Page 78 of The Grumpy Billionaire
From what Reid had said, he clearly believed there had been many guys in my life—and in my bed.
It was time. If we were going to sleep together, and it seemed inevitable in this moment, I needed to tell him the truth about the others. I mean, he was probably worried about contracting some sort of disease from me.
“I didn’t sleep with them.”
“What?” Reid’s momentary look of confusion shifted to shock.
I took a breath, gathering the courage to admit what I hadn’t told Heidi or Kenley or anyone.
“I didn’t have sex with those guys. Not even close. I just… let everyone think that, because it kept me safe.”
I sat down on my bed, and Reid sat beside me, staring at my face with an expression so alert he looked like someone who’d had a few too many Red Bulls.
“Why would you want people to think that?” he asked. “How would that keep you safe?”
I shrugged. “Once you get a reputation for playing around, for dating dumb, pretty guys and being sort of ‘Wham bam thank you sir’… no one expects anything else from you. I didn’t want to get involved with anyone in college. Or in any of the towns I worked in. I wanted to just do my thing and have fun with my friends, keep things casual. Right at first, freshman year, I went out with a couple of nice guys. But they wanted to get serious after a while. They wantedrelationships.So I started turning down the nice guys and saying ‘yes’ to guys who weren’t looking for anything serious.”
“Wow,” Reid said, looking at me with a sort of awe. “I have literally never heard a woman say anything like that. So… how did you avoid sleeping with them, then?”
I lifted my shoulders and let them fall. “I just didn’t. The first time we’d go out, I’d say I wasn’t ready. A date or two later, I’d say I just wasn’t feeling it, and we’d never go out again.”
“Weren’t they pissed?”
“Probably. But I didn’t care. I’m sure everyone assumed we were having sex. I didn’t care about that, either. It suited my purpose to be seen as a serial boyfriend recycler.”
Reid nodded his understanding. “And these guys, these ‘himbos’ as you called them, they weren’t about to contradict that assumption because it would make them look bad if other guys knew they hadn’t closed the deal with you.”
“Exactly.”
“Wow,” Reid said again, clearly trying to wrap his brain around this revelation. “So then… you haven’t slept with anyone since…”
I hated the hopefulness in his voice. “No, I have. There was one guy freshman year at Stanford—one of the nice ones. We went out a few times. I liked him. Of course he wanted to, and I thought that if I slept with him it might... help me.”
Reid’s eyes focused in on mine with a ferocity that was almost intimidating. “Help you how?”
And now we enter the danger zone, ladies and gentlemen.
Did I dare to tell him the truth? No matter how hard I’d tried to hide from him, I couldn’t seem to help myself. I took a deep breath, my heart thrashing like a drunk resisting arrest on one of our news clips.
“I thought it might help me… to get over you. That if I slept with someone else, it would maybe erase the memory of being with you.” I swallowed. “But it didn’t work. In fact it made things worse… so I gave up on that.”
There was absolutely no sound in the room. Reid stared at me as if in a trance.
“Mara,” he whispered. His eyes were fierce, as if he were on the edge of losing his last shred of control.
“All this time… I thought you didn’t care at all. I was so disgusted with myself for not being able to get over you when you’d moved on so easily. I hated you for being able to just turn it off like a switch, for walking away and never looking back.”
“I tried,” I confessed. “I tried so hard not to look back. I’ve been running so hard.”
“Why?” His voice was a choked cry. He sounded like a man who’d reached the end of his own strength. “Why did you run away from me?”
Those stupid tears were back. One slipped down my cheek as I answered him.
"I didn’t think I had a choice. I was scared, Reid. You know how my father felt about us dating. The morning after graduation, after we—well, he found out. He told me I couldn’t see you anymore. He said if I did… he would hurt you.”
I choked a little on the painful lump in my throat and had to swallow before continuing.
“He meant it. I could tell he did. He said if I saw you again, if I gave you any hope, he’d have you arrested and convicted and sent to prison on some kind of made-up charges. He said he’d make sure you could never find a job or a place to live. I didn’t know what to do. I knew if I told you, you’d just try to find a way for us to keep seeing each other. You would have said it was worth the risk. But it wasn’t… not to me. I couldn’t risk your life—your entire future just because I selfishly wanted to be with you. I loved you too much for that.”
