“So,” he said casually, “you don’t date much?”
“Smooth topic change,” Kirsty told him as she poured some guava juice into the empty wine glass. “Are you poking around hoping for information on my love life?”
He shrugged. The answer was yes, but he wasn’t going to say it out loud.
“It’s no big deal. It’s probably all online for you to read, if you make the effort.” She sipped the juice. “Yum,” she told him.
Lake stared at her. “Yum” indeed.
“So are you going to tell me all about your sordid past, or are you going to make me dig around some more?”
“You’re not one for small talk, are you, Lake?”
“I can do it when I have to,” he said.
He was hoping this wasn’t one of those times. She smiled at him.
“I was engaged to Brandon for six months. We’d been together two years.”
“You were really going to marry that loser?”
He found that hard to believe. From his limited research he’d been repulsed by the guy. Not only was he as dodgy as a three-pound coin, the pictures showed that he dyed his hair and had a tan that bordered on orange.
“He could be very charming.”
“That isn’t reason to marry someone.”
“I thought I was in love.” She shrugged.
“But you know now you weren’t?”
“I know a lot of things now that I didn’t know then,” she said darkly. “Lots of things I wish I didn’t know.”
Like pain, Lake thought.
“And before the moron?”
He was pleased that she laughed. He loved the sound of her laugh. It was borderline dirty and promised things he badly wanted.
“Before Brandon, the skanky thief, there was the odd date, mainly with other models. Nothing serious. I was too busy working to go for anything serious. Before that there was Brian. He was my teenage crush. He’s still around, married to a girl called Joanne. They have two kids and run a farm outside of town.”
“You obviously have a thing for guys with names beginning with B,” he said drolly.
“What about you? Girl in every port?”
She leaned against the counter, keeping things casual, but he could tell she really wanted to know.
“That’s the navy. I was special forces.”
“Well...where did you keep your girls, then?”
“You make it sound like I had a harem.”
She fixed him with a look.
“Fine, there isn’t much to tell. No one serious, anyway.” He shrugged.
He sure as hell wasn’t going to go into detail about his years chasing army groupies. They frequented the pubs in every town he’d been stationed in, and they were only too happy to be caught. That was back when he was young and stupid, and thought if his dick stayed in his pants two days straight it would shrivel and fall off.