Beauty from Pain(10)

I’m interested in picking her brain, hearing her possible explanation. “Why do you think that could be?”


She studies my face and for the first time I notice her unusual eye color. I thought they were brown, but now I see I was only half-right. They’re lighter, more like caramel than chocolate. And her hair isn’t a single shade of brown; it’s full of honey-colored streaks.


Her back stiffens. “I think you’re married with a wife and two-point-five kids waiting for you to come home.”


I almost forget her question, I’m so caught up in watching the windows to her soul. I see something there, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.


I hold up my empty left hand and point to where a wedding band would be if I had one. I smile because the thought of me being married is such a polar opposite from the truth. “No wife. No two-point-five kids.”


She sits back in her chair and doesn’t appear as though she’s buying what I’m selling. “The lack of a wedding band doesn’t prove anything.”


“I am secretive, but it has nothing to do with being married.”


Our server returns to remove our dishes and we fall silent until he walks away. “Why are you secretive?”


“For lack of a better answer, it’s just how I am.”


She frowns. “Well, that explains everything.”


These are dangerous waters I’m treading. This girl is different from the others. If I don’t handle her the right way, she’ll run. Of this, I’m certain. “You and I will both be in Wagga Wagga for the next three months. I’d really like to see you while we’re here.”


“Would I finally get to know your name?” She’s laughing but has no idea that withholding real names is my number-one stipulation for dating.


Hell! She’s got me off my game and feeling like I’ve never done this before.


I draw a breath to clear my head before I begin. “My life is complicated for reasons I won’t discuss. When it comes to dating, I need it to be simple and undemanding. Disclosing my identity complicates things, so you wouldn’t know my real name.”


“You’re not joking.”


I can’t read her reaction. I have no idea if she’s on board or freaking out. “When the three months is over, so are we. I’ll move on and you will too. Because you won’t know my name or any identifying information about me, you’ll have no way to contact me. Ever.”


This face I can read, and it’s full of confusion. “But why?”


I have reasons, but I won’t explain them. “Because that’s the way I need things to be.”


She’s clearly pissed off as evidenced by the scowl on her face. “If you never wanted to hear from me again, that wouldn’t be a problem on my end, Jack.”


I smile because she has no idea she just used my real name. “You’d have the same courtesy. You don’t have to tell me your real name and you choose how much or how little you want to tell me about yourself.”


She puts her elbows on the table and leans forward. “You’re crazy as hell, but you already know that, right?”


I feel her slipping through my fingers, so I’m forced to use my last line of defense. “I’m a very wealthy man. The three months we spend together would be the best of your life. You’d never be able to top what you’d experience with me.”


She sits back and laughs. “Well, at least you’re not egotistical.”


I wasn’t finished. I had one more card up my sleeve. “I’d make your fantasies a reality.”


She licks her lips and then draws the bottom one into her mouth. God, I’d love to do that for her. “You want me to have sex with you.”


Now she’s catching on. “Yes, I would like that very much.”


“Sounds like you need an escort or a prostitute, and I’m neither of those things.”


Oh, shit. I’ve f*cked up royally now.


I reach for her hand to calm her. “I wasn’t suggesting you were either. Sex wouldn’t be the only part of our relationship. There would be much more to it than that.”


She jerks her hand away. “I don’t sleep with strangers and apparently that’s what you’d continue to be since you won’t even tell me something as basic as your name.”