Page 8 of Truly, Madly, Deeply

Colin steepled his fingers and nodded slowly, chipped purple polish glinting in the bright glow of the ring light. “Interesting.”

Her tongue poked against the side of her cheek. “What exactly is so interesting about that?”

He shrugged, shoulders rising slowly and falling leisurely, irritatingly nonchalant and stupidly graceful. “I’m no psychologist, but based on what I know of attachment styles, it sounds like the concerns you’ve outlined are that of an anxious attachment. Low self-esteem, fear of rejection or abandonment, clinginess...”

Crimson tinged the edges of her vision. “Clingy—” She scoffed. “I didn’t come here to—to...”

A telltale burning took up residence behind her lids, her throat suddenly tight.

Shit.

The reality of catching Justin cheating, the fact that her longest relationship, the one that was supposed to be forever, was over... it was finally hitting her. That was it. It had to be. Otherwise she was just a weirdo who cried when pissed and how pathetic was that? She didn’t shed a single tear upon catching Justin in the act and yet this... this stranger had managed to get under her skin? No. No, it was a latent reaction.

Colin’s mouth twitched like he was trying not to smile. “You didn’t come here to... what, exactly?”

Her hands curled into fists, nails biting into the skin of her palms. She would not flip him off. She wouldn’t.

She took a deep breath and unclenched her jaw. “I didn’t come here to be psychoanalyzed by some guy whose only expertise lies in unhappily ever afters.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Okay, now that’s definitely reductive.”

Screw this. She had better things to do than sit here and let some guy, some lawyer, call her reductive and clingy and tell her she feared abandonment as if he knew a single goddamn thing about her life. Even if she didn’t have better things to do, anything would be preferable to sitting here another second.

Truly stood. “Caitlin, thank you so much for thinking of me for your podcast. Really.”

Caitlin’s brows slanted low, the jut of her bottom lip suggesting concern rather than anger. “Maybe if we take five and cool off we can—”

Truly shook her head, already inching in the direction of the door. The day had gone from bad to abysmal and she wasn’t keen on sticking around for it to get worse. “Sorry for wasting your time, but no.” She threw a scowl over her shoulder in Colin’s general direction. “I don’t think so.”

Chapter Three

“Hate is an awfully strong word, Pumpkin Butt.”

“Why do you think I used it?”

Mom smiled patiently over her mimosa.

“Ugh.” Truly let her head flop back dramatically. “Fine. I don’t hate him. I strongly dislike him. Better?”

“Getting there,” Mom said. “It wouldn’t hurt to know why exactly you strongly dislike this boy.”

“He’s a man, Mom. A man.”

Colin McCrory was not a boy. He had creases at the corners of his eyes, laugh lines, and chest hair, enough that it peeked out from beneath the V-neck of his stupid purple sweater-vest that she did not find attractive.

“He’s a pompous asshole,” she said, settling on a slightly more rational reason than her brain’s weird hyper-fixation on Colin freaking McCrory’s body hair. “He’s a lawyer. A divorce lawyer. Isn’t that reason enough?”

Mom pursed her lips. “Truly.”

Okay, fine. Maybe she was being a little ridiculous.

Yes, Colin was a pompous ass. Yes, he’d pushed her buttons—most of them the wrong ones, but some of them oh so right—and yes, he’d poked at no fewer than a dozen of her insecurities, professional, personal, and everything in between, but more than anything, more than she was willing to admit upon pain of death? Colin McCrory had made her feel small. He had made her feel small and stupid. He had hurt her feelings, and that? That was a damnable offense.

“He’s a jerk, Mom. I guess you had to have been there.”

“I guess so. But I am sorry this boy—excuse me, man—upset you. That wasn’t very nice of him.”

“No,” she said, picking at a loose thread on her pleated skirt. “It really wasn’t.”

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