“Yes, really.”
“If you must know, I faked all my orgasms with him because I was terrified of losing him. I thought there was something wrong with me because he couldn’t make me come, and then I’d sneak into the bathroom after he fell asleep and, let’s say, I took matters into my own hands.”
Now Tate’s face was stretched in a gloating smile of victory. “Is that so?”
Lainey shook her head in amusement. Men and their egos. She actually found it adorable that Tate, Mr. Handsome Alpha himself, wanted reassurance from her.
Then she continued with her sorry tale. “As soon as he started dating me, my parents were suddenly all over me, wanted the two of us around all the time, dragging us to their country club to introduce us to their friends. They’d never, in my life, had me come to the country club before I met Miles. They loved how handsome he was, and that he came from an old, well-respected name in Philadelphia, dating back to the Revolutionary War. Old money who’d spent all of their money. My parents are more second generation nouveau riche, always trying to buy status and respectability. We were at the country club one night when he proposed to me in front of my parents, and I said yes, and I remember afterwards my mother took me aside and said hold on to this guy and never do anything to upset him, because I’d never be able to do better than him.”
Tate’s eyes widened. “Wow.” His tone was a mixture of anger and sympathy.
Lainey nodded. “I know, I know. But that’s how my mother always talks to me. And up until recently, I always believed her. But the wedding was getting closer, and I kind of realized that Miles and I really didn’t have anything in common. I suspected that he wasn’t actually interested in the things that I like. Museums. Musicals. Ballet. It wouldn’t have mattered to me at all, though. What bothered me was that he pretended so hard to be fascinated by it and insisted on going to all these events with me. I started to realize that he secretly hated all of it, which just seemed dishonest and weird. He was really secretive about his cell phone, and things just weren’t adding up.”
She grimaced at the memory she was dredging up, but now that she’d started talking, she couldn’t seem to stop.
“I had the keys to his place. One night, I pretended I was going to spend the night at my friend Katherine’s house. I left, and snuck back an hour later. He was talking on the phone to the girl who he’d supposedly broken up with, but he’d gotten back together with her after he started seeing me, and the things he was saying…”
She was horrified to realize that hot tears were spilling from her eyes and running down her cheeks, and a sob bubbled in her throat.
Tate pulled her into his arms, and hugged her tightly, and she sagged into his warmth, his simple, honest, unpretentious warmth.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said.
But suddenly, she wanted to, wanted to lance the festering memory and let the poison spill out for once and for all.
“He was talking about he couldn’t wait to get the wedding over with, so he’d never have to have sex with me again. He called me a fat bitch, and said that having sex with me was like drowning in lard, that pretending to come when he had sex with me was the best acting he’d done since theater class in high school.”
She took a deep, shaky breath, struggling not to burst into sobs. “He was saying something about how my parents had promised him two hundred and fifty thousand dollars deposited in his bank account after he’d been married to me for one year, and a hundred thousand dollars a year after that, and a bunch of other bonuses. Then I heard him saying, ‘I swear, baby, I’ve got a written contract.’”
Tate had gone rigid with anger. “If I ever see him again…”
“Don’t,” Lainey said, with a shaky laugh. “It’s not even worth it. He’s got a miserable life. Turns out his parents were tired of him getting arrested and doing drugs and burning through what little was left of their money, so they’d kicked him out. He was on the verge of having to go crawling back to work for them in some menial job they’d picked to punish him, when my parents presented him with this deal. Now, he’s a college drop-out with no job skills and no prospects. Nothing but his pretty face.”