Grounded (Up in the Air, #3)(13)

He gave me a smug look. It was infuriating. “As a matter of fact, I can. But that’s not my plan right now. I would just prefer to talk in the bedroom.”

We were in the closet, undressing for bed, before he spoke again. “Scott met Jolene when she was my sub. He was instantly taken with her. When I ended our arrangement, Scott asked me if I minded if he asked her out. I didn’t mind, but I told him that it may not be the best idea, for his sake. That was all I said and all I knew. Unbeknownst to me, they married less than two weeks later.”

He managed to undress first, and moved close to watch me finish.

“A few months after that Jolene called me, asked me to meet her for dinner. I didn’t see a problem with that—didn’t even know whether or not she and Scott had gone out, and I was between subs, so I simply saw it as a chance to blow off steam.”

I made my face go carefully blank as I looked at him. The blowing off steam comment made me feel…delicate, for reasons that I didn’t want to investigate.

“We were…together that night, and again a few days later. She expressed interest in resuming our previous arrangement. I tried to tell her gently that I wasn’t interested, and that I thought that she should move on. That’s when she told me that she’d married Scott. She threw it out as proof that she’d already moved on, thinking it would actually encourage me to reconsider.”

“Needless to say, it didn’t do that. I told her I wouldn’t see her, wouldn’t touch her, if she was married. I never wanted to be an adulterer; the idea is abhorrent to me, especially when I was cuckolding a friend of mine.”

I pulled a sheer slip over my head.

“I stopped seeing her, stopped taking her calls, for at least a year,” he continued. “I was between subs again when she finally managed to pin me down. She was divorced by then, which I knew, though I didn’t know exactly what had happened at the time. Later I would learn that she had filed because I’d refused to see her when she was married. I never should have touched her after we ended our original arrangement. I see that clearly now. My friendship with Scott is irreparable now, unfortunately I figured it out too late. He is completely enamored with her, so much so that he is incapable of seeing reason. I used to be baffled by it—by him losing his head so completely over a woman.” He gave me a self-deprecating smile. “I’m not baffled by it anymore. Now the only thing that baffles me is his taste in women.”

I had to stifle the urge to tell him that they seemed to share a taste in women. I told myself firmly that it wouldn’t be a constructive thing to say. There was a lot about his past that I would need to overlook if we were going to have any hope of staying together. And as long as it really was the past, I thought I could learn to deal, though his explanation troubled me on a number of levels.

I was silent for a long time while I examined my own thoughts, and finished getting ready for bed.

James didn’t appreciate me keeping my own council. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he burst out finally. “Are you upset?”

I went into the bathroom, washing my face and brushing my teeth. James dogged my footsteps the entire time, trouble in those brilliant eyes that never left my face.

I was climbing onto the bed when I finally answered. “I guess I’m just a little surprised with you, that after all of that, you were still seeing her just a day before I met you. I’m not upset, just—is it so hard for you to stay away from her?”

I was glancing at him only as I finished speaking, but I clearly saw him flinch.

“It’s not like you’re thinking. I don’t know if you’ll think it’s better or worse, but I didn’t continue to see her for all that time because I couldn’t stay away. It’s sort of the opposite. We had preferences in common, but I never even liked her. I’ve known from the start that she was mercenary. Perhaps not the extent of it until she went after Scott, but I realized at least enough to know, that I could never care for her. I saw her because I needed an outlet for the things I do, and at my worst, I thought that we deserved each other. I didn’t even contact her that often, only when I was between subs and in a particularly dark mood. Most of the time she wasn’t even allowed to talk—“

I held up a hand, having heard more than enough. “I don’t think I can bear to hear those kinds of details. One last question, and then I’ll drop it. Why does Scott still call her his wife?”

He grimaced. “Scott never got over her. He never saw her as she is. He just sees the package, and the fact that she’s insatiabl—“

I held up that hand again. “Please.”

He brushed my hair from my face. I saw his tan throat work as he swallowed hard, leaning over me. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be insensitive. It’s hard to explain these things without touching on sensitive things.”

“As long as I don’t have to hear any more about her sensitive things,” I said wryly.

He grinned. “You know I’m only interested in your sensitive things.”

I wrinkled my nose at him.

“Too soon to joke about it?” he asked.

I nodded.

He sighed. “Anyway, word is that they remarried a few weeks ago. Poor bastard. She’s going to wring him out to dry. Nothing I can do about it, though I did try to warn him. And I didn’t lose control, Bianca, not like you’re thinking. He took a swing at me, he missed, and I didn’t. They were escorted off the premises. They won’t be allowed back on. Anything else you need to know?”