Page 43 of Betrayal

Her smile sizzled down his spine.The kind of smile you never tired of seeing.

“Yes, please.”

Ten minutes later, he set two cups on the table and slid in beside her.She peered at his “inky evil.”

“Seems fitting,” he muttered.

“Sorry for the bum’s rush, but the atmosphere in that house was poisonous.I had to flee or disgrace us both.”She sniffed her cup.“I’m being unkind.Remember I told you my father was a philanderer.”

“Yeah.”

“The fooling around was bad.”She hesitated.“The lying was worse.”

“A house of horrors where every door you opened sickened you more.”Hunter surprised himself with the confession.

“I wanted to throw up.But my need to rebel was entrenched.I moved out when my sister enrolled at university in Sydney, not Melbourne.I’d been going through my own ego-needs-stroking period and needed a circuit breaker.”She turned and pressed a kiss to his upper arm, making a friendly connection.

“Dad said my sister, Kate, was the fantasist because she believes in love.At first, I wanted to distract Dad from her.He humiliated her when she was eleven by reading her romance story aloud at a dinner party.I started staying out, drinking, smoking, the usual rebellions.Making sure I was found out.”

“Did your parents notice?”

“You’re not just a pretty face.”She grimaced.“I think they noticed, had an adult conversation about adolescent defiance and decided it was normal for a high-spirited, intelligent young woman to act like a rebel without a cause.They turned a blind eye.”

“So, you upped the stakes.”Hunter hadn’t wanted to act up; he’d wanted to be so boring no one would notice him.

“I started imitating him.I thought, what the hell?This is how it works.In the early days, I flashed my boobs to boys behind the toilet block, then lifted my skirts to give them a look.”

“Is that how he operated?”Hunter signalled a passing waiter for two more of the same.“Dropped his daks at the back of the toilet block?”

She was mid sip, so his words made her swallow too quickly, choke, then laugh aloud.“I must ask him some time.”

“Were you always angry?”He hadn’t known what to do with the cocktail of rage, shame and lustful curiosity.

“Not always.I was about fifteen when I fell for a guy—thoughtI fell for a guy,” she corrected herself.“I decided he was the one.He wined and dined me.”

“Maccas?”

“Guzman y Gomez.Pleeeze, grant me some class.”She nudged him with her shoulder.“Then it was the back seat of his parents’ Toyota.”

“Romantic.”

“It had reclining seats.”

“A deal maker at one point in my youth.I’m guessing you’re carrying a few bruises”—he eased the frown away from her forehead—"otherwise, you’d still be with him.”

“I’m taking that as a compliment.”She sighed.“I read the news on his social media feed the next morning that my boyfriend got laid.”

Her kind of honesty meant she might not have forgiven herself.And she was filling in the details of what she’d told him at Icebergs at Bondi.

“I’m guessing he never got lucky again.”

“Not with me.”She smiled smugly.“Or anyone in our school.”

“He deserved the punishment.”

“It’s a learning experience I’m reluctant to repeat.”Was she warning Hunter they weren’t going to make it to bed, or demanding he keep it a secret if they did?

“I didn’t want to be anyone’s first,” Hunter admitted.“Certainly not someone who might be in love with me, when I sure as hell wasn’t in love with them.”