Page 69 of Catch and Release

“Me, I guess,” he let out a humorless chuckle. “I used to welcome the attention from women. Jump in bed with them the first chance I got. But then my best friend, Tucker, fell in love with this girl, and I was pissed. Don’t get me wrong—Hanna’s awesome. I love her like a sister. But I saw how happy they were, and it took me months to figure out I was jealous. They had what I wanted. What I craved.

“I have no shame in my playboy ways. I learned a lot from all that sex, and I think you’ll probably reap the benefits of that,” he said, winking at her in an attempt to lighten the mood. “But I just realized I was ready for more than sex. I wanted companionship. Someone to come home to. To talk to about how my day went. To go fishing with.”

Willa nodded.

“I get it,” she said. “Well, I guess I don’t. We’re opposites. I’ve always had boyfriends. Never any good ones, obviously.”

She huffed.

“But that desire to have a person like that? Who’s there for you no matter what, who gets you, who listens to you when your day is shitty? That’s always appealed to me. Probably why I’m terrible at being single.”

“You’re not terrible at it,” Shawn said. “You’re single now. And I’d say you’re pretty damn good at it. You fish for your own meals, for Christ’s sake.”

She grinned, and his heart fluttered at the idea that he made that happen. “That’s nice of you to say.”

“So can I ask another question? Since, technically, I let you ask three?”

She groaned. “I was thinking I could reward you for your vulnerability with sexual favors, but if you’d prefer to ask me a question, go for it.”

Shawn stifled a groan.

He was going to die from how much he wanted her. God, she was so hot, so perfect, with lips begging to be kissed. But he wanted to know her, wanted to be an expert in everything that had to do with Willa.

“You drive a hard bargain, Greene,” he said. “But I’m going to ask my question now, and I’ll make you come later.”

Her eyes flitted to him, half-lidded with desire. Good thing she was feeling that way now, because he was about to bring down the mood significantly with his question.

“What happened with your ex?”

Just like that, her eyes shuttered and her body stiffened.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Shawn said quickly, already feeling overwhelmed with guilt for making her feel so bad that her body gave outward signs of discomfort.

She took a deep breath in and out, so slowly that Shawn felt like the Earth might’ve stopped spinning.

“I met Leo just over two years ago,” Willa said. “He’d come to one of my yoga classes. We dated, and things were getting serious. Before I moved here, I’d just asked him to move in with me. We were about to start looking for apartments. But then I saw him at my favorite brunch place.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “With his wife and child.”

“You’re shitting me.”

He wanted to throw up.

No, he wanted to find this Leo and chop his balls off and feed them to him.

Then throw up.

“I wish I was,” she whispered, bringing her legs up to cradle them in her arms. “The worst part is how… embarrassing the whole thing feels. Does it hurt that he did this? Yes. Is it shitty that he led me to believe we’d move in together and maybe get married one day? Abso-fucking-lutely. Am I constantly replaying the last two years in my mind, reminding myself that every second was a lie? Yup. Do I feel like a piece of trash knowing I was a married man’s side piece for two fucking years? You bet.”

She bit her lip. “But what sucks the most is how stupid and idiotic I feel. It’s the twenty-first century, for fuck’s sake. I should’ve looked him up on social media. I should’ve Googled him more thoroughly. When he told me he wasn’t on Instagram or Facebook, I believed him. And his place—that apartment was so bland and boring. I mean, it was nice, but it had almost zero personal touches. I thought it was just a guy thing. Now, I know it was probably a pre-furnished place he kept secret from his wife. I’m hurt, yes, but more than that, I’m mortified. That I didn’t know any better. That I didn’t think to question anything. That he got me to believe his bullshit.”

“You couldn’t have known, Wi?—”

“I should’ve. I should’ve known. This is not the first time a man has cheated on me, and I doubt it’ll be the last.” Willa quickly shut her mouth like she’d said too much, and Shawn’s heart ached.

He wanted to cradle her in his arms and tell her how perfect she was. How beautiful. How brilliant and kind and funny. He wanted to wrap her up in him so thoroughly that she forgot Leo’s name, forgot anything he ever did or said. He wanted to bottle her pain and take it from her.

“Why should you have known, Willa? How could you have known?”

She buried her face in her knees, then turned so her cheek was resting on them and her eyes were trained on Shawn.

---