Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 51131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 205(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 205(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
I feel Gemma’s hand on mine, and I look over to see her worried eyes peering back at me. “Are you okay?” she asks softly.
I nod, pulling my hand away.
It’s a stupid instinct, one I regret immediately, but talking about the family I once had isn’t something I ever do with women. I wouldn’t even know how.
“Anyway, enough about me.” I take a sip of champagne to get myself back on track. “We were talking about you.”
“What else do you want to know?” she asks.
“Your last serious relationship. Why didn’t it work out?”
She picks up a strawberry, focusing her attention on it instead of me. “Good question. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I made a Herculean effort to hold things together, long past the point when I should have given up.” She meets my gaze. “My last serious relationship was Parker’s father. I’ve had boyfriends since, but none of them were deep, committed long-term relationships.” She wraps her lips around the strawberry and takes a bite.
My cock stirs with interest, but I try to ignore it. “You haven’t had another serious relationship since that one? Really?”
She shakes her head, chewing her strawberry and absently plucking a piece of cheese off her plate. “I haven’t met anyone I wanted to commit to. Once I commit, it takes a lot to sever that connection, so I’m pretty choosy. I’m not one of these people who happily bounces from relationship to relationship. When I pick my person, that’s my person, and I don’t want it to ever change.”
I can relate to that. I don’t date anymore, but when I did commit, it was forever.
“He cheated on me, and I still tried to make it work, but we couldn’t get the trust back. I tried to hold things together without it, but that was impossible. I stuck it out for a while anyway just because he was Parker’s father and I wanted to keep my family together. I didn’t want to alternate holidays and spend every other weekend without her. That sounded awful to me, and he was really irresponsible, so I wasn’t sure how he would be with her. Turned out, I didn’t have to worry about it. As soon as I dumped him for good, he moved in with some girl. He took Parker for a few hours one day a week for exactly three weeks, then he lost all interest. He visited her from time to time and took us out to dinner once in a while, but since we broke up, she’s never even spent the night with him.”
I frown. “You don’t share custody?”
She shakes her head, leaning back and stretching out her legs. “Nope. It’s been years since we’ve seen him. I don’t even know where he lives anymore. Don’t care, either.”
“Does he at least pay child support?”
She laughs. “No.”
I shake my head, unimpressed. “That’s his responsibility. You should make him pay.”
“I know, but it wasn’t worth the fight to me. Honestly, I was just happy not to have to share Parker. I can be a better father to her than he can, anyway. Maybe I’d feel differently if she did, but…” She shrugs. “Parker’s a smart kid, and she knows her worth. If he’s too big of an idiot to want a relationship with her, she doesn’t want one with him, either.”
My eyebrows rise, and I nod, impressed. “Takes a lot of maturity to be able to feel that way at such a young age.”
She nods proudly. “Like I said, she’s super smart. Mature for her age, too. Part of it is probably that I was so young when I had her, and her dad wasn’t much support to begin with. It’s always been just the two of us, so I guess in some ways she has had to be a little more grown-up than most kids her age. Especially the kids in this town.”
The way she says it, she doesn’t seem to think much of the spoiled, entitled brats who live in Baymont. Can’t say I blame her, though. “Yeah, I didn’t have money growing up, either. Life is a lot different for my son than it was for me.”
The mention of my son dims her happiness. I don’t want to remind her of the reason she doesn’t think we should be spending time together, so I change the subject to something lighter.
We talk TV and books, then dip into politics. We circle around to movies, then she tells me about the one vacation she and Parker did take to Disney World a few years ago. Parker had always wanted to go—to Epcot rather than the Magic Kingdom even as a kid, which emphasizes what Gemma has already told me about her and makes me think I’d like her. I tell her about the time Sally and I took Landon when he was five, and somewhere along the way, I start thinking about what it would be like to go with her.