Anger spiked along her spine at being exposed. “And you know this how?”
“Because Igor transforms himself every time some pretty woman catches his eye. You could have been into breeding scorpions and sword swallowing, and he’d have said he was, too. In the end, it all comes crashing down around his ears because he’s not really into sword swallowing. In fact, it bores him to tears. His reasons for beginning a relationship with you or anyone have little to do with anything other than the desire to have sex. At first, anyway. You saw the signs, you just chose to ignore them.”
“Scorpions have breeders?”
He rolled his eyes in that adorable way he did when she was pushing him over the edge of his patience. “Don’t avoid what’s unpleasant by deflecting. You know exactly what I mean. You didn’t feel Igor there,” he said, pointing to the area where her heart pounded erratically. “You felt him in your pretty head.”
Quinn snorted. “So you’re saying he pretended to like poetry readings and quiet nights by the fire because he wanted my smokin’-hot bod, and I let him because I wanted him to be someone he’s not? I think you can clearly see there’s nothing smokin’ about me unless you count my new melons, which I hope you’re going to talk to someone about deflating. Like, soon? Please? Bras cost the earth for a doubleD.”
Khristos grabbed her fingers, forcing Quinn to look at him, leaving her uncomfortable with the depth of his gaze. “Don’t underestimate your feminine wiles, Quinn. You have plenty of those. That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is, Igor doesn’t know what he wants specifically—what he does know is he just doesn’t want to be alone.”
She cocked her head and paused. What Khristos said washed over her in waves of truth. It explained why she spent so much time convincing herself Igor loved her, even though he’d declared as such. She’d never felt terribly secure when he assured her he felt the same way. Maybe because his words had never really rung true?
Ow.
That hurt—to be duped, to be used. “So he spent all that time with me, pretending to be something he wasn’t, just to avoid being alone. Perfect. I love the idea that I was a some kind of placeholder for Shawna.”
“You weren’t a placeholder for her, per se. Shawna could have been anyone, Quinn. She could have been your next door neighbor.”
“I bet Lydia would’ve loved to have known that.”
His adorable face scrunched up in a “huh?” look. “Who’s Lydia?”
“Our old next-door neighbor. She’s eighty-three, watches Judge Judy at ear-shattering decibels and loves pickled gefilte fish.”
“You love to avoid, don’t you?”
Quinn put her hands to her chest and mocked surprise with the bat of her eyelashes. “Me? The woman who’s been looking for her Mr. Darcy since she was old enough to know what the words ‘unrealistically’ and ‘romantic’ meant? That’s just plain silly.”
But suddenly, Khristos wasn’t joking. His face took a harder turn. As though he needed to drum into her head why she’d been so wrong about Igor. “My point is, Shawna could have been anyone. You were a placeholder until he figured out what he wants—and he was yours, by the way.”
She didn’t like that. She didn’t like it at all. “Igor’s a jerk.”
He pushed his milkshake aside, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Igor’s just confused.”
“Are you defending him?”
“Someone has to. I mean, the guy went to poetry readings for you. I’d rather watch paint dry than sit through something like that. But I won’t do something I’m completely disinterested in just to avoid sleeping alone. If I’m honest, I feel a little sorry for him. He was pretty lost for a really long time.”
Was? Her cheeks went hot, her jaw tight. “Oh, and I suppose now he’s not lost because Shawna and her ripped body and skimpy clothing helped him find his way?”
Khristos stared at her for a moment before he answered. “I don’t know if he’s still lost. But forget Igor. What I’m saying is, he was the wrong man for you, Quinn. I am absolutely not saying his infidelity was okay or fair to you. But in the long run, you’re better off because Igor doesn’t know what he wants in a life partner. You do.”
“The hell I do. I don’t know what I want, because when I think I have what I want, what I want turns out to be a fat lie.”
“All the romantic notions aside, like sunsets and picnics in the park while the breeze blows through all that luscious hair of yours, you want two things, Quinn. You want unconditional acceptance, and a real man with unshakeable morals.”
He thought her hair was luscious?
Knock that right off, dreamweaver.