She hadn’t really expected ugly from Connor, she realized. He seemed fair, however intimidating she found him--not mean, but … well, stern, she supposed, no nonsense. Pretty unmovable.
An arrogant asshole ….
But it seemed inarguable that the bitch had told himsomething, because he’d looked straight at her and then he really had followed her even though she’d been trying hard to convince herself that that was just her imagination.
She should’ve asked him what the bitch had said, she thought angrily. Now, she still didn’t know and it was pretty hard to defend yourself when you had no clue.
She dismissed it.
It didn’t matter what he thought about her, she told herself.
She didn’t want or need his attention.
Sure he was attractive--very attractive, but then that was the crux of the problem, the main one. He was a magnetic for women and if she’d been stupid enough to try to attract his interest, and succeeded--like that would happen in a million years!--she’d be sharing him with all of the other women in the camp.
She could join the train without tying herself to him beyond the blood bond of carrying his child.
If she was willing to commit herself to a life of pure hell.
Or she could tie herself to theleastattractive man in her mating pack and have ugly children and a man all to herself.
That she didn’t … couldn’t love.
Because she had no interest in any of the others, wasn’t drawn to any of them--even though, once upon a time, she actuallyhadbeen--had crushed on two of them--the two closest to her in age.
Alternately, she could just get a frozen pop and fulfill her obligation to reproduce at least one ‘heir to her genetics’.
And devote her life to herself and her child.
Truthfully, that didn’t particularly appeal to her either--because she’dstillknow the father.
But she had time to decide.
By playing least in sight, she’d managed to ‘miss’ the last ‘window of acceptable opportunity’-- when it would have been convenient to the colony as a whole to reproduce--before they had arrived at their destination.
Now that theyhadarrived, they had to put the colony together first, and that was labor intensive so they couldn’t afford to have very many colonists ‘handicapped’ by pregnancy. When they’d achieved a level of organization that lifted them to a high probability of survival would be the time to make a decision and act upon it.
She was looking at what was most likely her last shot at motherhood, she realized abruptly.
The frozen pop really seemed like the smartest decision for somebody that wasn’t thrilled with the idea of a lot of emotional baggage--well any.
And she thought she knew herself pretty well.
She was a total sucker. She would certainly be an easy mark for a man like Connor--who’d no doubt had plenty of opportunities to master seduction.
Well, honesty compelled her to admit that it wouldn’t take a man half as good as Connor to just wipe her out.
Her first two crushes hadn’t been in the same universe with Connor and they had seriously fucked her up.
Well, the first one--Jeff. Newton hadn’t managed to do a number on her because she had experience with Jeffery by that time and she was more pissed off than hurt when she’d caught him cheating.
A little hurt--mostly her ego, she thought.
Cheating wasn’t something, unfortunately, confined to the male gender.
Everyone seemed to think it was a fun game and wanted to play just as soon as they got hit by the hormones of budding maturity.
Maybe because of the sex education classes.
