One Wild Wedding Night_ No Way Out - Leslie Kelly [7]
“Oh, didn’t she tell you about her visit to my granny’s house? Where she outed me as the little whore who tried to trap her grandson by getting herself knocked up?”
“V, that did not happen.” He frowned deeply, appearing astonished by the accusation. “That could not have happened.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m a liar,” she spat, seeing his stunned disbelief. The man lived in
his own world and had obviously grown used to forgetting the truth and justifying his actions. “I guess I imagined it, huh?” Shaking her head in disgust, she turned to head for the exit.
“V…” He reached out and put a hand on her arm, just a light touch, but Vanessa flinched like she’d been grabbed.
“Don’t. Just don’t. We’re done.”
Without letting another foolish word leave her mouth or traitorous sensation wrest control of her body from her brain, she brushed past him, heading for the exit. As she left, she never once looked back at the boy from her past, completely confident she’d removed all thoughts of him from her future.
* * *
Stan stayed in the bar for a half hour after Vanessa left. Thinking. Wondering. Remembering.
Fortunately, everyone left him alone. There’d been plenty of witnesses to his confrontation with Vanessa and he imagined all of them were dying to tell their Chicago Bears-loving friends how the big-shot California quarterback got socked by a woman.
The pain in his jaw had faded right away, but the pain caused by the memories Vanessa had forced him to confront did not. Damn, maybe she had the right to hate his guts. He had done exactly what she said—taken her virginity, then left, promising to come back the next summer for a whole month of romance. Promising to keep in touch, to call, to write.
He hadn’t. Not after a couple of weeks.
He’d like to say there was a big misunderstanding, that he’d lost the address, forgotten how to dial a telephone. But it wouldn’t be true.
When Vanessa had stopped writing, he hadn’t made any effort to find out why. He’d pushed her out of his thoughts and his mind intentionally, just as his father had asked him to.
But what she’d said about his grandmother…was it possible? Could that actually have happened?
Thinking back on that time, he realized that yes, it was definitely possible. God, no wonder she hated his guts.
Though he’d been too screwed up in the head to think straight at the time, he knew now that he’d made some pretty serious mistakes. What he’d done to Vanessa was the greatest one. And, oh, did he regret it.
Especially now, having seen her again. Because the feisty, tomboyish girl had become one incredibly beautiful, sensuous woman. Even now, sitting alone at the table she’d vacated, he was still aroused by her. Still kept picturing her flashing eyes, that wicked mouth. And, oh, the body. She was no longer the skinny girl with the pretty little breasts he’d have about died to taste when he was a teenager. Those beautiful curves would overflow his big hands as he plumped them and sucked on her sensitive brown nipples.
And Lord have mercy, judging by the slit in that dress, she had legs that went all the way up.
Not that he’d ever find out.
“She put you in your place,” he muttered as he sipped his beer. “Smart thing to do is stay there.” Let her go.
It wasn’t like he could track her down and try to get her to change her mind about him, anyway. She could be in one of a thousand rooms in this hotel and he had not a clue where she was living these days.
He’d kept in touch with her brother Frank, though only sporadically. But Frank’s younger sister was a subject that had remained off-limits. Stan had never asked what Vanessa was doing with herself and Frank had never offered to tell him.
He wondered just how much Vanessa’s brother knew about what had happened between them. And what had happened to change everything when Stan had gone back to Atlanta that summer.
Didn’t matter. Like she said, it was done. They were done. And he’d never set eyes on her again. As he left the bar, he tried very hard to convince himself that was a good thing.
“Hello there, Mr. Jackson , have