A Winter Wedding(31)

“You think I’m that easily distracted?”

“You’re a guy, aren’t you?”

“That’s a stereotype if ever I heard one.”

“Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. I saw the way you were nearly salivating when I was in that towel.”

“Salivating?”

“Okay, it was only a glimmer in your eye, but it was enough to tell me that it’s been too long since you were with a woman. And that leads me to believe you might be susceptible to getting caught up in the physical.” She seemed to rethink her words. “Now that I mention it, maybe we should work on getting you laid first. Bringing your drought to an end would remind you of what you’re missing and make you more eager to find someone—so eager that you’ll reach beyond your usual prejudices and boundaries.”

“Those aren’t prejudices and boundaries. They’re standards, for your information. You’re going to have to think of some way to forget your problems other than by solving mine.”

“Why?” she asked. “I feel we’re friends. I’d like you to be happier for having met me.”

“I am. I have a lot to be grateful for. I’m satisfied with my life.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears. “But you can’t be completely satisfied, not without Olivia.”

“Olivia’s with my stepbrother now. He just told me that they’re expecting their first child. I would never want anything to hurt their family.”

“Which is why you have to give up on her.” Twisting around in her seat, she rested an arm on the back of her chair while he searched for his keys. “Can you tell me why?”

He found them under some mail he had yet to sort through. “Why what?”

“What made you do it? What made you crawl into bed with Olivia’s sister?”

His friends had asked him the same thing a hundred times. There wasn’t a good explanation. He’d probably never have an adequate answer. It was almost as if he’d purposely driven into a brick wall. “I told you. Olivia and I were on a break. And I was drunk when Noelle approached me.”

“You were drunk last night, too, and yet you behaved like the perfect gentleman.”

In spite of what he’d been feeling. So she recognized that. But he was older and wiser these days, more aware of the consequences. “It’s hard to explain. I was ready to marry Olivia when she moved to Sacramento to establish her business. The fact that she left in spite of my proposal told me I didn’t mean nearly as much to her as she meant to me.”

Lourdes toyed with the zipper on her sweatshirt. “Maybe she wasn’t ready to settle down.”

“To my mind, she should’ve been ready. It wasn’t as if we were just out of college. In retrospect, I can see that I should’ve backed away and given her some time. She’d been born and raised here, wanted to experience something other than small-town life before starting a family. But I’d never expected her to call a halt, even a temporary one, and it threw me. I was afraid she might meet someone else and never come home. I felt maybe she was out there, looking.”

“That’s reasonable. You were hurt and angry, so you screwed up.”

“I was more than hurt and angry. After she left, I was so lonely I didn’t know what to do with myself. It felt more like a divorce, since we’d been so close. I was used to seeing her almost every night. I was used to eating with her. Sleeping with her. When she moved away instead of moving in like I expected—like everyone expected—it left me sort of stunned and reeling.”

Lourdes flinched. “So you filled in with her sister? Couldn’t you have chosen someone else?”

“I’m getting there. I was listless and bored and sexually frustrated. And I was constantly reminded of her defection. Everyone else was as shocked as I was. Almost daily, I had to hear someone say, ‘But I thought you two would get married,’ as if even he or she believed Olivia had moved on without me. Anyway, I tried to fill the hours I usually spent with her at work but often wound up at Sexy Sadie’s when I couldn’t sleep at night.”

“Drinking.”

He put on his coat. “I did more of it then than I ever have, before or since.”

“And Noelle worked there.”

“Not at the time,” he clarified. “Like me, she came in as a patron that night.”

“And when she arrived...”

He pictured her wearing the tight red dress that revealed so much—and those high heels, which made the most of her legs. “She came over and...” He let his words fall off as he remembered how she’d rubbed her lower body against his while they danced. How she’d whispered in his ear that she often touched herself, pretending it was him.

“Hello?” she prompted.

He wished he could block those memories from his mind. He was mortified that he’d let her turn him into such a chump. “And she soon made it clear what she wanted,” he finished.

“She wanted you.”

“Basically. I mean, she’d flirted with me before, and I’d never had any difficulty resisting her. But that night it was more blatant than usual. And since I was convinced I’d already lost Olivia, there didn’t seem to be any reason to refuse her. Maybe I was even looking for a little revenge, since she seemed to move on so easily.”