Read Online A Game of Vows by Maisey Yates - Free Book Online Page B

could do my job without so much sexual harassment.”
    “And that’s the only reason you were going to marry him? I hate to be the one to tell you, but men who are inclined to behave that way sexually harass women with wedding rings, too.”
    “Sure they do, but Zack is influential. Wealthy. It would be a brave man who attempted to poach on his territory.”
    Eduardo chuckled, dark and enticing. “Like me?”
    “Yes. Brave or stupid.”
    His eyes locked with hers. “Do you remember what happened last time you used that word?”
    Heat and regret assaulted her. Heat from the memory of the kiss, regret because she’d insulted him. She wished she felt more regret in regards to the actual kissing.
    “I won’t do it again.”
    “Good.” He walked to the railing, resting his forearms on the metal surface. He was barefoot. Strange that she noticed. He seemed slightly more human than usual in that moment. “Were you going to have a family with him? Children?”
    A shiver started in her stomach, working its way through her. “No. No children.”
    “You don’t want them?”
    “No. Never. What would I do with a baby, anyway?” She laughed, as though it were the most ridiculous thing in the world. And she fought hard against the tight, clenching pain in her womb. Against the memories.
    “Raise it, I suppose. But then, wearing a baby in a slingwhile you’re cursing and trading stocks is maybe not that practical.”
    She swallowed the bile that was rising in her throat. “You want children?”
    “No,” he said. Just no. Good. She didn’t want to talk about her aversion to children, either. Didn’t want to open up that box. It held so much fear, and regret and guilt. She just couldn’t look in it at the moment. She did her best to never, ever look in it. To never remember.
    “Not practical for people like us,” she said. She and Zack had had a very similar conversation once. And in his response she’d sensed the same dark grief that she felt hovering around the edges of his answers. Another reason she’d never pressed him for his secrets. She was certain they shared something too similar, too painful. She knew it was why he’d never pressed for hers.
    “Of course not.”
    “We were going to be partners. Help each other out. It’s good to have a partner in life.”
    “I suppose so,” he said slowly. “But that isn’t how I want to live.”
    “No?”
    “No. I would rather be able to do things independently. If I ever had a wife … I would have wanted to take care of her.”
    “Not every woman wants to be taken care of.” But for a moment she wondered what it would be like. To have someone shoulder some of the pain. To have someone who knew every secret. Who shared every fear. Someone who would cover her, shield her.
    A silly thought. She didn’t want that. She was the only person she could trust. The only person she could depend on.
    “It’s how I think things should be done. That’s how my parents did things. They were happy.”
    “How is your mom?”
    “Grieving. Still. She spent more than thirty years with my father. His death has been hard for her.”
    “I’m sorry. Your parents were … They’re the only place I’ve ever seen love, let’s put it that way.”
    “The only place? What about your parents?”
    What was the harm in giving him a little? He knew more about her than anyone else. “I don’t know. I don’t think they ever married. When I was three my mom left me at my dad’s single-wide and never came back. She had all my stuff tied up in a little plastic bag. Anyway, he didn’t know what to do with a kid. He … he tried I guess. But he was kind of a mess.”
    He frowned. “Your mother left you?”
    “Not every family is perfect. But I don’t dwell on it.”
    “You don’t even acknowledge it.”
    “I lived in this dirty, dusty mobile home. The park it was in had a dirt road and when trucks would drive by, the dirt was like a cloud. It settled on everything. Everything