Page 8 of His Lovebug

QUIN

Trust should be a four-letter word.

God knew, I’d learned my lesson growing up in the orbit of a manipulation virtuoso. Trust could be twisted and used to financially ruin the smartest men. And there was nothing harder for me to do after a lifetime with a grifter as a mother than trust.

Four-letter word, indeed.

But, stupid or not, I’d put my faith in Matt.

It was strange. Despite everything we’d been through together, I hadn’t been as upset or hurt by anything in our past—not even when Matt had essentially demanded I have sex with him for a place to stay in the beginning—as I was at the implication that Matt might nottrustme now. The dangerous secret we shared meant he must trust me with his life. Right?

He’d apologized, but what was going through his head?

Matt sat across the table from me in the bar area at the Courtesan Hotel, where he’d brought me tonight as an apology. We hadn’t done many things like this, and I wasn’t entirely certain what he thought he was doing... but it was working. A little.

I toyed with my lavender martini, sliding it around the tabletop that separated me from Matt. The garnish was a stem of lavender stretched across a strawberry crusted in sugar. The pretty arrangement was pinned together by a diamond-tipped metal skewer.

“This is nice,” I said, hating that my words were stilted.

Matt grunted and glanced down at his beer. We weren’t necessarily great at talking stuff out. So far things had just sort of worked, which made us lucky, but this probably wouldn’t get better without a real conversation.

Half of healing anyone was listening to their issues. Active listening was a large part of what we’d been taught about patient care in my nursing classes. I glanced up at him, and he was watching me out of the corner of his eye. He straightened and cleared his throat, which had me giggling.

“What?” he asked with a frown.

Sighing, I sipped my drink and bumped his ankle under the table with my foot. “I love you. You really hurt my feelings.”

His mouth tensed into a firm line, and then he grabbed my hand, dragging it across the table. His lips were warm as they danced over my knuckles. “I’m sorry.”

Tipping my chin toward him, I hummed. “How sorry?”

He nipped my knuckles lightly, and a shiver of delight sizzled down my spine. My cock twitched and firmed where it was trapped in my panties as he swirled his tongue around my engagement ring. And what a ring.

Why do you have to be such a pretty ring? All those diamonds around the band. How much are you worth, anyway? Probably more than my Porsche. Hell.I glared at the glittering gems. The three-carat centerpiece diamond had been cut in the shape of a heart. Matt clearly picked the jewelry out with me in mind, meaning he did love me, even if he was an idiot. Some of my anger ebbed—but not all of it.

“What do you want?” he asked.

I grabbed my drink and downed half of it, the sweet floral flavor lighting up my taste buds while he held my other hand. “I don’t want you to accuse me of things I haven’t done ever again. I don’t care what you need to do to get over the past. I can’t be held responsible for someone else’s actions. And I won’t.” I settled the glass on the table and pulled the strawberry from the skewer, munching the sweet fruit while I studied him.

He stared, transfixed, at my lips, and I smiled.

Matt’s gaze darted up to meet mine. “Do you understand why?—”

“I didn’t say I didn’t get it, I said I won’t pay for someone else’s crimes.”

We were quiet for a bit while he held my hand. People around us talked and laughed. He teased his thumb over my palm, and a slow burn of arousal smoldered in my belly. There was a string quartet on the stage at the far end of the room playing a quiet melody that was familiar, though I couldn’t quite place it. I tucked the piece of lavender from my drink behind my ear, and Matt sighed, a long, loud, bone-weary sound that made me feel bad for him.

“You’re right.” His sincere brown eyes begged me to let this go and never mention it again, but I wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. We needed to discuss this.

I sat up straighter as what he’d said registered. “I am?”

“Yes.” He dragged his phone out of his pocket and smirked, then tucked it away. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised as he abruptly stood, then came around and pulled out my chair with me on it. I had no choice except to take his hand and let him draw me up against his side. I snagged my small red purse. “What’s going on?” I ran my fingertips along the soft fabric of his dress shirt before plucking at one of the buttons.

“Our room is ready.”

“Room?” I asked, frowning at him.

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