* * *
Donovan watched Rose assess his living room. He’d decorated it in deep greens and warm blues, with comfortable furniture against stark white walls. The furnishings were meant to make his guests feel welcomed and relaxed. She seemed neither.
“What’s happened?” He followed her into the room. The polished hardwood flooring felt cool against his bare feet.
She turned to him. Her glossy, black hair swung above her narrow shoulders. Her long slender body was clothed in black capris and a gray tunic. “What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t be here if something hadn’t happened.” He stopped an arm’s length from her.
“Am I that transparent?” Rose rested her purse on his mahogany coffee table and paced away from him.
“Yes.” Donovan smiled to soften his stark response.
Rose lowered her head. “Ben called.”
Donovan felt curiously irritated by that announcement. He studied Rose’s back, forcing his gaze to remain above her well-rounded posterior. “Does he do that a lot?”
“I haven’t heard from him in almost two years.” She spoke with her back to him. “Actually, it’s been one year, five months and two days.”
“Not that you’ve been counting.” Donovan shoved his hands into the front pockets of his gray cargo shorts. “Why did he call?”
“He wanted to discuss our panel presentation.” Rose finally faced him. “I told him to do his own research. There isn’t any reason for us to get together.”
“Do you think he was making an excuse to see you again?” His irritation was rising. Did Benjamin still have feelings for Rose? Why does that thought bother me?
“No, I don’t.” Rose rubbed her forehead. “He said he was afraid of making a fool of himself during the panel. I believe him.” There was vicious satisfaction in Rose’s words.
“I have a feeling there’s a lot more to your background with your ex than a simple breakup.” Donovan propped his shoulder against the wall beside his entertainment center. “Care to clue me in?”
“Of course there’s more to our breakup. Isn’t there always?”
“Not necessarily. Sometimes people just drift apart.” Donovan braced himself to hear about Benjamin Shippley.
Did he break your heart? And is it still broken after one year, five months and two days?
Rose sighed. She wandered to the other side of the room, near his overstuffed couch. “Ben cheated on me. Luckily, I found out before the wedding.”
Donovan hadn’t expected that. What kind of fool would cheat on a woman like Rose? “I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” Rose ran her hand over the arm of his sofa. The gesture was like a caress. “I’m sorry I ever dated him, sorry I agreed to marry him. Sorry I ever met him.”
“How did you two meet?”
“We’d been friends in law school, but we lost touch after graduation.”
“Then you weren’t close friends.” He couldn’t resist pointing that out.
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Please continue.”
Rose slowly circled his living room. “We bumped into each other a few years after law school. One thing led to another, then two years later, he proposed. It wasn’t until six months into planning our wedding that I realized he’d been cheating on me.”
“I’m sorry. That must have hurt.”
“More than I could’ve imagined.” Rose stilled. “In the two and a half years we’d been together, he’d slept with ten different women.”
“What?” He couldn’t have heard her correctly. But the pain etched into her profile told him he had.