With one last full-body shudder, she nodded and seemed to finally relax against him. “I—I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed.” She sniffed against his chest.
“Honey, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I need to know what happened, though. What scared you? Did it have something to do with the man who found your purse?” She answered him haltingly about how the man had made her uncomfortable during her meeting and then he’d followed her out into the parking area, keeping her from getting into her car. She’d been shaken enough to take a taxi home and hadn’t noticed that she’d dropped her purse until she had needed to pay the driver. When she’d found the same man had followed her home, she had been so frightened. “Ah, Avie, I’m sorry. I have the guy’s contact information; I can assure you that I’ll be talking to him. He’s never to bother you again. According to Jeff, he was pretty shaken up over the whole thing.”
“I . . . I probably overreacted. I just . . . I felt trapped.”
Mac heard the slight slur to her words and knew that the vodka had hit her system. Her words were softer, almost as if she were talking to herself.
“I’ve never been able to let anyone touch me since that night. I tried once, but I couldn’t go through with it.”
Mac was completely confused by the words coming out of her mouth. Ava had had men come and go from her life for years. Hell, he’d read documentation of it in written form from his surveillance guys. Of course, they didn’t go into details, but when a man came home with Ava and didn’t leave until sometime in the morning, it was easy to fill in the blanks. Why was she bothering to lie about it now? It was a little late in the day to try to protect his feelings. “Avie . . . it’s fine. I know you have a sex life. I understand that you don’t want any attachments with the men you—see.”
Her bottom lip wobbled pitifully as she turned to stare at him. “There haven’t been any men, Mac. I’ve been too messed up for that.”
Her denial was starting to upset him. It was bad enough that he’d been forced to live through it, but he damn well hated to be lied to. This whole conversation was cruel and pointless, and he was hanging on to his temper by a thread. He started shifting her aside, ready to distance himself before he snapped at her. “Whatever, let’s just drop this, okay? Are you feeling better now?”
She clung to his large frame, refusing to move away from him. “Why don’t you believe me? I’m trying to finally tell you how screwed up I really am and you don’t believe me,” she cried, obviously frustrated.
He surged up from the couch, causing her to flop backward. “Why are you doing this?” he shouted. “I know you’ve been involved with other men. You have one-night stands with random men. Does it make me happy? Fuck no! Does it piss me off that you’ll sleep with anyone you pick up in a bar? Hell yes! Have you hurt me repeatedly by doing it, yeah, big fucking yes to that! Can we please get off this sudden Miss Innocent act? Because I’m calling bullshit on it all.”
Red stained her cheeks as she gaped up at him. In their time together, he’d always treated her like spun glass. He didn’t ever lose his shit around her. Both of them needed a time-out to process what had happened. He was seconds from apologizing for being an ass to her after she’d had such an upsetting evening when she spoke, sounding suddenly very sober. “I . . . I didn’t mean to tell you like this. But now that I’ve made such a mess of it, I need to come clean with you. Would you—please sit back down for a minute?”
He opened his mouth to deny her request, wanting to go home and lick his wounds in solitude. The pleading look on her face was his undoing, though. He’d never been able to say no to her, and now was no different. Instead of taking the seat he’d recently vacated next to her, he chose the chair across the coffee table. He knew from the slight drop of her shoulders that he had somehow hurt her feelings. “All right, I’m listening.”
She shifted nervously in her seat, before sighing deeply. “Please let me say everything I need to before you comment. I know you’re going to be angry with me, but I need to get this out.” When he nodded his agreement, she locked her eyes on his. “What I said was the truth, Mac; I haven’t had sex since my attack.” She held her hand up to silence him when he would have spoken up. “You promised you’d listen. Anyway, I know that you think I sleep with men on a regular basis. You believe what I’ve wanted you to believe. I’ve felt safe and secure since you started having your guys check in on me daily. I can’t tell you how much that helped me and how much I appreciate you always watching over me, which makes it even harder for me to say what I’m going to say . . .” Looking guilty, she continued. “I wanted . . . to create the illusion that I’m normal. That I can have sexual relationships without having a panic attack. I didn’t want you to know that I’m always alone. I can’t let men close to me because then they’ll see who I am no matter how much I try to hide it.”
When he started to feel light-headed, Mac realized that he had been holding his breath. He was reeling from the verbal punches that she had just landed against his head and his heart. The only response he was capable of making as she sat looking terrified was “And who are you, Ava?”
She didn’t waver as she answered without hesitation, “I’m a mess, Mac. When I’m in the grocery store, I get scared if a man looks at me for too long. I’ve left my cart in the aisle countless times when my mind convinces me that there’s a threat. I don’t date because the few times I tried, I had a panic attack and didn’t answer the door when they came to pick me up. I don’t have sex because the one time I tried, I hyperventilated until I passed out. And . . . I don’t let myself get close to you because—I love you so much, and I don’t want you to see how pathetic I really am.”
Mac sat staring at her bent head, feeling as if she had taken a sharp knife and gutted him. If he were to believe what she was telling him, then he had suffered through the fires of hell for years while she hid who she really was away from him. He still couldn’t quite believe that she had perpetrated such an elaborate cover to conceal what was going on in her life. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he closed his eyes in pain as he asked, “Who were the men who came home with you, then? Some of them were here all night. How do you explain that?”