Curiosity burned within me. “So what’s the real reason? You said you thought you and Leo were in love. But you weren’t saving yourselves—then what you were waiting for?”
“I don’t know …” she murmured, her voice trailing off. Her hesitation told me shedidknow—she just didn’t want to say.
I started to have an inkling of what it might be, so I blurted it out. “Is Leo into guys?”
Her eyes widened with alarm. “How did you—er—I didn’t say that!”
“No,Isaid it.” I pressed, sensing I was on the right path. “It’s true, right?”
Her stern gaze held mine, but after a lengthy pause, her facade broke and she let out a resigned sigh. “Dakota, please promise me you won’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t tell anybody,” I assured her, “but it’s also pretty obvious.”
“It wasn’t to him.”
“Sure, not at the time.” I paused. “Then again, if you’re a horny teenage male, and your girlfriend is a smokin’ hot, bombshell Italian billionaire, and you aren’tconstantlyrock hard and leaking cum every minute you’re together—”
“Ew, Dakota!”
“Sorry.” I cracked a grin. “My point is, if he wasn’t attracted toyou,he probably figured it out pretty quickly.”
“Well, maybe hedidfigure it out quickly,” she grumbled. “But we still dated for three years, andIhad no idea until the very end.”
“I’m sorry.” I frowned and held her close. “How’d you find out?”
“I guess he’d been wrestling with it for some time, but he finally told me because I’d started acting a little crazy.”
“How so?”
“Well, when we first started dating—like I said, we’d experiment some—but Leo never pushed for more. Which was great, at first, because I wanted to take things slow. But after a while?” She cracked a smile. “Well,Iwas that horny dog humpinghisleg.”
She grabbed hold of me and gave my thigh a couple humps before we both exploded into laughter.
“So you were trying to get railed, and he kept turning you down?” I asked, amused.
“He was themasterof artfully declining my advances, and then diverting the conversation elsewhere,” she said, beaming. “And it worked for a really long time. But like I said, as time went on, I started to go crazy. None of my friends were virgins anymore; hell, by our senior year, they’d fallen in and out of love with several boyfriends. I started to think he wasn’t attracted to me, or maybe he was cheating on me. I became more and more desperate to be intimate with him, but that only drove him away further. It sucked for both of us.”
I gently caressed her soft cheek. “You poor thing. That must’ve been really confusing and painful.”
“It wassoconfusing,” she said. “Which is why it got to the point that Leo finally sat me down and told me that he’d been struggling with his sexuality for a while but he now knew he was attracted to men.”
“Okay, but wait. If he’s not even into women, doesn’t that get you out of the arranged marriage?”
“Yeah, right.” She tutted. “If anything, it’s the opposite. It makes the arranged marriage evenmorenecessary.”
“What?! How?!”
“It’s his secret, Dakota, and he doesn’t want anyone to know. Remember, his dad is a Senator who’s running for President.”
“Andthat’swhat you meant when you said Leo has his own reasons,” I grumbled, piecing the rest of her story together. “Does his dad know?”
She shook her head.
“So I guess your dad doesn’t know then, either.”
“No. I’m the only person he’s told. Which is why you have topromiseme you won’t tell anyone.”
“Damn,” I hissed. “I promise.” A lull came between us as I tried to wrap my brain around her story. “So what happened after he told you? Did you break up?”
