Page 77 of The Tryst

That’s the problem. And I’m not sure I’m going to find a solution to it tonight, so I stop trying.

* * *

It’s only an hour to Manhattan. But a few minutes into the return drive, her stomach growls.

I grab the opportunity her belly is offering. “Let me feed you before we get back,” I say.

Once we reach the city, I’ll have to snap back to my proper role. Father, businessman, friend to Layla.

Here in Connecticut, we’re still in no-man’s land. The tryst zone.

“If you insist,” she says.

“I do.”

Ten minutes later, we’re walking into a roadside diner at a rest stop. Layla tosses me a smile. “I love diners,” she says.

“How unusual.”

“Don’t mock me for liking something,” she says, a little hurt.

No way do I ever want to hurt her. “Sorry. That was a dick move. I’m glad you like diners,” I say, to ease my callous remark. “Especially since not everyone admits they do.”

“But I’ve never been to a rest-stop diner,” she adds, quick to forgive.

I wrap an arm around her waist. “Good. I get another first.”

She shivers against me, then eyes my arm. “I thought this was wrong,” she says, like she’s catching me on a technicality but one she wants to find too.

Let’s take this loophole we’re making up on the fly, Layla.

“Maybe in Connecticut, it’s not,” I offer as we reach the door to the diner. “Want me to stop?”

She meets my gaze, her eyes wide, vulnerable. “I don’t. That’s the issue.”

I squeeze tighter, a little sad, but glad, too, for this stolen moment. “Same here,” I say, then brush a kiss to her soft cheek.

A hostess ushers us to a booth for two, and we order quickly, Layla opting for a salad and fries while I pick an omelet.

When we shut the menus, she looks at me with a particular intensity in her eyes. “So, what did you mean with the wholenot everyone admits they docomment?”

Ah, I figured I wouldn’t get away with mic dropping that. But it’s for the best. “I just like that you’re…real. You don’t seem to have these judgments about school, or jobs, or where people come from.”

She smiles, shakes her head. “I hope I don’t.” But then she winces, like the question pains her. “But others have?”

I heave a sigh, drag a hand across my beard. Do I want to dive this deep into my past? We’re not supposed to get close.

Or…closer.

But one look at Layla and the patience in her eyes, and my plan to keep my younger years to myself crumbles. I want to get closer to her, even just for tonight, so I serve up my past on a plate. “My ex’s family hated me. Maybe that’s understandable. I’m the asshole who got their princess pregnant.Their words. But they didn’t like where I was from,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“I waited tables at that country club where they were members. That’s how I met Rose. I was the guy from the other side of the tracks because my family didn’t have money.”

“That’s terrible,” she says, quick to defend me. “That’s a shitty way to treat someone.”

She sounds so tough, so independent, and so damn certain of what’s right and wrong. A welcome sign perhaps that twenty-somethings are less judgmental than their grandparents. I sure hope so.

---