"Were you working when you spread your legs for me?"
He'd have given anything to take the words back, hadn't meant to be crude. Hadn't meant to hurt her. At least, he didn't think he had.
Only the back of the couch was between them, but he couldn't comfort her. Didn't know how.
"Would you believe me if I said no?"
Oddly enough, he would. Which didn't make any more sense than the rest of this horrendous conversation.
"Were you working?" he asked again. More insistently.
She sat up straight, still turned to face him, meeting his gaze head-on. "No, Kyle, I wasn't working. I never, ever, reciprocated when I worked."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Others took pleasure, / never did."
TARA TAYLOR QUINN
He needed it spelled out. "Surely a woman with that much experience knows how to enjoy sex."
"I knew how to make a man enjoy it. I knew how to pretend I was enjoying it." She shook her head. "But the first time I truly enjoyed sex, the only time I ever did, was that night with you."
This shouldn't mean so much. It shouldn't mean anything at all. "That wasn't the first time you…" He couldn't finish. Couldn't think about what they'd done that night. Not now. Not like this.
"It was my first climax, yes." She apparently wasn't as shy as he. But then, she wouldn't be. She'd had a bit more experience.
"After that you learned to enjoy it with others, right?" he asked, morbidly curious.
"No, Kyle." She looked him straight in the eye again, making him uncomfortable. "There's been no one else since then."
Ah. That hurt. Pain squeezed his insides until he thought he'd never breathe again. He loved her so damn much. And their night together had been so special to her there'd never been another.
Her career would have been so much easier to take if that night had meant nothing to her. Because then he could start convincing himself it meant nothing to him, either. How could it have mattered if he was the only one who'd felt the incredible bond between them?
Why couldn't those memories have been nothing more than the product of an overactive imagination? A particularly good fantasy?
"What are you thinking?" she asked softly.
HER SECRET, HIS CHILD
Clutching the back of the couch, staring down at her, he told her the truth. "You don't want to know." His whole body ached with the effort it was costing him to stay calm. Unaffected.
"Yes, I do."
She was so cool. Even with cheeks still wet with tears, her composure was evident. He'd always liked that about her. Her self-control.
"I was wondering if Ashley's really mine."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
She was right back where she'd started. Disgraced. As if the last five years had never been. From her stepfather to Tom to the wealthy, older men of her college years to the father of her child doubting his paternity. But this time, as she came face-to-face with the kind of woman she was, there wasn't any shock, outrage, confusion. There was something much worse. Resignation.
Oh, and the pain. It never stopped. Jamie knew that now. The kind of hurt she'd inflicted on herself was eternal.
"She's yours," she said. Not for her sake. What he thought of her didn't matter anymore. But Ashley needed her father. She deserved him. They deserved each other—this good decent man and the innocent child he'd created.
' 'How can you be sure?'' Kyle asked, still standing behind the couch. ' 'Obviously there were many others."