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said.
Only after the words left her mouth did their implication occur to her, but the look
on her ex-husband s face made the gaffe worthwhile. Apparently the thought that
Lacey might choose a man for purely sexual reasons hadn t occurred to him. She d
hooked up with Hunter at Buff because she responded to him in a deliciously erotic,
unfamiliar way, but that wasn t why she kept seeing him, or brought him to the
Entrepreneurs event at the Met. She liked the sex, because she liked him. Hunter was
about as unpretentious a human being as she d ever met. When she was with him,
perfect had no place in her vocabulary.
 I really do need to leave, she said when the silence made Davis s complete
speechless evident.  Can you find your way out?
With one last bewildered look Davis stuffed the documents in his coat pocket and
left. Lacey gave him a minute to start the short walk to his law firm s offices, then
pulled on her coat and grabbed her bags.
 From now on, he needs an appointment, she said when she stopped in the
reception area to button her coat. She doubted Davis would be back with a task so
mundane as bringing her papers to sign but to be safe she d remind Ernest McGovern,
the founding partner in the firm, that she expected all aspects of her business to be
handled by him and no one else.
 You got it, Kelly said, tossing a narrow-eyed look at the closed door.
Lacey got into her car and headed for a strip mall on the city s growing west side,
driving on autopilot as she reflected on Davis s unexpected appearance and the subtle
air of satisfaction he d developed in the eighteen months since they separated. She d
done her share of begging, pleading with Davis for a reason why he would want to
leave, and her share of soul-searching when he couldn t give her sensible answers. I ve
met someone else she would have understood. I need to move on didn t make sense to her.
His recent relationship with a much-younger cotillion queen notched the puzzle
pieces together quite neatly. He wanted someone who saw him as he saw himself,
successful, accomplished, well-to-do. The history he shared with Lacey, the struggle
through law school, the efforts to fit into society, the long hours to make partner
brought shame, not a sense of joint success. He wanted to wake up with someone who
didn t remember his run-down car, his department store clothes, his need-based
scholarship to Amherst.
Thinking about Davis naturally turned to her reasons for going to Buff and then to
Hunter. On the surface it appeared she d stuck to the traditional road most women in
her circle followed, college, job, cars, marriage, house, vacations, better houses and cars,
more expensive vacations, repeat ad nauseam. But she worked when she didn t need to,
104
Liberating Lacey
long after Davis started dropping hints about swapping property deals for charity
functions.
Her family gently bemoaned her curious exits from the superhighway of upper-
class life. Rich, but working hard. In her thirties, but divorced and childless.
Comfortable at galas and events, but not the slightest bit interested in them beyond
what they could do for the recipients of her social class s largesse or her business.
Hunter simply saw them as who she was. That silent acceptance liberated her in a
way that the new haircut, her blatantly sexy clothes at Buff, even choosing a younger,
blue collar man for her first lover couldn t. It was a rare thing to find someone who
simply let her be.
She pulled into the parking lot of the strip mall, the bays still steel girders and
exposed beams, but didn t see the developer s truck yet. To kill time she scrolled
through messages on her BlackBerry. The usual work stuff, but nothing from Hunter.
Two clicks and scrolls brought her to his cell phone number. Her finger hovered over
the button to dial, but she canceled out and locked the BlackBerry. She d called twice.
He said he would call when he could.
Her resolve to get more pragmatic about their relationship had lasted until the
rainy afternoon in the park and the unbearably intimate lovemaking afterward. Claire
had warned her that sometimes casual relationships ended abruptly, that guys often
backed away if things got too serious, too scary. The intimacy of skin-against-skin sex
might have been enough to make Hunter simply stop calling or texting or emailing.
He has a good reason, her heart insisted.
It takes no time to send a text message, or call and explain. A minute at most, her
protective, sensible brain argued.
Her yearning heart won. I don t care. Call. Please call.
105
Anne Calhoun
Chapter Eleven
Hunter felt like shit, no two ways about it. Sleep, aspirin and a shower hadn t done
much to fight back the thickly spiked hangover pounding behind his eyeballs. Dressed
in jeans and a dirty long-sleeved black t-shirt because the clean white ones were too
fucking bright, he slumped gingerly into his secondhand sofa and considered the bottle
of Johnny Walker Black in front of him. He remembered drinking the first third
immediately after going off duty at midnight. The next third, not so much. The last [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]