Page 55 of His to Seduce
Chapter 18
Camden
I pulled back from David, the humor of his untying my hair and sliding the band on his wrist evaporating at his words.
“What is it?”
He cleared his throat and looked away.
It felt like a punch to the gut that he wouldn’t look me in the eye after everything he’d already shared. God, how did he live with the guilt he carried? But I also understood it in some way. “If-onlys” could kill his being able to move past anything. I would know. I was the poster child for them. If only I hadn’t dressed a certain way, if only my mom had better taste in men, if only I hadn’t smiled so much…
I pushed the thoughts out of my head. “Are we going to need more alcohol for this?”
David laughed softly, but coldly. “You might.”
I raised my brow, but his quiet laugh told me it couldn’t be all that bad. I pressed my hand to his cheek. “Thank you for sharing all of that with me. I’m sorry you’ve gone through that. But can we get to the other stuff—can you tell me why you hid it from me?”
He blinked rapidly, several times, suddenly looking uncertain. “Because I’m not sure if I ever want to go back and practice medicine. And until I figure that out, what’s the point?” I opened my mouth to argue that it’s still a part of who he is, or was, and he hid it from me, when he said, “And to be honest, I’ve been running from all of it. I don’t want to think about it, that night or the ones before it when I delivered similar news to hurting families. I wanted to be able to avoid it for as long as possible. I haven’t even told the guys yet.”
“But Trina knew.”
“Only because she twisted her ankle in Chicago and Declan had me check her out. When I got to town, I went to their house first and made it pretty clear I didn’t want to discuss it.”
It made sense. If I thought back to the comments she made, she always stopped herself from saying anything more.
“I thought she was purposely hiding something from me.”
He shook his head. His hand went to the back of my neck and then pushed through my hair. He pulled me toward him until our foreheads pressed together. “Only because she knew I didn’t want to talk about it. I never told her to keep it from you.”
I stared into his blue eyes, still rimmed with red from unshed tears and exhaustion, and believed him. “Okay.” I pushed off him and he let me go, seemingly reluctantly. “I’ll go get us some drinks and you can tell me the rest.”
“Super.”
I rolled my eyes at his sarcasm. “Would you like another of the same or something different?”
“Surprise me,” he called out after I’d already turned the door to the kitchen.
—
“Before I start, can I ask you a question?”
He’d moved to the center cushion while I went downstairs and then back to the kitchen, where I cut up cheese and crackers and lunch meats to snack on. One drink on an empty stomach was okay, but two would get me tipsy, and I wanted to be fully alert for whatever was about to come next.
I was facing him, one of his arms draped over the back of my couch. His fingers played with my hair in a way Ineverthought I would have liked before. At his question, my shoulders bunched together.
It was only fair, after he’d shared so much.
“What is it?”
He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, then let it go. “What makes you so hesitant to date a guy who’s a bartender? They can make a lot of money.”
“It’s not about the money. Not entirely, anyway.” I looked at the fireplace behind him. The familiar prickle of irritation buzzed in my veins. Diving into my past wasn’t easy. It was best done in the safety of my therapist’s office. Bringing it up when I wasn’t prepared still made me panic.
My pulse increased and I forced myself to meet David’s eyes, so blue and clear, and focused directly on me and my hesitation. “I need security and safety. Someone who can leave at any moment, who can walk away or who doesn’t care about those things, frightens me.” The constant jingle of coins that I still heard every time someone dug through a glass jar where they saved quarters and pennies…I couldn’t handle the sound. I wasn’t prepared to tell him that yet.
He wiped his hand over his mouth like he didn’t believe me but didn’t want to argue or push, and who could blame him. Sometimes I wanted to kick my own butt for being such a coward.
Setting his hand back at the end of the couch, he asked, “When you hear the name McGregor, what does it make you think of?”
