She realized it had always been that way with Gray. At first, she hadn’t bothered trying to impress him because the effort would be futile. He’d seemed determined to dislike her.
But then she’d quit trying to impress him for a different reason. Somewhere between typing up his reports and bowling with his family, Sophie realized that Gray didn’t want her to put on a show. In fact, the times when he seemed to withdraw the most were when she was at her most cute. The more she sparkled and charmed, the more sullen he’d gotten.
Gray had always seemed to want to see the real her. And somewhere along the line, she’d begun to let him.
She rotated her body slightly, and, resting her cheek against the back of the couch, she stared up at him. He glanced at her briefly, but turned away just as quickly.
“What now?” he asked. But his tone was without rancor or annoyance, and she smiled. When had his abrupt irritability started to make her grin like a fool?
“Tell me about Jessica,” she said, the words coming out in a rush. It was a risk, and she mentally crossed her fingers that he wouldn’t shut down.
He didn’t respond for several moments, and she panicked, realizing she’d pushed him too far and too fast. But Gray was full of surprises tonight, and although he wouldn’t look at her, he finally spoke.
“You mean Ashley and Jenna haven’t spilled the whole sad story?”
“No. They alluded to it being a Titanic-type situation, but both insisted that it wasn’t their story to tell.”
“It’s not really something I talk about.”
“Okay,” she said, not wanting to scare him off. “I didn’t mean to pry, it’s just so strange to think of you…”
He gave a sad smile. “Of course you mean to pry. And what, is it hard for you to imagine me on one knee pouring my heart out?”
A mental image flashed through Sophie’s mind, and she felt sucker punched. She could imagine it. Suddenly she longed for it. But it wasn’t Jessica that she pictured. It was herself. Smiling down at Gray. He wouldn’t be smiling, of course, but his eyes would be…loving.
She shook her head slightly to block out the painfully impossible image. Too fast, Sophie. The man is just now beginning to speak in full sentences. Let’s not rush him to the altar.
Taking a steadying breath, she smiled easily at him. “I just can’t picture a loner like yourself as the marrying kind,” she said teasingly.
Liar, her heart said.
“Yeah, neither could Jessica,” he said without expression.
“Tell me about her.”
“No.”
“Gray.”
“Sophie.”
“Did we not fight our way through a pile of plastic balls today? Did we not shimmy up a net like a couple of chimps?” Did you not kiss my brains out and tell me I was yours? she added silently.
His lips twitched. “That was different.”
“True, it was. Different in that there were about a billion people that could have seen and overheard. Here it’s just the two of us. Nobody but me, wanting to know about you.”
Take a chance on me.
He glanced at her briefly, then looked away. Glanced back again. “It’s not a good story, Sophie.”
“Breakups rarely are. C’mon, spill. I’ll tell you about all of my ex-boyfriends.”
“I don’t want to hear about ex-boyfriends.”
“Jealous?” she teased.
He didn’t respond, but she saw a little tic in his jaw.
Sophie sighed. “Okay, fine. We won’t talk about your precious Jessica. I’ll just ask your brother. Jack’s much more forthcoming. And friendly. And—”
“She left me,” he said sharply, staring down at his wineglass. “She’d been sleeping with a partner of mine for months. Someone I considered a friend. He got drunk at our engagement party and announced to two hundred people that he’d been fucking the bride-to-be.”
“My God,” Sophie said. She’d sort of suspected cheating, but not a public spectacle of it. “Did she try to deny it?”
Gray snorted. “Nope. Didn’t even blink in guilt. Just told me that I should have seen it coming. That someone like her couldn’t be expected to be satisfied by a mannequin. I think there was something in there about me not having a heart worth caring about.”
Sophie gasped, both at the cruel words and the carefully removed tone with which he said them. She felt waves of guilt. Hadn’t she been guilty of thinking the same thing about him since day one? She wondered how many of her careless observations about his lack of emotion must have reminded him of Jessica’s words.
“Gray,” she said, laying a hand on his arm.
He surprised her by turning his hand up to grasp hers, his thumb rubbing her knuckles as he looked down at their clasped hands.
“Don’t try to put a Band-Aid on this one, Sophie. Let it be.”
She swallowed, her heart hurting at his ragged expression and what it meant.
“You loved her,” she said with surprise.
She’d assumed that whatever he’d had with Jessica must have been a sterile, businesslike arrangement. A mutually beneficial convenience.