“Sam—”
“You want every bad and ugly thing? Do you want to know why I got kicked out of college, Grayson?”
“Yes, but you need to know that it doesn’t matter. Not to me. It won’t change how I feel about you.”
“Well, it matters to me. I got kicked out over a guy. My entire collegiate career, gone. Poof. But he was nice, and showed interest in me when I was all alone. Ember had left for Vanderbilt. My mom had moved to Kentucky, and I was on my own, really on my own for the first time, and it wasn’t…freeing like I thought it would be. I was so lonely. So I took summer classes to fill the time, and I met Harrison. He was everything I thought I was supposed to want. Stable, educated…worldly, I guess. He made me feel like the luckiest girl when I was with him. Fall came, and…” I swallowed. What was he going to think of me when he found out? Would he label me a whore? Say I deserved the emails that popped into my inbox?
Grayson squeezed my fingers gently, and the card pressed into my skin. “You don’t have to, if it’s too much. I’m not doing this to hurt you, or to find an excuse to walk away, and if you’re not ready, we can do this slowly.”
Of course he was giving me an out. Being supportive. Pulling me off bars and out of strip clubs. He was everything I needed, and nothing I deserved. “Stop being so nice!”
His brows drew closer together, hurt streaking through his eyes. “What—”
“He was my professor, Grayson. I slept with my professor, and it wasn’t a one-time thing. We were together for months.” Four months, thirteen days, if I had been counting. Which I had.
“Okay.” His thumb stroked over mine, and I focused on that small movement to get me through the rest.
“It wasn’t just…sex. I loved him, or what I thought was him. I didn’t ask questions when he was busy. I never wondered why he was so against spending the night at my house. I mean, come on. He was a twenty-eight-year-old ethics professor, and I was a twenty-one-year-old student. Of course he couldn’t spend the night with me. He was risking his job by being with me. I couldn’t ask more of him when he’d already given me so much.” A sour laugh slipped free. “You have to know where this is going, right? I’m the only naive one who didn’t see it coming.”
His eyes weren’t judgmental once I found the courage to meet them. But of course they weren’t. The closer I got to Grayson, the more I understood that he wasn’t aloof because he felt superior. He was aloof because it kept him alive.
“You weren’t the only one,” he whispered.
I shook my head. “It seemed so romantic. So…forbidden. I kept thinking that he must have really loved me if he was willing to risk so much. But then I slipped into his office one day with this sexy little note to sneak into his pocket, and I found it—his wedding ring.” It had been cool in my palm, that tiny circle that flat-lined my heart.
Grayson’s deep inhale was the only sign that he’d heard me.
“Guess the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, huh?” I forced a fake smile.
He tipped my chin to pin down my gaze. “Your mother?”
“I hated her for years, because I couldn’t have my dad. He was already someone else’s husband. Someone else’s father, and after yanking us around for four years, he chose them. Funny how I turned out just like her after I swore I’d never make her mistake. Does that earn me another card? Maybe the jack or something?”