“Angels live in heaven, not on earth.”
“What?” Turning her head, she looked at him.
“Did by chance your parents tell you that it was your fault that you were raped?”
“Oh, yeah,” Eden said. “If I hadn’t been wearing my ankle-length skirt, if I hadn’t been walking in the woods, if I hadn’t…et cetera. It was all my fault.”
“So you’ve tried to prove them wrong, haven’t you?”
“Am I going to have to pay you for this therapy session?”
“No, it’s free,” he said seriously. “I was curious why you let your daughter walk all over you.”
“I do no such thing!” she said. “Under normal circumstances, Melissa and I…” She took a breath. “Yeah, I invented Doormat Mom. Think I could get a trophy from somebody?”
“Maybe for sex, but not for being a doormat.”
“Really?” she asked, turning toward him. “Have there been a lot of women to compare me to?”
“Do you think that now is the time to start in about my sex life?”
She lay back down. “Sorry. Okay, so Minnie is lying and Brad still loves me.” Beside her, she felt Jared stiffen. “Sorry, I—”
Rolling away from her, he
stood up. “This is getting nowhere. What else happened that’s made you so upset?”
“Daughter, boyfriend, life. That about covers it.” Yawning, she stretched, and when she opened her eyes, Jared was looking at her with interest. She blinked at him a couple of times.
“No, we can’t. Besides,” he said nastily, “your boyfriend might show up soon.”
“Jared…” she began.
He put up his hand. “We can sort out our personal problems later. I need to do some checking on this Minnie. Give me her full name.” He pulled a pen and a little pad of paper from under the box where the wine was.
“Minton Norfleet.”
“If I stayed here awhile I think I could guess people’s names.”
“It’s a custom around here.”
“Yeah, made up in an attempt to exclude outsiders. Having one of the names lets you know who belongs and who doesn’t.” He closed the pad and looked at her. “Everyone in this town knows your history. Do you really think they’ll accept you?”
“But they have. When I lived here before—”
“When you lived here before, you were protected by the Grande Dame of Arundel. No one would go against her. What will they think when you marry the prize catch of the town? Will they say what Minnie did?”
“It doesn’t matter what anyone says because I don’t think Brad will want me now,” she said softly. She was looking down at her hands and didn’t see the anger that flashed in Jared’s eyes.
“Now that you’ve been sullied by me?”
“I didn’t mean that,” she said. “There were other things before all this happened.” She waved her hand to mean their lovemaking.
“He dropped you so you were free to get off with the hired help. Is that it? But if he would take you back—”
“You’re so right. All this was completely calculated. Preplanned. I knew you were skulking around out here, living in my well house like some feral cat, so I made up a reason to come out here and jump on you.”
For a moment Jared looked as though he was going to get angry, then he grinned. “Just so we understand each other,” he said. He started to say more, but his cell phone rang.