She clapped. “Wow, and it rhymed and everything.”
“Sure did. Now pay up.”
Laughing, she shook her head. “We haven’t finished the game.”
“Fine. But consider this fair warning-I’m not going to last much longer.” He drew a card. “Truth or Dare?”
“Truth.”
“Who was the first person to break your heart?”
Her smile faltered, then slowly faded. Her gaze skittered away from his and after what felt like a long and somehow awkward silence but was surely no more than ten seconds, she finally met his gaze and said, “You.”
He made no attempt to hide his surprise. “Me?”
“You.”
“I broke your heart.”
“Yes. You did.”
“When? How?”
“What difference does it make now? I answered the question truthfully, so let’s move on.”
“It makes a difference because I didn’t know. Tell me.”
She shrugged. “Let’s just say I was pretty crushed when you said you thought we should free each other up to date other people.”
A weird hollow feeling invaded his chest. “You were?”
She shrugged again and smiled. “Hey, no girl likes to get dumped.”
His eyebrows jerked down in a frown and he stared at her. “I didn’t dump you, Mallory.”
“No? What else do you call it when your boyfriend says he wants to be friends? Wants you both to be free to date other people? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to read between the lines.”
“We mutually agreed, given our ages and situations that it would be better to cool things off. Not to tie each other down.”
“It was painfully obvious there was more to it than that, Adam. But since that was the only explanation you’d give me, I had to go with it. What you call ‘mutually agreed,’ I call ‘you decided.’”
“But you agreed! Wholeheartedly, as I recall.”
“What did you expect me to do? Clearly you wanted freedom or you wouldn’t have broached the subject. Unless I wanted to come off as desperate and clinging-which I wasn’t about to do-I didn’t have much choice. I might not have had much pride, but I had a little. I’d already been dumped once that summer by my Chicago boyfriend. Twice was just a bit too much humiliation to take.”
“Wait a minute. Your Chicago guy didn’t dump you-you broke up with him.”
She shook her head. “No. I’d intended to break up with him. Because of my feelings for you. But before I had a chance to tell him, he called me. Told me he’d met someone else. Not that I was heartbroken, or even surprised, but still. But with you…well, I was both.”
“Heartbroken? Don’t you think that’s an exaggeration? I mean, you sure regrouped fast enough.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning when I called you your second week at school, you were already dating some other guy. You told me how great he was. How much you liked him. What a terrific time you were having together.” And even after all these years, he still recalled how deeply her words had hurt.
She nibbled on her bottom lip, then shifted her gaze to look down at her hands. “I might have overstated things a bit.”
“What does that mean?”
She blew out a long sigh, then raised her head to meet his gaze. “I made him up. I wasn’t dating anyone.”
He felt as if everything inside him shifted. “You weren’t?”
“No. But when you called, the thought of having to listen to the man I loved tell me how many sophisticated women he was meeting at his new high-powered Wall Street job…well, I couldn’t stand to hear it. Especially since all I’d done for those two weeks was cry into my pillow. So I beat you to the punch.”
He went perfectly still. Had she just said…? “The man you loved? You were in love with me?”
She made a self-conscious sound. “I was crazy in love with you.”
It took him several erratic heartbeats to find his voice. “You never told me that.”
“I never said the words. But I tried to show you in every way I could.”
He cast his mind back and he realized that she had shown him. In dozens of ways. With thoughtful gestures. Home-baked cookies. Handwritten notes. With countless smiles. And with her body…
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” he asked, his voice a gruff rasp.
She took several seconds before answering. “I was afraid. Of scaring you off. Of being rejected. Afraid it was too much too soon. Believe me, I was very conscious of our different situations-you’d already graduated college and were starting your career and I’d just graduated from high school. The last thing I wanted was to come off like some lovelorn teenage coed. So I decided I’d just wait for you to tell me first.” A ghost of a smile crossed her lips. “Except you never did. Instead you told me we should be friends and see other people.” She winced. “Ouch.”
Before he could say anything, she huffed out a laugh and shook her head. “I have no idea why I told you all that. It’s not like it matters after all these years.”
“You told me because I asked.” But she was right. It didn’t matter after all these years.
Did it?
No, of course not.
Still, he felt like he owed her the same truth she’d given him. “When I called you at school, Mallory…it wasn’t to tell you how many sophisticated women I was meeting at my new job.”
“Oh? Why had you called?”
“Because I’d realized I’d made a mistake.” He raked his hand through his hair. “That I loved you and was miserable without you. And that I didn’t want to be with anyone else.”
Her eyes widened and even in the dim candlelight he saw her face pale. “Oh…my. Why didn’t you say something when you phoned?”
“What was I supposed to say after you’d waxed poetic about your incredible new man?”
She stared at him for several long seconds, looking stunned and slightly dazed. Then she made a humorless sound. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Yeah. I’ll be damned.” His head was spinning, trying to wrap around what she’d told him.
She’d been in love with him. Crazy in love with him. God. He briefly squeezed his eyes shut, experiencing a strange sensation that felt like some sort of internal malfunction.
“How long had you been in love with me?” she asked, her voice sounding hoarse.
Since the minute I saw you. Since the first time you smiled at me. From the moment I touched you. “Awhile.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shook his head. “Same reason you didn’t tell me. What I felt for you, the depth of my feelings, scared the hell out of me.”
Reaching out, he took her hands and entwined their fingers. “I’m sorry, Mallory. I didn’t realize you cared that much. I should have, but…what can I say? I was an idiot. I thought putting some distance between us would help me get my head back on straight, but all it did was make me was miserable. And then it was too late. I never meant to hurt you.”
She swallowed. “Seems like I hurt you, too, and I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t claim to have a new guy in order to hurt you. I only did it to protect myself. Because you didn’t want me anymore.”
Didn’t want her anymore. He felt as if he’d been turned inside out. “God. Mallory, nothing could have been further from the truth. The problem was that I wanted you too much.”
And all he’d accomplished was to break her heart. Hell, it hurt just to think about that. And break his own heart in the process. It hurt to think about that, too. Which was ridiculous. It shouldn’t hurt after all these years.
Damn. He wasn’t at all sure he was happy to know all this. Especially since the knowledge set up a rapid-fire sequence of questions in his mind, all of which started with the words what if?
What if he hadn’t suggested they give each other their freedom?