‘Friends fixing you up—or dating websites,’ he said.
She grimaced. ‘If it was a friend of a friend, maybe. But not a dating site. I don’t think you can get a good idea of what someone is really like through a computer screen.’
Was that how she’d met her ex? It would be cruel to ask. But, as if she guessed what he was thinking, she said, ‘I met Eric at a party. A friend of a friend of a friend.’
‘Ah. So he should have been safe.’
She nodded. ‘Except he wasn’t. I guess you only ever know what a person is really like when you’re in a relationship with them.’
‘Not necessarily. They might be a bit more open with a partner than they would be with a colleague or friend, or maybe less shy at home, but their basic personality is surely the same?’
‘So how,’ she asked, ‘did I get it so wrong with Eric?’
He thought about it. ‘Maybe he’s the rare exception that proves the rule. You said he charmed your family and friends as well.’
‘Except my grandad.’ She sighed again. ‘It’s going to take a while before I can trust my judgement again. I know my parents and my sister and my friends want me to move on, but it’s hard.’
Tell me about it, he thought. ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘you should cut yourself some slack. You weren’t the only one taken in by him.’
‘I guess.’ She shrugged. ‘But I don’t think I’d trust a dating website and most of the people I meet are already involved with someone, or they’ve got baggage.’ She grimaced. ‘Which is hypocritical of me, because I have baggage, too.’
‘You’ll meet someone,’ he said, and squashed the thought that she already had—she’d met him. Because, even though he was attracted to her, what she’d just told him put a very different light on things. Wanting children meant that he’d be out of the equation as a potential partner because he couldn’t give her what she wanted—just as he’d failed Stephanie.
‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘Do you want children at some point?’
It was a question he didn’t want to answer. Because then he’d have to explain about the mess of his past, and he really didn’t want to have to face her pity. ‘I’m pretty busy with my job,’ he said instead.
Or maybe it would be better to tell a slight untruth to deflect any questions. ‘That’s why I’m divorced, actually. My ex wanted children.’
That was true, up to a point. But he knew Mariana would infer from what he’d just said that the reason they were divorced was because his ex had wanted children and he hadn’t, rather than the real scenario: that he couldn’t have them naturally and his ex didn’t want to consider the alternatives. Stephanie had wanted a baby of her own, with no complications. She hadn’t been willing to compromise. And it had left him feeling completely inadequate. He wasn’t going to put himself in the position where that could happen again.
‘Uh-huh,’ Mariana said.
He gave her a sidelong glance. It looked as if she’d processed the information exactly as he’d planned and thought that he didn’t want children of his own. And why would you get involved with someone who wanted the opposite from life that you did, especially if your ex had treated you as badly as Eric had treated her? That put him safely off limits.
They stopped at Milan to grab a sandwich and coffee, headed up through to Chamonix and Geneva, and finally reached Dijon.
Mariana helped to shift all the boxes to their rooms—Angelo didn’t want to leave them on the van overnight—and then they went to the restaurant for a quick dinner.
‘You look shattered,’ she said.
He brushed it aside. ‘I’m fine.’
But his dreams that night were filled with visions of Mariana laughing and looking happy, and when he woke he was filled with longing. Oh, for pity’s sake. What was the point of wanting something you couldn’t have?
But he schooled himself to be nice and let her chatter to him about art all the way through breakfast and the next leg of their drive through France.
‘So what’s your grand career plan?’ he asked.