“Your spidey senses are wrong.”
“Crap. They’re never wrong. C’mon. Spill.”
Judith waved a hand. “It was nothing. Just a silly teenage crush back when I was eighteen.” She’d leave it at that. No one needed to know about the rest of it.
“You and half the population of New Zealand.”
That was true. Caleb had been a new All Black, New Zealand’s national rugby team. He’d come from nowhere and had taken the country by storm with his raw talent and intense good looks. And she, already with a bad case of hero-worship, had been taken right along with it. At least until she’d found out just what kind of a player he really was and that she’d been played expertly.
She took another healthy sip of wine. Damn it tasted good. She’d never been much of a drinker, but something about this evening and the sharing of confidences seemed to demand it. “Had a crush. Had being the operative word. I’m over it now. Waaaay over it.”
“Uh-huh. So what did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything.”
“Sure he didn’t.”
She pulled a face. “It was years and years ago.”
“Hey, I told you about my crappy love life.” Marisa crossed one slender ankle over the other. “Throw me a bone here.”
Judith chewed on her lip and took another, heftier sip of wine, desperately trying to think of some kind of believable lie.
Marisa wasn’t fooled, not even for a second. “Don’t tell me, you fell for him, slept with him, then he dumped you once he got what he wanted from you.”
Judith opened her mouth. Shut it. “Uh…how did you know?”
“Because that’s the way guys like him operate. Believe me, I know.” The look on Marisa’s face spoke volumes. “So come on, details, please. Chop, chop.”
What had happened with Caleb had always been a secret. Her secret. She hadn’t wanted anyone else to know just how hurt and humiliated she’d been to find out that the kind, generous, caring man she’d fallen for was just a player. That he was more interested in his career, and the fame and the money that came along with it, than he was in her.
She’d tried to put the experience aside, tried dating other men. But the guys she’d gone out with weren’t interested in anything more than the here and now. Some had even tried playing her like Caleb had played her, telling her all kinds of stuff to get her into bed.
She was so over that. She wanted more. Wanted something real.
The wine had loosened something inside her and suddenly she just didn’t want to keep it to herself any longer.
“Oh, it’s nothing major. I found out I’d gotten into art school, and Joe and Caleb took me out for dinner to celebrate. Joe met up with some girl afterward so Caleb took me home. We got talking and…uh…one thing led to another and…” she waved a hand. “You know.”
“Bloody hell,” Marisa muttered. “You’re as bad as St. John with the details.”
He’d kissed her good-bye on the doorstep, slow and sweet, and it had been every fantasy she’d ever had come true. Then the kissing had become something else and she’d gone up in flames. Wanted him more than she’d wanted anything in her life. Making love with him had exceeded every expectation she’d ever had and set the bar so high no one had even come close since. No guy had ever made her feel the way Caleb had.
No guy had ever hurt her the way Caleb had, either. The day he’d ended it, he’d crushed a friendship she’d come to count on, not to mention broken her vulnerable heart.
“Anyway, the next day he’d gone. I expected him to call me but he didn’t. In fact, I didn’t see him or hear from him for days afterward. When I did, he told me he’d been given a sponsorship deal and a new contract to sign, that he was going to join one of the overseas clubs. Then he acted as if nothing had happened between us.”
“Man, that’s harsh,” Marisa said sympathetically. “I think I would have kicked him hard somewhere sensitive if you catch my drift.”
Judith stared down at the red liquid in her glass. “Yes, well, I thought about doing that, believe me.”
She’d eventually confronted him about it, wanting some sign that what they’d shared mattered to him. That it had been as special to him as it had been to her. And all he’d given her was some crap about her being too young for anything serious and about how his focus had to be on his career. Then he’d hammered the real nail in the coffin a couple of weeks later—a picture of him in the society pages of the paper with some bimbo TV star on his arm and a headline about his latest conquest.