Page 129 of One Night with Number Nineteen

My brows pull together. “What do you mean?”

“This,” he says, indicating the mess that’s my desk. “I love that I get a glimpse of all the thoughts that are in your brain at any given time.”

“That’s a scary proposition,” I tease.

But he sees right through me.

“What?” he asks softly.

“It doesn’t matter,” I whisper.

“Tell me.”

I shake my head. I don’t want to bring in shit from the past, don’t want to bring Ben back in.

“Pages,” he chides softly. “Don’t worry about hurting my feelings.”

“I don’t want to stop worrying about that. But it’s also not just that,” I add before he can protest. “I don’t…”

“Want to bring the past into the present?”

My eyes slide closed and I drop my forehead against his chest. “Yeah.”

He sighs, wraps his arms around me. “The past is what made you, sweetheart. I’m not afraid of it—and you shouldn’t be either.”

“You make it sound easy,” I grumble.

His laughter holds me almost as tightly as his arms. “I know it’s not. But I still want you to tell me anyway.”

I sigh heavily. “Ben didn’t like it when I did this.”

“Did what?” he asks after a long pause.

“Didn’t like it when I got lost in work.”

Silence.

I push lightly at his chest, glance up at him.

He’s scowling.

“What?”

“I’m trying really hard to not speak ill of the dead,” he says, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “But Ben really sounds like an asshole.”

“I think…” I sigh again, heavier this time. “Sometimes he was. And sometimes I was a raging bitch. But I think ultimately we were just too damned young. And I get why he resented my work—sometimes it took over everything.”

“Sounds like, in order to survive, it had to.”

I pause, consider that. “Yeah, it did.”

“And if I was a betting man, I’d say it wasn’t just that it took up a lot of your time and energy—I think he was jealous.”

“What?”

“He was the one with the fancy degree and job, right?” He brushes my curls back. “Then all of a sudden, you were the successful one.”

“I—” My mouth closes. Opens. Then closes again. “I never thought about it like that.”