He watched her finger move down his abs before looking into her eyes again. “And that’s a good thing?”
“That’s a really good thing,” she confirmed. “For the first time ever, I feel like I can be myself.”
“Well, then, I’m glad you feel that way.” He looked to the ceiling again with a smile, then shut his eyes. “I find you…refreshing, so keep being yourself.”
She smiled, too, even if he couldn’t see it.
Right as she moved to lean her head back against his shoulder, he asked, with his eyes still shut, “Is Nick also why you’re so determined to stay single?”
Back to this again? She wasn’t sure why he kept focusing on her love life. Shouldn’t he stay far away from this subject? “Shouldn’t you be happy that I am single?”
“Of course, I am,” he said, glancing at her with soft eyes. “But you’re not like the other women I’ve been with. You’re…” His eyebrows drew together, “You’re a little too sweet, a little too real, a little too honest. You seem like a relationship girl, more than someone who’s just looking for sex.”
She smiled at the compliments he gave, and she supposed she could see why women became attached to Maddox. “I’m single because I don’t want a boyfriend.”
“Is there a reason for that?”
“Because I’ve been there and done that, and I don’t want to do it again right now.”
“You seem pretty certain of that.” His brow arched as he tucked the fallen strands of her hair behind her ear. “Did this guy hurt you?”
“Yes. Horribly.”
Something flashed across his eyes then, and she grinned, unable to help it. “You’d better stop looking at me like that, or I’m going to start believing that you’re actually capable of caring about someone.”
He jerked his gaze away, staring once again at the ceiling. “I never said I couldn’t care about someone. I said I couldn’t give what most women want.”
“Well, I had what most women want, and then it ended in tears and heartbreak and wasted years.”
He gave her a quick look. “What did he do to you?”
“Oh, you know, broke up with me,” she said with a dry laugh. “At that time in my life, it seemed like the worst thing that could have happened to me. Now…well, now things are different, of course.”
“There had to be a reason for why he ended things.”
“I wanted a simple life in Seattle. He wanted a fancy life in New York City. I know that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but to me, it was. I gave him six years of my life and was totally wrapped up in him. I thought we’d get married. I planned on it, going so far as to look at bridal magazines and keep articles and stuff. My future had him in it. Then he took away the life we’d built together, and I unraveled.”
“You don’t look all that beaten up about it anymore,” Maddox commented.
She smiled, proud of that. “Because I’m not beaten up about it. I don’t miss him, if that’s what you’re wondering. Of course, it took some time, but I realized how much of myself I’d given to him when he didn’t deserve it. How his dreams mattered over mine. How I had honestly considered leaving everything behind to go to New York with him, all to be someone that I wasn’t. Honestly, it bordered on pathetic.”
“Why pathetic? Obviously, you cared for him.”
“Because he didn’t want me in New York with him.”
“Oh,” Maddox muttered.
“Oh.” She laughed softly. “Apparently, I wasn’t fancy enough for his new lavish lifestyle. Which he told me when he broke up with me on the telephone.”
“Ouch,” Maddox said with a frown.
She gave a firm nod. “Which is exactly why I’m not broken up about Nick anymore. He’s a prick, and I’m lucky to not have wasted more years on him than I did.”
“Well, from my point of view, the relationship made you strong,” Maddox said, brushing his fingers across her cheek. “You’re incredibly put-together, which makes you different. I’m not used to being with girls like you.”
“What are you used to, then?”
“Girls who say they’re fine with a one-time thing and then hunt me down afterwards. Girls who think they can change me.”
This she had to know. “What kind of girl do you think I am?”
His eyes locked onto hers intensely. “A girl who sees me for what I am and is okay with it.”
She wasn’t sure why that one line brought so much emotion between them, but it did. His eyes were heated. She felt warmth slide within her, too. But she reminded herself that emotions didn’t belong between them. Maddox wasn’t hers to figure out, and that was refreshing. It didn’t matter what was going on in his head. She liked his company. She liked his brand of sex. The rest didn’t much matter. “Well, to answer your original question of why I’m single,” she added to put an end to the entire conversation, “I think what most women want out of a relationship is highly overrated.”