It’s okay to be hurt...”
Hurt? Connor’s eye started to twitch.
This wasn’t guy talk. It wasn’t the promised blowing off of steam with which he’d been lured to Sin City.
It wasn’t cool.
“...a blow to the ego, and for someone with an ego like yours...”
Growling into his glass, he muttered, “We need to get your testosterone levels checked.”
“Whatever,” Jeff answered, unfazed. He was as secure with his emotional “awareness” as he was with his position as Connor’s oldest and best friend. “All I’m saying is you were ready to marry Caro two weeks ago. I don’t believe you’re as indifferent as you make out to be.”
“Yeah, but you never want to believe the truth about me,” Connor replied with an unrepentant grin. “Seriously, though, Jeff, like I told you before, I’m fine. Caro was a great girl, but hearing what she had to say...I’m more relieved than anything else.”
The following grunt suggested Jeff wasn’t buying it.
And to an extent, the guy might be right. Just not the way he figured.
Connor wasn’t heartbroken over the end of the relationship because his heart had never played into the equation. Callous but true. And something Caro had understood from the first.
Connor didn’t do love. All too well he understood the potential of its destructive power. He knew the distance of its reach, had experienced the devastation of its ripple effect. No thank you. He hadn’t been signing on for more.
What he’d been after was a family. The kind he’d only ever seen from the outside looking in, but coveted just the same. The kind his father hadn’t wanted some bastard son to contaminate, and his mother had been too deep in her own grief to sustain. So he’d been determined to build his own.
There were a lot of things he’d done without as a kid. Things he’d made it his purpose to secure as an adult. Money, respect, his own home...and the thriving business he ran with an iron fist that garnered them all. But a family...? For that, he needed a partner. One he’d thought he found in Caro. She fit the bill, fundraiser ready with the right name, education and background. Coolly composed and devoid of the emotional neediness he’d spent his adult life actively avoiding. Or so he’d thought, right up to that last day when she’d folded her napkin at the side of her plate and evenly explained she wanted a marriage based on more than what they had. She hadn’t expected to, but there it was.
Fair enough. He gave her credit for having the good sense to recognize she wanted something she wouldn’t find with him. And most important, before the vows were exchanged.
So, heartbroken? No.
Disappointed? Sure.
Relieved? Hell, yes.
“...I think you’re lonely. Sad...”
Throwing back the rest of his single malt, Connor relished the burn down his throat and spread of heat through his belly. If he weighed in fifty pounds lighter, it might have been enough to fuzz out the discomfort of this conversation.
But there was always the next one.
“...remember, there are other fish in the sea—”
“Come on, what’s next—hot flashes?” Holding up the empty, he scanned the crowd for the cocktail server.
“—hell, apparently the one over there is a gymnast.”
Connor quirked a brow, angling his head for a better look. “Which one?”
Jeff winked. “Just making sure you were listening. Care about you, man.”
Though he’d never figured out why, Connor knew.
That caring had been the single constant in his life from the time he’d been ripped out of poverty and drop-kicked into the East Coast’s most exclusive boarding school at thirteen. He’d been the illegitimate kid with a chip on his shoulder, a jagged crack through the center of his soul and a grudge against the name he couldn’t escape—and Jeff had been the unlucky SOB saddled with him as a roommate. Connor hadn’t given him any reason to cut him a break, but for some reason, Jeff had anyway.
Which was why, for as much as he gave his friend a hard time about being an “in touch” guy...he also gave him the truth. “Yeah, you too... Now, where’s the gymnast?”
* * *
Another two rounds and some forty minutes later, Connor leaned back in his chair watching as Jeff reasserted his status as a testosterone-driven male by smoothly intercepting the cocktail girl he’d been eyeing for the better part of an hour. Connor didn’t even want to think about the rap this guy had laid on her to get those lashes batting and her tray cast aside so fast, but whatever it was, it must have been phenomenal.
Jeff shot him a salute, and the deal was done.
Reaching into this breast pocket, Connor pulled out his wallet, tossed a few bills onto the table and then set his empty glass atop the stack.
The night stretched out before him with all its endless...exhausting possibilities.
He could hit the blackjack tables.
Grab a bite.
Pick up some company. Or not. With this apathetic indifference he was rocking—
“Excuse me.”
Glancing up, he’d expected another waitress ready to clear, but instead it was the blonde in the midnight dress from the other table. The gymnast, who most definitely wasn’t a gymnast if her height and the soft S-like lines of a figure draped in one of those clingy wrap numbers were anything to go on.
Very nice. “Hi. What can I do for you?”
Her smile spread wide as her big blue eyes held his. “This is going to sound like a line. A really, really bad one. But you’ve got to believe me when I say it’s not.”
The corner of his mouth twitched as he readied for what inevitably was the rest of the line. Playing in, he gave her a nod. “Okay, you’ve got the disclaimer out of the way. Go for it.”
She nodded, releasing a deep breath. “I noticed you were about to leave. And I’d be more grateful than you could imagine if you wouldn’t mind walking out with me. So it looks like we’re leaving together.”
Right. “Just looks like we’re leaving together?”
Again her wide smile flashed, and Connor saw shades of girl-next-door. Not usually his type, but for whatever reason, there was something about the look of this one...
“Yes. My...friends saw me notice you earlier and...well...and you don’t even want to know what it’s been like since. I told them I’d come over and see if you were interested because I want them off my back. But I can tell from looking at you, that I’m not the kind of woman you’d be interested in...which is, actually, the only reason I decided to come over. I’d love to get out of here without them following me for the rest of the night.”
