One Night to Risk It All

“Apparently, what I was really waiting for was to meet a stranger and have a one-night stand with him and get pregnant with his baby. My goals were much loftier than a mere loveless marriage.”

He cleared his throat and looked out the window. “Did your father tell you what a worthless asshole that man was?”

“What?”

“Did he tell you what a horrible person that man was? Because it seems to me that all of this was about the situation you put yourself in, and while I get that there were poor decisions on your part—and I’m the proud owner of many poor decisions so I’m not throwing stones—he was the one determined to take a private encounter public. He was the one who was threatening to expose you.”

“I... He wasn’t there to be lectured, I was.”

“And you were the one who had to change.”

“I really did though, Alex. I was trying to take a long walk off a short pier.”

“I agree with that in terms of the substance abuse. Drugs mess things up, Rachel, in ways I’m sure you never saw in a club. But you’re clean now, I assume.”

She nodded. “Yes. I was never a heavy user. Mainly I drank too much alcohol. But I have a one-glass limit on wine now. And a no-glass limit at the moment.”

“What were you trying to fix?”

“What?” she asked.

“Everyone I’ve ever known that’s been on drugs or who partied till they couldn’t think—and I’ve known a lot of them, considering my background—has been running from something. Medicating for some reason. What was yours?”

“I don’t... I...” She blinked rapidly and looked away from him. “I didn’t worry so much about being good enough when I was doing all that. I felt...happy. I felt good.”

“And since you stopped?”

She lifted one shoulder. “Until recently, I knew I was good. Feelings didn’t really matter.”

“So you exchanged one form of denying your feelings for another? New solution—don’t change your feelings, just don’t have them?”

“I’m sorry, Alex, but this is something you couldn’t possibly know anything about.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes. I don’t mean to be cruel, but who has any expectation of you? When I found out who you were I knew I’d been used because your name is synonymous with epic bastardry. You’d already tried to ruin Ajax with those tax fraud allegations.”

He quirked his lips into a half smile. “And the odds that they were true seemed high. They would have been with many corporations.”

“Sadly for you, Ajax does things so by the book it’s almost unreal.”

“A surprise, considering.”

She suddenly felt even more naked than she had a moment ago. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. She should get her clothes, but she had a feeling that they wouldn’t make her any warmer. Any less exposed. He knew now. He knew the worst of her.

And she knew...what he thought was the worst of Ajax. And she knew about the pizza. But she didn’t know him.