Her heart crashed against her ribs. Yes. That was what she wanted. “Well, I didn’t get that, which is why I stink at this Aphrodite thing thus far. And isn’t what I did the same thing as what Igor did? I allowed myself to ignore the signs he was wrong for me because I didn’t want to be alone?”
Khristos shook his head. “You’re not afraid to be alone, Quinn. You’ve done that before and you were perfectly happy with your life and your books. A little lonely? Maybe. A little isolated because you live in those books you read so many of? Maybe. But you weren’t miserable. Igor is miserable. With himself, with his life. His validation comes from the coup of getting the girl. Once he has her, and she’s not what he’d hoped, he strays because he’s always searching instead of finding out what it is he wants. Instead of learning to like his own damn company. And yes, you were happy with Igor for a time, but you didn’t love him the way you want to love a man, the way you should love a man, and you never would have. Eventually, you would have been discontent and grossly disappointed.”
“Well, how nice. Got a big fat bow you can slap on that evaluation of my love life?”
He looked perplexed and it showed when he frowned. “Don’t take insult, Quinn. I’m just trying to help you get over your breakup.”
“Phew. You’re a real soother, huh? Next time, just hand me the gallon of ice cream and skip the assessments. It would be kinder.”
Still, he persisted as though he just didn’t get how insensitive his words came off. “I’m just trying to help you understand how this works in correlation to you.”
Using the heels of her hands, she pressed them against the table and stretched her arms. “Right, so we can hurry things along and you can get back to your playboying. Forgive me in all my novice for holding you up.”
“No. That’s not it at all. I’m telling you this for the future. So you know what you need to look out for. You want a man who challenges you. Not a man who conforms to your idea of what the perfect mate should be—because that’s not a man. Men—good, honest men—stay true to who they really are.”
She bobbed her head, grabbing her hat and her purse, her lips tight. “Thanks for all the man-fo. Look, I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere tonight. The feeling I had after dinner is long gone, and if you don’t mind, I’m really tired. So I’m just going to go home and get into bed and ponder all the things you tell me I want. I’ll see you back at my place later.”
She slid out of the red-and-white vinyl booth and snatched her jacket from the hook, trying not to stomp off like a two-year-old having a temper tantrum. Swinging open the glass door, she padded down the steps, her anger fueling each stride.
She wanted a man who challenged her. Really? She jammed her arms into her coat, making a face of disgust when she couldn’t zip it up over her stupid, oversized hooters.
As she made her way out of the small parking lot and onto the curb, she thought ugly thoughts. Thank God for Khristos and his analysis. How had she gotten to the ripe old age of thirty-five without it?
What hurts more, Quinn? The fact that he’s spot on, or the fact that you weren’t smart enough to figure it out for yourself and a man who bed hops had to tell you?
Dragging her purse over her shoulder, she simmered as she walked beneath the heavy, cloud-covered night, going over Khristos’s words about Igor and his desire to have anyone beside him in his ugly bed with the equally ugly leather headboard, as long as that someone had a pulse.
In the height of her reflection, she almost mistook the sound of someone crying for street noise. But the rawness of it caught her ear and made her pause. Her eyes scanned the street, not terribly well lit, and quite honestly, it was stupid on her part to be walking alone.
Sticking her hand in her purse, she felt for her pepper spray. She’d lived in the city all alone for a long time, petrified a moment like this might come along. Her breathing slowing as she tipped her head and heard someone gasp for breath. And then sobbing. Sobbing so real, so gut-wrenchingly heartrending, her own heart clenched.
Quinn swiveled her head and that was when she saw the man on the bridge, just across the street. He was so small, his dark shoulders hunched and shaking as he straddled the steel edge of the bridge. As she drew closer, a glimmer of the puddle of his tears shone on the guardrail from the light of the full moon, making her fight a loud intake of breath.
She jammed her knuckles into her mouth. No. No, he wasn’t going to…Was he?
Everything stopped for her then. All motion, all sound. There was nothing but this man and his rasping sobs, wrenched from his body as though someone were physically pulling each one from his chest.
His breaths came in short, cloudy puffs against the deep black velvet of night, and his muttered apologies came out in fits and spurts of jumbled, agonizingly stark words like “done” and phrases of the “I just can’t do this anymore” nature, startling her to the core.