A Firefighter in Her Stocking

Good question. Why had he agreed to something so idiotic?

“Because you wanted me to,” he said truthfully. Maybe he’d also wanted to see Charles and Grace with his own eyes, because he hadn’t quite been able to believe Charles could love again after Nina. Jude’s insides shook more than a little as he continued. “You gave me something precious and I wanted to give you something you wanted. Agreeing to go to that party was the only thing I knew that you wanted from me.”

* * *

Jude had felt guilty that he’d taken Sarah’s virginity, had felt obligated to give her something in return, had decided not to make her suffer through another party as the odd man, woman, out.

Great.

If Sarah had known how the night would unfold, she’d have begged him not to go.

Because now so much made sense.

Jude wasn’t in love with her. She wasn?

?t the one.

He was in love with a ghost.

Nina Davenport.

Sarah remembered the woman, had always understood why Charles had so completely loved her. She’d been beautiful, gracious, kind, intelligent, and had glowed with happiness. Sarah remembered how much joy Nina had shone with at her pregnancy, how she’d vocalized her happiness that she and Charles were going to be parents, how everyone at the hospital had mourned her unexpected death after the twins had been born. How Charles had grieved his loss.

Somewhere in the privacy of the playboy persona he exuded to the world, Jude had been grieving his loss, too.

Because he’d been in love with Nina.

Was still in love with her.

Sarah could hear it in his voice, in the pain that was still so very raw.

“I... I don’t know what to say.”

“I don’t expect you to say anything.” He raked his fingers through his hair, glancing around her living room without really looking. “I just felt you needed to know why tonight was the way it was.” He closed his eyes. “Why I’m the way I am.”

Her heart pounded in her chest at the gravity of their conversation, at all the implications of his admission, of all her silly hopes and dreams that had taken life over the past few days and how they’d come crashing back to cold, harsh reality. She’d known better. She had. Stupid, silly her. A lifetime of preaching from her mother and yet a few flirty words from a sexy neighbor and she’d gone all stupid. Had gone from being content with her successful career to thinking maybe she could have more.

She swallowed her wounded pride and shook her head. “You failed, then, because I don’t understand your behavior any more now than I did then. Nina is gone. Charles has every right to love again. It’s what she would have wanted him to do.”

“I know that.”

“But you blame him that he has?”

He hesitated just long enough that, no matter what words came out, Sarah knew the real answer.

“It’s obvious you do. Because you can’t move on, you condemn Charles because he has.” She didn’t need a degree to know that she’d hit the nail on the head. Jude was still in love with Nina and seeing Charles happy had undone him. “Maybe you need counseling.”

“I don’t need counseling.”

“Having sex with half the females in Manhattan hasn’t cured you.”

His gaze narrowed. “I don’t need counseling.”

“You’re grieving another man’s wife. You need something.”

“She wasn’t his wife when I fell in love with her,” he reminded her, sounding defensive. “She didn’t even know him.”

“She chose him.”