His words resonated with me in a way I hadn’t expected. The pressure he spoke of, the expectation to fit a mold, was one I easily identified with. The mask he’d worn was much harder than anything I’d ever dealt with, but I understood what it was like to pretend you were someone you weren’t. To feel like no one saw you. There wasn’t much that was worse than being surrounded by people who were supposed to love you, and feeling invisible instead.

“I’ve tried calling you to apologize. I understand why you wouldn’t take my calls, and I’m so sorry for everything that happened. I never intended for it to become the mess it did, for our business to be spread all over the tabloids like that.”

In all fairness, that had been more due to my reputation than his.

“I know.”

His eyes were pleading. “I thought we could be happy together. I thought our friendship would be enough.”

And then I realized, really realized, that we’d both been settling for something because we’d been afraid to take a chance, to step outside of the world we’d lived in. We were living our lives on paper, on the society page, at dinner parties, and that was no life at all.

I didn’t love him. Not like that. And as hurt and embarrassed as I’d felt fleeing my own wedding, as much as the memories of people on the street shouting, “Hey, where’s the groom?” as I left the church still stung, those emotions weren’t about my relationship with Thom. They were about me.

“It wasn’t. Not for either one of us. I didn’t see it, but I should have.” If things had happened differently, if I hadn’t been nervous and gone to talk to Thom, if the timing had been off just a bit—minutes—I would be standing here at this party with his ring on my finger and a life ahead of me that never would have made me happy. Not the way I deserved to be happy. Not the way he deserved to be happy.

And what had been a Shakespearean tragedy became my saving grace.

“Are you happy with Brad?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“And your family?”

He gave me a wry smile. “Freaking the fuck out.”

“Join the club. My parents are livid.”

His expression sobered. “It wasn’t your fault. If anything, they should be pissed at me.”

I shrugged. “My mother thinks I should have married you anyway. You know how she is.”

“You did the right thing. For both of us. I’m just sorry it got as out of control as it did.”

“Me, too.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I miss you. Miss talking to you. Miss hanging out.” His voice got tight. “We were friends before. Do you ever think we could be friends again?”

I never would have thought I’d feel that way, but once you stripped the embarrassment away, I realized there wasn’t any pain left. He hadn’t broken my heart; hadn’t even touched it.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Maybe we can get coffee sometime?” he suggested.

I smiled. “I’d like that.”

We spent ten minutes on the patio, catching up, the awkward tension between us slowly dissipating with each moment we spent together. When I’d finished, I didn’t have the heart to return to the party, to deal with the stares and the questions.

So I left.

Chapter Nineteen

Spotted: Blair Reynolds and Thom Wyatt sneaking away at her parents’ annual Christmas party. Wonder what they discussed . . .

—Capital Confessions blog

Blair

I called a car to take me from McLean to D.C., cringing slightly at the expense, and met up with Caitlin, Adam, and a few others from our section at a bar around the corner from the W. By the time I arrived, everyone was well on their way to plastered. Caitlin insisted I catch up.

So I did.

I’d never done much partying; even college had been relatively tame. And now I just wanted to let loose a bit. I wanted more than a life of playing it safe. I wanted more—

I wanted Gray.

So for the second time that night, I left the party early, in favor for a very special, private party—

For two.

*   *   *

This was probably not my best idea. And yet here I was.

I stood on Gray’s doorstep, slightly intoxicated. For a moment I questioned my sanity as I lifted my hand in the air to ring the buzzer, and then months of sexual frustration came to a head as my finger pressed the button.

Buzz. Buzz.

I waited, and then I heard the sound of the door opening, and Graydon Canter in all of his masculine glory stared at me from the other side.

His eyes were wide, his expression slack. “Blair? Are you okay? It’s two a.m.”

For a moment, we just stared at each other. He was dressed in a pair of dark blue pajama pants and a gray T-shirt. His hair was rumpled from sleep, his feet bare.

Gray blinked, his gaze traveling down my body, taking in the little black dress and the killer heels. He swallowed, and then he stared into my eyes, and he didn’t look sleepy anymore.

“Can I come in?”

He nodded, his lips parted as he moved to the side, and I crossed the threshold.

His gaze on me the entire time, I was thankful for the dress that gave me the courage I needed to show up on his doorstep in the middle of the night.

It wouldn’t be easy with him. He had too much baggage for easy. I didn’t care. I was ready for whatever Gray threw my way.

I walked into the living room, turning to face him. He hovered in the doorway, his expression unsure.

I didn’t want to be protected. Maybe he wasn’t the hero, but right now all I knew was that even though he saw himself as the villain, I wanted the darkness inside him. I wanted it all.

“I want you.”

Gray’s eyes widened, as though my words had caught him off guard. But really, I stood in front of him in his living room in a skimpy dress at two a.m.; there weren’t many other conclusions one could arrive at.

“I’m technically not your student anymore. We’re both single adults. You want me. I want you.”

“Blair.”

Frustration filled me at the protest in his voice. No. Was it that he had been my teacher? Or his concerns that he wasn’t right for me? Either way, I’d come here for an orgasm, and I wasn’t leaving without one.

I could have blamed the drinks for the words that tumbled from my lips, but that would have been too easy. The words had been there for years, pushing to get out, trapped behind manners, and social rules, and the media following my every fucking move. And like the devil he was, he tempted the words out of me, filling me with need, and lust, and a want only he could satisfy. So for possibly the first time in my entire life, I said every single thing I thought as I told him the truth.

“You know what I need? I need to get laid. I need an orgasm. I need to feel a man’s body on mine. Hell, I’d like for someone to rip my thong off. They’re always doing that in books. Do you know that every single time I read a book and some guy rips the heroine’s underwear off, I think to myself, that seems too difficult to believe. Like, are they just poor quality or have they been washed too many times, or what? Because I’m twenty-three years old and no one has ever ripped my underwear off. I’m calling BS on the whole thing.”

His eyes went dark, but I was too keyed-up to stop.

“I want what you gave me on Halloween. I want more. So much more.” My voice shook. “Do you know that I’ve never had an orgasm from straight-up sex?”

“Jesus.” He half-choked the word out.

“Never. This whole time I thought it was me. That there was something wrong with me. Now that I know my former fiancé is gay, I mean it makes more sense, but for years I thought there was something wrong with me. Like I was too polite to come. I bought a vibrator—”

“Fuck, Blair.”

I stopped, mid-rant. “What? Yeah, I know. Ladies don’t use vibrators. They don’t have sex with their perfect fiancé, and then go home, and lie in bed, and get themselves off in the dark because they just need to feel something more.”