauty and brains, and her ample breasts completely confused them. She had to fight her corner at work just to prove that she was good at her job, when often the danger was that men saw her as nothing but eye candy.
It had stemmed from school, in her teenage years. Her fast changing body had made her one of the first in her class to warrant attention from hormonal and spotty teenage boys.
Somewhere along the line, after college, that message had become engrained. It was easy enough to get attention, but after a while something told her thatthattype of attention was a hindrance, not a help.
When she got interviews for prestigious jobs, it was her brain that got her a foot in the door, but it was her figure and looks that often got her noticed by men higher up. She would be lying if she said she hadn’t used her flirting powers to her benefit. But once she was in, it was her brain that ensured she was seen as a formidable employee.
“But how did you know?” she pressed. “How did you know he wasthe one?”
Savannah’s smile lit up her face. “Because of things he did. Because actions speak louder than words,always. It’s not what a man says, it’s what he does for you.”
It’s what he does for you.
Luke hadn’t done anything for her, not anything romantic. She swallowed and looked away, fearful that her cousin might look at her and see what she was trying to keep away from her. She had a crazy notion that Luke would change and see that she was worthy of being loved, but hearing Savannah talk like this about her own experience, sowed seeds of doubt in her head.
Savannah patted her arm, as if to reassure her. “You’ll get your Mr. Right, too, especially now that you’re not looking for him. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that you’re so busy at work right now you don’t have time to think about anything else.”
“Some days I don’t see it as a blessing.”
“But you still love what you do?”
She had always loved her job, had always seen herself as a career woman, but lately, more so after Savannah had gotten engaged, she’d started to think about wanting more. “It’s something to do, isn’t it?” At the end of the day, her job was a means to an end. She didn’t hate it, she didn’t always love it, but there was something missing from her life, and looking at Savannah only served to make that void larger than ever.
“You wait and see, the right man is out there, Kay. He might even be waiting in the sidelines right now. It’s a matter of timing. And, if you don’t go chasing him, you might find he comes looking for you.”
Savannah was so Pollyanna about romance, it sometimes made Kay want to retch. She wanted to tell her that things didn’t always work out well for most people but she didn’t say anything. Savannah was over-the-moon happy, annoyingly so, and there was no point in having a debate about real love, or asserting that it wasn’t possible for everyone.
But she wondered what her cousin would think if she ever found out about her and Luke and the arrangement they had. What would Savannah think if she discovered that Kay was with a man who was so inaccessible, that he couldn’t give her anything of himself, except his body? Everything they had was purely physical.
Luke couldn’t commit.Wouldn’tcommit, and that was what she was up against.
