Page 53 of Second Time Around

“Ouch.” Kyra couldn’t imagine that.

His laugh held no amusement. “She begged me to take her to Rome where she had friends we could visit and stores she could shop in. So I did. As soon as we got back to the States, I asked her to break our engagement.” He turned to look out the window, but Kyra was sure he didn’t see anything on the terrace. “She was shocked and devastated. She didn’t understand why, which told me more than anything else about her.”

“And she made a scene at the Spring Fling.”

He winced. “I wanted her to announce that she was the person who had chosen to end the relationship. To save her dignity. She did that originally, but then she got drunk at the party and told everyone it had been me.”

Now she laid a comforting hand on the back of his shoulder. “That was her choice.”

“Only because she’d had a martini too many.”

“Her drinking was not your fault.”

He turned to look at her. “She was drinking too much because I broke the engagement.”

“What was the alternative? To marry a woman who didn’t love the person you are?” Kyra held the sheet to her chest and sat up to meet his gaze on the same level. “You did the right thing. For both of you.”

He shook his head. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“I’ve told you things that I’ve never said to anyone else. Why?”

“I’m safe.” Honesty that she should probably have kept to herself.

“Safe? You’re dragging my innermost secrets out into the open.”

“Because I’m not part of your world, so I can’t do any damage to you, even if I didn’t keep your secrets to myself.”

She needed to remember that.

He stared at her for a long moment, appalled at her answer. “You’re wrong. I told you because I trust you with a confidence that goes back years.” He’d known even as a college student that this woman had a bone-deep integrity. Maybe it was the contrast to her cheating roommate that made her stand out, but she always had.

“Thanks,” she said with a brief smile, but he could tell she didn’t believe him. And he realized something else. She didn’t trust him in the same way. There was something holding her back from the future she’d imagined, but she wasn’t willing to share it with him.

That sent a surprising spike of hurt through his chest.

What made women conceal themselves from him?

He cupped his hands over her shoulders, loving the silk of her skin, and brought her back down onto the bed with him. Rolling onto his side so he could see her face, he feathered his fingers over her temples and traced along her eyebrows. “Entrust me with your secrets.”

Her smile was nervous, as he continued to whisper his fingers over her cheekbones and jawline. “Are you attempting a Vulcan mind meld?” she asked.

“You know my past. I want to understand yours.”

“I told you I dropped out of Brunell and my parents both died. Those were the big events.”

He suddenly saw the hole in her story. “But after your mother died, you could have gone back to school and you didn’t.”

“It’s nothing mysterious, just a lack of funds.”

“So you came to New York to make your fortune.”

She huffed out a breath, clearly frustrated by his persistence. “A friend from home who’d moved here told me how much she was making as a bartender at Stratus. She offered to put in a good word for me with Derek, the manager. I got a crash course in mixing cocktails from the manager at the restaurant in Macungie where I’d worked part-time and filled out the application for Stratus. I had to send pictures, too. That was kind of weird, but once I came for the interview, I understood.” She snorted. “Even then, Derek assigned one of the other bartenders to take me shopping.” She picked up a lock of her shining hair, dangling it from her fingertips. “I learned fast and grew my hair long for the tips.”

“And I had to cut mine short for the venture capitalists.” He thought of her arriving in a city that could eat you alive with nothing but her intelligence and an introduction to a bar manager and something twisted in his chest. For all his struggles with his parents, he at least had never been entirely alone. Maybe that was the difference he saw in her. The toughness necessary to cope with being orphaned so young.

“So you got the job.”