One Night to Risk It All(37)

“And what happened?”

“He made it all go away. He protected me, because that’s what he’s always done. But he...he was so disappointed, I could tell. And that was when he told me he wasn’t protecting me anymore. He told me that anything could have happened to me. Driving drunk, going off with strange men... He said I was going to get myself killed and he wouldn’t watch while I did it. He wouldn’t enable it. No more help. No more money. No more family. He said I had to behave myself, or lose everything. And...I have. Until now. Probably I’m cut off, I suppose, but...but...”

“That’s why you aren’t calling home.”

She nodded silently. “I don’t want to know.” Her eyes stung, but still, there were no tears. “I don’t want to see him look at me that way ever again. Like I’m a...lost cause. I don’t know why I did all that stuff, not really. But I know why I stopped. Because I wanted more out of my life than what I was going to get partying until my brain fell out of my ear.”

“And that more was marrying a man you didn’t love or even want to sleep with?”

His words hit her, cold and hard in the chest.

“Apparently, what I was really waiting for was to meet a stranger and have a one-night stand with him and get pregnant with his baby. My goals were much loftier than a mere loveless marriage.”

He cleared his throat and looked out the window. “Did your father tell you what a worthless * that man was?”

“What?”

“Did he tell you what a horrible person that man was? Because it seems to me that all of this was about the situation you put yourself in, and while I get that there were poor decisions on your part—and I’m the proud owner of many poor decisions so I’m not throwing stones—he was the one determined to take a private encounter public. He was the one who was threatening to expose you.”


“I... He wasn’t there to be lectured, I was.”

“And you were the one who had to change.”

“I really did though, Alex. I was trying to take a long walk off a short pier.”

“I agree with that in terms of the substance abuse. Drugs mess things up, Rachel, in ways I’m sure you never saw in a club. But you’re clean now, I assume.”

She nodded. “Yes. I was never a heavy user. Mainly I drank too much alcohol. But I have a one-glass limit on wine now. And a no-glass limit at the moment.”

“What were you trying to fix?”

“What?” she asked.

“Everyone I’ve ever known that’s been on drugs or who partied till they couldn’t think—and I’ve known a lot of them, considering my background—has been running from something. Medicating for some reason. What was yours?”

“I don’t... I...” She blinked rapidly and looked away from him. “I didn’t worry so much about being good enough when I was doing all that. I felt...happy. I felt good.”

“And since you stopped?”

She lifted one shoulder. “Until recently, I knew I was good. Feelings didn’t really matter.”

“So you exchanged one form of denying your feelings for another? New solution—don’t change your feelings, just don’t have them?”

“I’m sorry, Alex, but this is something you couldn’t possibly know anything about.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes. I don’t mean to be cruel, but who has any expectation of you? When I found out who you were I knew I’d been used because your name is synonymous with epic bastardry. You’d already tried to ruin Ajax with those tax fraud allegations.”

He quirked his lips into a half smile. “And the odds that they were true seemed high. They would have been with many corporations.”

“Sadly for you, Ajax does things so by the book it’s almost unreal.”

“A surprise, considering.”

She suddenly felt even more naked than she had a moment ago. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. She should get her clothes, but she had a feeling that they wouldn’t make her any warmer. Any less exposed. He knew now. He knew the worst of her.

And she knew...what he thought was the worst of Ajax. And she knew about the pizza. But she didn’t know him.

“Tell me something about you,” she said. “What are you ashamed of?”

He looked away from her. “I’m not ashamed of anything. I don’t have shame.”

He looked back at her, their eyes meeting, his expression fierce. “I’ve seen too many things...done too many things. And I don’t regret them. Because they’ve made me who I am.”

“That’s such a line. We all regret things. I regret getting into the car with Colin. I regret drinking that much. I regret letting him videotape me.”

“And it changes nothing, so why bother with it?”

“Because it did change something. It changed me.”

“Ah, yes, and you’re so happy and well-adjusted now?”

“No. I’ve proven, yet again, that when you follow your...emotions and hormones and...things that aren’t logical, stupid things happen.”

“Is that how you see the baby? As something stupid?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You said stupid things happen.”