Bachelor Unleashed - Brenda Jackson [48]
He knew now that she wasn’t as opposed to restarting their affair as she put on. But she was scared of letting her heart get broken again. So he knew he had to tread lightly but at the same time push harder…if that made sense.
“Are you afraid, Farrah? If you are, then I understand and totally agree that we should not pick up where we left off.”
He immediately saw the effect his words had on her. After her jaw dropped to the floor, she went still. He was convinced she was barely breathing. And her gaze intensified, focused on him. Her eyes zeroed in on him like he was the only thing in their laser beam’s target. From the distance separating them, he felt her anger, but he also felt her fear. He actually saw it in her eyes, and he knew at that moment what he’d assumed was right. She was falling in love with him, but was fighting it tooth and nail. She would never, ever admit such a thing.
So he stood there watching her, waiting to see how she planned on getting out of the neat little box he’d just placed her in.
Chapter 11
Think, Farrah!
She nibbled on her bottom lip as she tried unscrambling her brain, refusing to admit Xavier had hit a nerve, which automatically put her on the defensive. “Me? Not being able to control my emotions and fall in love? Please. That is the last thing you, or any man, have to worry about, trust me.”
He shrugged. “If you say so.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. Did he honestly think she’d fall in love with him? Okay, she would admit—although never to him—that she had ended things between them because she’d had feelings for him and had been uncomfortable with those newfound emotions. But she would never let any man suspect she was afraid of losing her heart.
She threw her head back, sending her hair flying over her shoulders. “I’m going to only say this once and I hope you’re listening, Xavier. The last thing you have to worry about, and the one thing I am not afraid of, is falling in love with you or any man. I’ve been there, done that and you can believe I’ll never go that way again.”
“In that case, I see no reason for us not to continue our affair beyond the holidays. In other words, there is no reason not to go back to things being the way they were. And in addition, I see no reason why we can’t bring our affair out of the bedroom and start going out more…unless there’s a reason you prefer not being seen with me.”
Farrah’s head was spinning dizzily with everything Xavier was saying. But she was coherent enough to latch on to his last statement. “For what reason would I not want to be seen with you?”
“That you’re still pining away for your ex-husband and you don’t want him to know you’re in a relationship with someone.”
If Farrah hadn’t been programmed to act in a dignified manner, especially when discussing such an important topic, she would have fallen to the floor and rolled over a few times in laughter. Anyone who knew her and Dustin’s history knew there was no way that she was pining for her ex. In fact, whenever she saw him, she wondered why she’d fallen in love with him in the first place. It’s not that he’d ever had anything going for him that was so spectacular. But while they’d been in college, he had convinced her he was the best thing since sliced bread and that he would be going places.
She had believed he loved her, wanted to spend the rest of his life with her and they would stay together forever. She didn’t even mind during their first year when he couldn’t get a job and she had supported the both of them, or the times she’d put up with his deadbeat parents whose way of life was calling for loans and not paying them back.
“So, did I hit it out of the ballpark, Farrah?”
She could only assume he figured that because she hadn’t yet responded to his statement. “You didn’t come close, Xavier. In fact, you struck out so bad they are replacing you in the game entirely. There is no way I’d ever get back with Dustin, nor do I want to.”
She didn