Page 28 of His Off-Limits Christmas Gift

I frowned. “Are you trying to get out of being my plus-one to it?” I hated that possibility. That was how much I was stuck on wanting to be near her.

“I’d only be your plus-one to it if you are my mentor and so far, no lessons have occurred.”

True.I hadn’t even thought about making up a lesson. I just wanted to be with her.

“If it pains you to revisit the memory of Yasmin breaking up with you, why put yourself through it at all?”

“Because I’m the CFO. All the COs go to it. It’s expected for management to be there.”

She rolled her eyes. “You can’t take one year off from it?”

“I did. Or I tried to. The second year after that one, I didn’t go. And I think it mademorepeople talk about me.”

She folded her hands on the table top and leveled a stern glare at me. “Do you really care what people say about you, though?”

“No.” I licked my lips, amazed that she had gotten this far in making me squirm. “But I would say that your desire to leave home is fueled by the same thing. You don’t want to hear what your family and Kyle’s will say about your being broken up.”

“It’s kind of different…”

“How so?”

She shook her head. “We were talking about you, Nate.”

Dammit. I hated that she’d clammed up. Maybe she’d tell me more later. “Okay. So the holiday party. Yes, I tend to drink a little more and seek liquid courage. It’s the one time of the year I do.”

“They also gossiped that Yasmin wouldn’t want you back because you have a small dick.”

I fought not to smile.

And cue her blush in three, two, one. Bingo.

She cleared her throat, looking away. “Or that you didn’t know how to use it.”

I opened and closed my mouth, debating how to reply. What waited at the tip of my tongue wasnotthe answer. Offering to show her wouldn’t be right.

“Which,” she said quickly and loudly, furrowing her brow, “is not something anyone should know or speculate on. That’s highly inappropriate.”

As are the things I want to say to you right now.

“And it’s just as inappropriate for me to be tattling this to you. Or talking about it at all. Or… yeah. Moving on. Next topic.”

I loved seeing her so flustered. But I wasn’t cruel to torment her. I sighed and sat up. “Everyone witnessed how Yasmin and I ended, Rach.”

She nodded. “So you said.”

“We had been married for six months,” I said.

“How long did you know each other? Before that?”

“Seven years. We dated for seven years, then all of a sudden, she wanted to get married. It seemed like we were bound to do that someday, so we did. All six months, I suspected that she was cheating. It started as a tiny voice. A nagging thought. But by the time that holiday party came along, I knew it wasn’t a hunch. One of my colleagues saw a video of her from our wedding, cheating on me, and he told me about it at the party. He wantedto tell me in person, given the nature of the topic, and he’d been traveling a lot.”

“Wow.” She frowned, showing me how hard she felt about this for me.

“I confronted Yasmin at the party, hoping to ask her to just talk with me in another room. Instead, she said she wanted everyone to hear this. She took the stage, stood at the podium?—”

“No!” She covered her mouth.

“She claimed she wanted everyone to hear it from the source.” I nodded. “She got up there and announced that it was her biggest mistake to marry me. And that she wanted a divorce becauseIcheated.”

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