Wedding Vows: Just Married: The Ex Factor / What Happens in Vegas... / Another Wild Wedding Night. Nancy Warren
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The gesture pushed her breasts up and Dexter leaned over to kiss them, his face all manly with emerging stubble.
“I didn’t mean to spend the night,” he said.
“I didn’t mean to let you.” This was all too intimate, too familiar. In a minute, he’d suggest they shower together, or she would, and then they’d drink coffee and share the paper. She’d kiss him goodbye and wish him a good day.
“I’d almost forgotten how good we are together,” he murmured.
The memories of the night before made her smile with mingled pleasure mixed with mild embarrassment that she’d been like a sex-crazed maniac last night. “I’ll never look at Chinese food the same way.”
“I’m having those chopsticks bronzed.”
He reached for her breast where the persistent tingling told her her nipples had reacted to the memories. Of course, since he was currently pressed up against her, she could feel that his body had also reacted to the memories of last night.
His mouth closed on her breast. “You still taste like plum sauce. We should take a shower together.”
Yep, right on cue. As though they were still the happily married couple who had sex with their takeout and showered together in the morning. But they weren’t…
Suddenly a wave of mingled grief and rage swamped her, the likes of which she hadn’t experienced since they’d first split up.
If they were so bloody good together, why weren’t they still married?
“Why?” she whispered, knowing he could hear the anguish in her voice.
He raised his head and leaning on one elbow, gazed down at her. “Why what?” She suspected he knew exactly what her question referred to, but she obliged him anyway by expanding her question.
“Why did you cheat on me if we were so good together?”
His fingers traced a pattern down her chest.
A rueful half smile lit his face. “It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? Here’s a question for you. Why were you so quick to jump to a conclusion that was insulting to both of us?”
An inarticulate squeal formed in her throat. She felt the hot wash of betrayal sting her skin. “I saw you. She was half naked in your arms.”
“I know what you saw, I was there. What you didn’t see was me having sex with another woman because it never happened. I had no idea how to handle a nightmare embarrassing situation. She was messed up and needy and drunk or high. What you saw wasn’t me undressing her, it was my trying to get her dressed so I could find you and we could take her home.”
But the image of betrayal was burned on her retina. She could describe every part of the image as though she were describing a scene as it unfolded. “She was kissing you. You had your arms around her and were unzipping her dress.” The anger felt so fresh and raw she wanted to smack him. Wanted to reverse time to the moment he’d arrived yesterday so she could tell him to go away.
“I was trying to zip it up! I’ve told you a hundred times. And she plastered her mouth on mine while I was doing it. Believe me, I wasn’t kissing her back.”
“How can I believe you?” she cried, knowing with all her heart that she wished his words were true, but she’d been cheated on before. So had her mom and her sister. In her experience and that of most women in her life, men weren’t to be trusted.
She remembered her father, how good-looking he’d been and how special she’d felt in his company. He’d traveled a lot on business and the house used to be kind of empty and depressing when he wasn’t there. Her mother always seemed to be in a bad mood. It wasn’t until she’d grown older, and he’d finally left the family for good, that she understood that there was a lot of pleasure mixed in with his business trips.
Men couldn’t help it, her mother hypothesized after the divorce when Karen pelted her with questions. It was part of their genetic makeup to spread their seed as far and wide as possible. Nature or nurture, Karen had sworn to herself that no man would make a fool of her that way, and she’d stuck to her principles.
If she’d been stupid to marry a man who was as good-looking and charming as her father, at least she hadn’t put up with years of lying and cheating like her mother had.
As much as it had hurt her, she’d dumped the lying, cheating scumbag as soon as he showed his true colors.
But oh, she’d had no idea that part of her would be destroyed.
She thought he looked a little sad as he said, “No one can answer that question but you.”
“I even tried to talk to her, you know. After.”
“Who?”
“The model.”
“How did you find her? She didn’t even have a last name.”
“I can be very persistent.” And in some still naive, hopeful part of her she’d wanted the woman to corroborate her husband’s story.
“Wow. I can’t believe you tracked her down.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t hear you getting all excited about how she backed up your story.”
“Because I’m not stupid. If she had, we wouldn’t be here now. We’d still be married.” He shook his head. “Actually, we probably wouldn’t. Some other shadow would have frightened you away.”
“You’re right about one thing. She didn’t corroborate your story.”
He snorted. “So, you’d believe a drunk woman without a last name before you’d believe me.”
“All she told me was that she couldn’t remember anything about that night. By the time I tracked her down she was in rehab.”
“Great. Just great,” he said. “That father of yours sure did a number on you.”
“Don’t you blame my father. He had nothing to do with this. The only mistake I made was in marrying a man just like him.” She pulled the covers up so her breasts were no longer exposed.
He rolled to his back, putting distance between them. She felt cold without his arms around her. “The mistake you made was not believing you hadn’t. It all comes down to trust.”
“You hurt me.”
“You hurt me, too.” He’d never said those words to her before and as she turned to him, she saw that it was true. Whatever he’d done, at least he felt the loss of their marriage. She supposed that was something.
“Some days I wish I’d never met you.”
“I should have made you go to marriage counseling with me,” he said at the same moment.
“There was no point,” she insisted.
He jabbed a finger toward the living room. “Do you think there’s a perfect man in that computer storehouse out there? Some guy who won’t ever come home late or go on business trips with attractive women? What are you going to do? Spend your life savings on private dicks and all your energy on suspicion?”
“No. No, I’m not. I believe there’s a nice man out there who can be faithful.”
“Do you?”
“Mmm-hmm. I won’t set my sights so high this time.”
He rolled over and got back up on his elbow so he could stare down into her face. “Come again?”
“I’ve done a lot of reading since we broke up. There are theories about what makes a successful relationship and one of them is that you should match up with people who are similar status to you.” She shrugged. “So, really good-looking people should stick together and more homely people should go with homely ones. I was always so flattered when you took an interest in me,