Heated Rush - Leslie Kelly [68]
Annie didn’t reply at first. Instead, she wearily removed her sunglasses, pushing them onto her head as if wanting him to see her eyes, to read the truth there.
If he hadn’t already left the back road and entered a busy highway, he would have pulled over to do exactly that. But as it was, he kept his face forward, waiting for her to say whatever it was she was trying to find the words for.
“Yes,” she finally admitted, “there was a Blake.”
His jaw flexing, he strove to remain detached, impersonal. She had, after all, hired him for this weekend. So he shouldn’t have expected her to be honest about what the hell was really going on. Or to be wounded now when he found out she had not.
“I see. He was your last lover?” God, he hated using that word in connection with anyone else who’d ever touched Annie.
“No. Not my lover.”
It wasn’t until he released his breath in a slow whoosh that he realized he’d been holding it, waiting for her to answer.
“We dated, but it had never gone that far.”
The dull tone in her voice told him it had gone far enough. Far enough to wound, to hurt. Far enough to leave a scar.
Forcing his own feelings out of the mix, he reached for her hand and twined his fingers with hers. “What happened?”
“He was married.”
Stunned, Sean couldn’t help gritting his teeth. Annie didn’t seem the type. She was so honest, so open and sweet.
Not that he was about to pass judgment, not given his own history. Jesus, many of the women he’d been with had been the bored wives of husbands who’d paid Sean to keep them company.
Still, the idea of Annie being a part of anything like that stung. Deeply. “I see.”
She released his hand, as if feeling him draw away, if only mentally. “No, you don’t. I didn’t know he was married.”
Annie went on to tell him the whole story, speaking quickly, and every word she said increased his anger. By the time she’d finished, his hands were clenched so tightly around the steering wheel they actually hurt.
“So he used his baby boy to get in your good graces, to soften you up for the poor abandoned father. Then tried to lie his way into your bed.”
“Pretty much.”
Son of a bitch. Sean would like to have his tight hands around the man’s throat, rather than this impersonal padded wheel. This Blake deserved to be throttled by someone who knew how to do the job.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth,” she admitted. “It’s just very humiliating. I’m ashamed and embarrassed.”
“And horrified at the very prospect of your parents finding out,” he said, knowing instantly that it was true.
“Oh, you’ve no idea!”
Having just spent a weekend with the Davises, he had a very good idea. “What exactly did your mother say?”
Annie sniffed a little, then chuckled, as if not sure whether to cry or laugh with the relief of having gotten the whole sordid story off her chest. “She told me she couldn’t think of a single ‘nickname’ that sounded like Blake.”
Yeah, that hadn’t been his best cover.
“And that while she didn’t appreciate the deception…”
“Yes?”
Clearing her throat, she admitted, “She said judging by the way you and I looked at each other, there were real feelings between us, and she thought we could be very happy together.”
Real feelings. Very happy. Together. Him and Annie. As in, happy as a couple, a genuine one. Marriage, family, a home. All the things he’d never envisioned for himself, things he’d been running from since the day he’d turned twenty-one.
And all were things he knew Annie truly wanted, on her own terms, after she’d seen the world.
Annie said nothing else. Instead she pulled her sunglasses back down over her eyes, and tilted her head back to let the hot sun fall onto her face, as if she wanted to take a nap.
In truth, she was giving him space, not forcing him to say a word. Not that he would have known what to say. So he merely continued to drive.
With every mile that passed beneath the wheels of the car, Sean felt the subtle pull of his real life. The closer they came to Chicago, the more that life drew him back, reminding him of the choices he’d made.
Choices that had