Love.com (13 page)

Ian believed this. She could see it in his eyes. He’d already given up on himself. He refused to discuss the particulars. She could only speculate what shaped his beliefs. Even discovering the letter in Eddie’s closet hadn’t
totally destroyed her personal beliefs in happiness. She clung to them to save herself in her darkest moments, a light at the end of the tunnel. Ian had no light in his tunnel, she concluded. For whatever reason, he didn’t think happiness was in the cards for him, as he said once before.

“You set yourself up for failure thinking that way,” Emily pointed out, wanting to hug him at that moment and bring back his smile. “Everyone deserves to be happy, Ian.”

“It’s not enough for some people, Emily. You don’t see that and I hope you never do,” Ian told her with a grim expression. “Some people just can’t be with one person long term.”

“Is it monogamy?” Emily would have liked to bite her own tongue, but she wanted to know. “You can’t be with just one woman?”

Ian grinned and tilted his head a certain way, his blue eyes filled with naughty mischief. “I like how you assume I’m the one who can’t be faithful, Emily. I can assure you I wasn’t always the one in the wrong, if it makes you feel any better. I won’t deny straying at times. I saw it as a sign then.”

“I don’t get it,” Emily said in exasperation. “I’m trying to understand
you.”

“Can we go back to talking about you?”

Emily wasn’t letting him off the hook. “No, you started this. I insist you tell me why you feel as you do.”

“Why do you care
so much?” Ian regarded her with a mocking smile. “Aw, I’m touched you think so highly of me, Emily, but I could tell you I’m not worth it.”

“I’m a pretty good judge of character.”

“Alright,” Ian said as he leaned back, eyeing her with an inscrutable look. “You want to know why I am the way I am?”

Emily
nodded, sitting on the edge of her chair with baited breath. Every bit of information she discovered about Ian was another piece to a complex puzzle.

“I met a girl in college. We were supposed to get married
after we graduated,” Ian recalled with a bitter smile. “After I took a bad hit on the football field, she rethought all of that. I guess it never occurred to her that I just broke my back, wasn’t paralyzed like she thought. She was kind of a ditz, now that I think on it. That more or less told me love is a total joke.”

Emily made a disgusted noise. “You base all this theory of yours on some
dizbomb who dumped you back in college? Come on, get over it.”

Ian stared at Emily with a smile, inclining his head. “It was my first love, Emily. Her name was Angela. She had more boobs than brain cells
, it’s true. I was a very impressionable young man, as you might have guessed.”

“Yeah, sounds
pretty shallow, if you ask me.”

Ian grinned and regarded her with a raised eyebrow. “
I was twenty years old, Emily! Trust me; that was just the beginning. I have more of those delightful experiences I’ll spare you from me mentioning.”

“Maybe if you looked to see what’s on the inside of a person instead of focusing on their looks, you might have more success?”

“So when all else fails, go for the ugly girl?” Ian chortled at her words, making her want to smack him upside his head. “Thanks Emily, I’ll start looking for some ugly chick just to be sure she won’t ever leave me. That’s the answer!”

“Seriously, maybe you have
certain expectations…a type you gravitate to.”

Ian shook his head. “None of these women in my past have anything in common but that they all dated me. I don’t have a type, like some men who go for blondes.”

Emily realized she would get nothing further from Ian. He didn’t like talking about it. She could see admitting he was a failure at finding happiness troubled him. She felt for him. He had looks, charm, and money. None of that ensured happiness.

“Did you love your husband before he died?”

His question took her off guard. Her expression was filled with confusion. “Of course I did. What kind of question is that?”

“
So had he lived; did you see you two being happy, staying together down the road?”

Emily felt the lump form in her throat
. No, she couldn’t lie to herself. She knew how that would have ended. It was only fate that changed her story with Eddie, that, and cancer. “You can’t know what the future holds,” she said evasively and looked away from his seeking eyes. “Nobody knows. You have to have faith—“

“Faith? Really?” He cut her off and scoffed at her words. “Emily, I think we both know you don’t want to tarnish your
dead husband’s memory. You’re just being kind to him. You couldn’t have been very happy before he got sick. A woman who loved her husband doesn’t start dating before his body is even cold in the ground. That was a dead giveaway; by the way, forgive the pun.”

Emily nearly choked from the anger she felt at his hurtful words, even if they were
alarmingly true. “Now wait just a damn minute! You have no right to judge me for going on with my life! You sit here and condemn me because I refuse to torture myself and cling to his memory? You assume because I don’t do that, that I never loved him at all? You don’t know the first thing about love, Ian! That’s why you’re still alone!”

“Emily, you can lie to yourself, but I’d put money on it you weren’t in love with the guy anymore. You did your duty because it was expected. We both know you always do the right thing, don’t you?”

Emily was furious, wanting to slap Ian for honing in on the truth with such keen perception. “Why are you saying these things to me?” She felt hurt he would expose her so callously then, make her feel so shallow.

“You wanted to understand why I feel the way I do,” Ian said without apology. “
When you realize nobody can ever measure up to these expectations you have of them; you’ll realize how futile it is to have them at all. Take what you want. Live for the moment. When bubblegum loses its flavor; you spit it out. People are like bubblegum. Overtime, they lose their flavor.”

“You have a
really warped outlook on people, Ian,” Emily said coolly, feeling dejected by his cryptic explanation. “Comparing people to bubblegum? That’s really messed up.”

Ian grinned
at that. She could see he was enjoying making her angry. “In my experience, that’s quite accurate to describe how the cycle of a relationship works. It’s always fresh and delicious at first, but over time, it does get stale. We keep chewing because we think it’s what we’re supposed to do, denying ourselves the satisfaction we’d feel to spit that old gum out.”

“So you think we aren’t made to be with just one person?” Emily felt her heart
plummet to see him shake his head sadly.

“Whoever made that rule
up?” Ian’s blue eyes were filled with contempt. “It’s not how we’re wired, Emily. If it was, it wouldn’t be so hard to make it last.”

Emily could see Ian
thought he had it all figured out. He convinced himself that men and women weren’t made to be together long term. She was distressed to find some meaning in his coldblooded logic, even if it was painful to acknowledge.

She wasn’t in love with Eddie
long before he died. Emily could admit it to herself. She became disenchanted with her marriage a mere three years into it. She realized her and Eddie were too different to ever really click on a higher plane. Settling was what it was commonly called when she realized it, accepted it, and even made the best of it. She wasted six more years on someone who didn’t make her happy. She stayed in her marriage, did what was expected of her, as all people were taught to do.

Unlike Ian, who shunned these values heaped upon him,
and questioned their truth. Was he right? Was it futile to believe men and women could be together their whole lives and still be in love? Was she a fool to still cling to that ideal?

“I think you’ve convinced yourself of a lot of things, Ian
.” Emily avoided his eyes, too exposed by his observations. “One of these days, you’ll forget about all that, and realize you can’t walk through life alone. I give up debating monogamy with you. It’s obvious we live by two different set of values.”

“Taking the easy way out, Emily? I thought you would fight me
on this,” Ian said in a silky voice that made her quiver all over. “By the way, nice profile on Love.com. I checked it out recently. Imagine my surprise to see you on there? You really should use your own photos if you’re serious about dating. Most guys would be pissed off to find out the picture wasn’t really you.”

Emily felt the blood drain from her face
. To know Ian hacked into her profile, read every damning lie she posted about herself, and probably laughed at her made her fidget in discomfort and embarrassment. “Are you going to make fun of me for embellishing certain facts?”

“Emily, you lied your ass off
about everything.” Ian whistled under his breath. “Why would you do that?”

“Nobody was sending me messages when I had my own picture up
there.” Emily shrugged, as if it made it acceptable. Inside, she knew all along what she was doing was more than wrong.

“You did it
just to get mail?” Ian looked incredulous at her words. “How do you plan to explain how you lied about everything when you finally meet these guys in person?”

“I didn’t think that far ahead.” Emily was acutely mortified he caught in her web of deceit. “It was right after Eddie died. I was lonely. I didn’t set out to lie to anyone.”

“My advice,
just be yourself,” Ian told her with a warning look. “I know what I would do if I showed up to a date and realized the woman I was emailing was a total fraud.”

“What would you do?” Emily wanted to know, imagining
the ugly scene with Gregg in her mind.

“I’d assume she lies about everything else about her
self,” Ian disclosed with a naughty grin. “Then I’d just want to make the best of it. Oh, and I’d be sure to never call you again after I took you home for grudge-sex.”

“Thanks a lot, that
really makes me feel better.”

“Have you met anyone on there yet?”

Emily felt trapped by his penetrating gaze. She crossed her fingers in her lap, not wanting him to know she had. “No, I’ve been putting it off.”

“Put it off a bit longer. Come clean about who you really are,” he advised her with a concerned look
he would give his kid sister. “Some guys might not be as nice as I would be in that same situation, Emily.”

“You call what you just suggested
as being nice?” She looked appalled. “Grudge-sex? That’s just a little disgusting!”

“And what you’re doing isn’t
just as disgusting?” Ian chuckled, his dimples making her blush to her hairline. “You’re asking for it, Emily. Guys would say you got what you deserved for lying. I’m just telling you to save yourself a lot of grief by being yourself.”

“Not all men would feel that way
.”

Ian smiled in a
knowing way that infuriated her. “No, you might just get some dweeb to meet you on there that probably lied about everything too. When you’re not honest; don’t expect a guy to be. Expect he would go out of his way to exploit that for all its worth and feel justified.”

“
Please don’t tell anyone,” Emily whispered, her eyes filled with unease. “I’d rather not be considered a joke around the office.”

“Why do you care so much what these people think?” Ian regarded her with an amused expression. “Does their opinion matter so much to you?”

Emily felt uncomfortable under his sudden scrutiny. “No, not so much as you think. I just have a lot to prove. I’d rather they not know I’m a pathological liar just yet.”

Ian grinned
in delight, his teeth parting to display a tongue that inspired wicked thoughts. “What are you going to do to keep my silence, Emily? What’s it worth to you?”

Emily stared at Ian, her face turning red under his intense regard. “
Are you for real? You would blackmail me to keep this quiet?”

Ian shrugged and folded his arms across his
broad chest, his blue eyes filled with amusement. “Well, you did throw a huge trout my way. How do you expect me to find those people in the pictures?”

“You know we can’t use th
ose pictures without a release,” Emily countered, leveling him with a frown. “I won’t sit back and allow this company to be sued because of your over-inflated ego, Ian!”

“My ego
, is it?” Ian burst out laughing, sitting forward. “I didn’t ask you to run them in the ad! You did this to yourself, Emily! I only asked what you thought of them. It seems to me, you should hang out in the park and track these people down. It’s only fair.”

“That’s so not fair!”

Ian grinned and stood. “That’s the price of doing business, Pinocchio.”

Emily knew she lost when she saw the smug expression on his face. “
I take back what I said! You really are an asshole!”