Page 42 of An Inconvenient Plan
She pushed some potatoes around on her plate. “I don’t have any secrets. You make it sound so sinister.”
“Don’t wimp out.”
She scowled. “I’m not a wimp.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“There’s nothing to tell, really. My love life…” She finished her wine in one long swallow. “I, uh, dated, nothing serious. In high school, guys wanted bragging rights they’d been with me and, once I was made aware of this by a friend, I was careful to keep my distance for my own safety.”
He sat ramrod straight, his brows furrowed in concern. “Hailey, that’s terrible. Did you tell anyone? Wasn’t there anyone looking out for you?”
“Well, I didn’t have an overprotective big brother around, if that’s what you mean. My mom said that was how men were and she advised me to flirt and be the unobtainable one. She wasn’t wrong. I was definitely better off for it. No one wants to be used or abused like that.”
“What about your friends?”
“Looking back, hindsight, right? They weren’t true friends. I was the most popular girl in school, homecoming queen, prom queen, head cheerleader, that whole deal, a lot of pretty friends, but I think my girl friends all secretly wanted to bring me down a peg. They were jealous of my clothes—most of which my mom got at a steep discount from the boutique she worked at—my beauty-pageant wins, and the attention I got from the news.”
His lips formed a flat line, his expression grim. “Were things better in college?”
She nodded. “That’s when I met Liam, late in my freshman year. I had decided college was when I’d start dating for real, figuring guys were more mature then and I wouldn’t be part of some macho contest, you know, who nailed the beauty queen. So I dated a bit and I got disappointed a lot, thinking something might be developing only to find once they got to know me better, they weren’t all that interested. Probably didn’t help that I wasn’t comfortable getting physical right away. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested or curious, it was just that I needed some emotion to go with it. I guess I just wanted to feel loved.”
“So Liam gave you that.”
She exhaled sharply. “Liam was a nice guy. He was up front that he liked my looks and only wanted something casual. He felt familiar, safe, probably because we resembled each other in looks—same color hair, blue eyes, fair skin—there’s your psychologist dream session right there. Ha! My standards for men were low and I was tired of being a virgin. So…we hooked up. It wasn’t love, but it was a relationship of sorts. We were on and off again for years through college and until very recently. We get along really well, he’s very cultured and sophisticated, and part of me thought one day it would turn to love, but…it didn’t. I finally ended it a little over six months ago because I realized I wanted something more.”
He took a sip of wine, his eyes never leaving hers. “You’ve only slept with one man?”
“That’s what you got out of my story?”Hello? I want a real relationship. Something more is where you come in.
“One man?”
“Yes.”
Josh stared at her for a very long time. She fidgeted with her cloth napkin, folding it in neat creases one way and then refolding it in the opposite direction. He knew she was twenty-seven and he was judging her for her inexperience. He’d probably been with thirty women, no, forty, hundreds! He was a pig.
She crumpled her napkin in a tight fist. “How many women have you been with?”
He glanced at her fist and back to her eyes. “Are you telling me the romance-obsessed, self-proclaimed love junkie, matchmaking wedding planner has never been in love?”
Damn his sharp mind. Look at how quickly he put the pieces together from friends-with-benefits to her embarrassing flaw. She set her napkin in her lap and smoothed it out. He remained quietly judging her.
She lifted her head and tapped the table with both hands. “Let’s talk about something else.”
He took her hand and held it. “How was I so wrong about you?”
She let out a breath of quiet relief. Maybe he wasn’t judging her. “You saw what you wanted to see, I guess.”
“I saw what youletme see. And now you’re letting me in. I like this version of you.”
She let out a small nervous laugh. It felt like he was gazing at her soft underbelly, an uncomfortably vulnerable feeling.
He grinned. “And it’s sweet that you want me to be the second man you sleep with.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “I thought this was going to be slow burn.”
“It is. I just like knowing it.”
They finished dinner in charged silence. All she could think about was what came next. How slow was slow burn? Was she going to have to be satisfied with a chaste goodnight kiss, or could she tempt him for more without setting herself up for yet another rejection?
