The waiter grinned. “Of course, sir.”
The man had probably seen a lot stranger bets than that. He returned moments later and handed them the bill.
Austin glanced at the amount. The final two digits were sixty-eight.
He smiled. “I’m afraid you lose, April.”
Even though he had tried to set it up for her to win, and the bet got turned around so it was wildly in his favor, he still got a rush from winning.
April sighed. “Okay. So what’s the question?”
“We all know that your ex is an ass,” Austin said, “but you thought you loved him once. What about him or your relationship made you think you were in love?”
April’s eyes widened. “Wow. You don’t pull any punches, do you?”
“I think that examining the bad things that happen to us—the good things, too—helps us understand ourselves better and helps us make better decisions going forward.”
“Not repeating history, you mean,” she said.
“It’s more than that. You believed you loved this guy. There were things about him you were blind to. There’s a reason. There was something in the relationship that fed something inside you. If you understand what you wanted, then you’re better equipped to see the next relationship more clearly.”
She pursed her lips. “You’re right, but I’m not sure I could avoid the same pitfalls again.”
She turned her gaze to his, and in her wide sapphire eyes he saw a deep sadness and loneliness that tore at his soul.
“Then tell me about it.” At her hesitation, he smiled. “You did lose the bet. And it’ll just stay between the three of us.”
She glanced to Quinn, who simply sat in his chair observing.
She sighed. “It helps if you understand a bit about my past. I didn’t tell you that the reason my name is April is because that’s the month I was born. My last name is Smith because … well, the person who named me didn’t have much imagination. You remember that I told you my mother abandoned me at the hospital. The insurance she’d used was someone else’s. They didn’t want to give me that person’s name. After that, I was put in foster care.”
“I’m surprised you weren’t adopted,” Austin said. “There are so many couples looking for an infant to adopt.”
“I was. But my luck has never been good. My adopted parents weren’t … well, as caring as they should have been. I was pulled from their home when I was about two years old. A neighbor reported a problem, and the authorities checked in and found that the parents were practically starving the child. She was suffering from malnutrition, and it took a lot of hospital visits, therapy, and patience by one kind woman to get the child back to a normal weight.”
Austin was confused at first when April started talking about the child and she, but he suddenly realized she was referring to herself in the third person. He didn’t think she even realized she was doing it.
“That woman couldn’t adopt her, though,” she continued, “and the child went to another home. Now labeled as a difficult child for care, she didn’t stay in any foster home for very long.”
She was staring at her glass and started tracing lines on the surface.
“I could go on and on about the problems of being in the system … the heartbreaks … but…” She drew in a deep breath. “When I met Maurice … The attention he paid me … I felt wanted for the first time in my life.”
Austin noticed Quinn’s compressed lips, and even though his expression was closed, Austin could tell that her statement was a kick in the gut.
“I saw what I wanted to see,” she continued. “He took care of me. He said he loved me.”
“So you mistook things like him cosigning your mortgage, getting you a job in his company, keeping you within his group of friends as his looking out for you?” Austin asked.
She bit her lip. “Yes, that’s right.”
“And his money,” Quinn said. “I’m sure that played a big part in your love for him.”
She winced a little.
After a brief hesitation, she said softly, “I’m not going to deny it.”
Austin could feel the pain in her words. Her gaze turned to Austin, her eyes begging him to understand.