Amused, he said, “Remember how to have sex?”
“No. Remember how to be a woman.”
His heart lurched. He wanted to reassure her she was all woman, but he didn’t interrupt, as he suspected this was something she’d never admitted to herself, let alone to anyone else.
“I’ve been asexual for so long, mother, professional woman, daughter, that I let the part of me that loves sex, that loves to be bold and fun in bed, the part that loves the feel of a man’s hands on me, his arms around me…God. Just to be held like this. Do you know how long it’s been? It’s like I slammed the door on that part of myself and never even peeked inside.”
“So, do you regret me kickin’ that door wide open?”
She laughed. “No. Never. Especially now that I know what I was missing behind that door with you.
Do you think it’s weird I had the overwhelming urge to tell you the truth?”
“A lawyer speaking the truth? What is the world comin’ to?”
Ginger laughed again.
“When did that door on your sexual being close?”
“Right after Hayden was born. I tried to recoup some of what I’d lost. But then I realized I never had it in the first place.”
“Was it Hayden’s father who did such a number on you?”
Her body went rigid. “I never talk about it. About him. Whatever.”
Kane ignored her clipped tone. “Then sugar, I think it’s long past time you did.”
Chapter Nine
Ginger had wondered if this would ever come up.
So far she’d avoided the subject with her son.
But she knew there’d be no avoiding it with this man.
But strangely, she trusted him. She wanted to tell him.
“Ginger?”
“Sorry. Just wrestling with where to even start.”
“How about at the beginning?”
She toyed with his chest hair, purposely not looking at him. “After I graduated from law school I landed a job with a big law firm in Los Angeles that specialized in contractual law in the entertainment industry. It was a highly sought-after job and I was damn lucky to have gotten it.”
“Good perks?”
“Amazing perks. Anyway, after my intern period passed, I was assigned permanently to the contractual dissolution team.”
“What’s that?”
“We were hired to find loopholes to break existing contracts.”
His fingers never stopped moving on her back. “Is that big business?”
“Very big business. I worked directly under the senior partner, Chas Daly. I admired him because he was brilliant and charismatic. He treated me like a rising star. He introduced me that way. ‘Here’s Ginger, our newest rising star.’ It was heady stuff.”
“I imagine.”
“With the late nights, case overload and me being a rookie who needed supervision, Chas and I spent a lot of time together. One thing led to another, and within a year of my assignment we were engaged in this torrid affair.”
At that comment Kane’s fingers stilled.
“Chas was married, which I knew. He fed me those clichéd bullshit lines about he and his wife drifting apart, she didn’t fulfill his sexual needs. The man had a voracious sexual appetite. In hindsight it was probably due to Viagra. I eagerly bought his lies, becoming the adventurous lover his wife wasn’t.
Even if we only hooked up in his office. I knew if I stayed the course, Chas would eventually leave her for me. Obviously that didn’t happen.”
“What did happen?”
“I found out three pieces of information that absolutely devastated me. One—his wife’s father had started the law firm and he was inexplicably tied to it and to her. Two—he was older than I’d thought.”
“How much older?”
“Thirty years. I was twenty-seven. He was fifty-seven.” Shame burned her cheeks. “But it was LA.
Everyone looks at least a decade younger. I figured he was in his late forties, because that’s how old his wife looked.”
“What was the third thing?”
“I wasn’t the only woman he was having an affair with. The guy was a real womanizer with a string of conquests a mile long. Most of them bimbos. Anyway, after I found all this out, his wife, Lucinda, caught wind of our affair. I wasn’t his run-of-the-mill stripper floozy. So I was summarily canned, without notice. And before you say something like ‘why didn’t I sue?’ I’ll remind you this law firm was the premier law firm in breaking contracts. I was seriously f**ked.
“Three weeks after I lost my job, I moved out of my high-priced condo because I couldn’t afford the rent without the high paycheck, I discovered I was pregnant. More than three and a half months, according to the doctor. It was a shocking development, to say the least.”
“Did you contact Chas and let him know?”
“No. I muddled through the pregnancy on my own. From the day he was born, Hayden had health issues. Although we didn’t have health insurance, my son received the very best care.”
“And while you were struggling, you didn’t consider askin’ Chas to support his child? To take responsibility for his actions?”
Ginger recognized Kane’s anger. She lifted her head and looked at him. “Yes, I did. Several times.
There were days when I suspected I’d doomed my baby by holding onto my pride. But when I held that sweet baby in my arms, I sure as hell wouldn’t share custody of Hayden with Chas. Ever. It sucked. I had no one to talk to about any of it since I’d ostracized myself from my law colleagues.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want anyone to know about my pregnancy. The sad fact was I’d been too busy building a career to maintain female friendships. My mother was embarrassed I’d become unwed, underemployed, single mother. My dad…well, my dad was great. For the first time in my life he supported me. Emotionally and financially. When we had a bad month…he was there to help out. He wasn’t ashamed of me and he adored Hayden from the start.” She swallowed hard.
Kane didn’t speak.
“Maybe I’m just stubborn or stupid, but whenever I went to pick up the phone to call Chas, something stopped me. I knew myself well enough that if I hadn’t set a firm date to let Chas know he had a son, I’d keep stalling. So I promised myself I’d tell Chas after Hayden’s second birthday.”
She closed her eyes. “I never got the chance. Chas had a massive heart attack out on a fishing boat off the Catalina coast and died when Hayden was twenty-two months old.”