Wedding Party Collection: Always The Bachelor. Barbara Hannay

his chest, looking intrigued now. “Oh, yeah?”

      “In case you’re wondering, they’re not. But, to shut them up, I’d like us to sit down and talk and figure out what it is that’s unresolved, and resolve it. Without arguing or fighting,” she added. “In other words, I want us to get along.”

      “There’s only one problem with that,” he said. “Your idea of getting along is when I shut my mouth and agree with everything you say.”

      The accusation stung, and she was about to snap right back at him when she realized that would only start a fight. If they were going to do this she had to be willing to listen to what he had to say, even if it was sarcastic and snotty. May be it was the only way he knew to communicate his feelings.

      “So what you’re saying to me is that you feel I don’t listen to you.”

      He narrowed his eyes at her, as though he wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. “Active listening, right?”

      The man never ceased to surprise her. “How do you know that?”

      “I did go to a few of my classes, you know. And I dated a psychiatrist a couple of years ago.”

      “Then think how easy this will be.”

      “For some reason I doubt that,” he said. “You sure you want to do this? You want to dredge up the past and try to sort it out after all this time?”

      She did and she didn’t. All she knew was that Deidre’s thinking she was unhappy was an annoyance, but hearing the same thing from Miranda had scared her a little. And though she’d denied it, deep down she couldn’t help wondering if they were right. What if they were seeing something she wasn’t? What if there was something better out there and she was missing it? What if all this time she’d just been slogging through life, not really living it?

      “We at least should try,” she said.

      “You might not like what I have to say.”

      She was well aware of that. “I’ll take my chances.”

      “Okay,” he agreed. He gathered the papers and tucked them into the binder, then gestured for her to sit.

      She perched on the edge at the foot of the bed. “So, where do we start?”

      “Since we’re new to this communicating thing, May be we should practice first. May be we should try talking about something we never fought about.”

      That subject did not exist. “Dillon, we fought about everything.”

      “Not everything.”

      “See, we’re fighting already!”

      “This is not fighting. This is discussing.”

      “Name one thing in our entire relationship that we didn’t fight about.”

      “Money,” he said.

      “Money?”

      “Money was never an issue. You nagged me about school and rode me relentlessly about my drinking and my weekend excursions. But never money. Even during the divorce it never came up.”

      He was right. She may not have approved of the way he spent his money, particularly the trips to Vegas and Atlantic City that would put him back thousands of dollars. But she hadn’t felt she had any right to dictate where and how he spent—or wasted—his fortune.

      And when the divorce happened, she didn’t ask for a penny. She just wanted it to be over fast. And it might have been if his father hadn’t gotten involved. Apparently, he hadn’t trusted her to fade away quietly. Either that or he was just pissed off that he’d been wrong about her, that she really hadn’t been after Dillon’s money.

      “And sex,” he said. “We never fought about sex.”

      Oh, but they had. One time. It had been the argument. The one that had hammered the final wedge between them.

      “The day I told you I thought I might be pregnant, we argued. Sex…pregnant. Can’t have one without the other.”

      “And I’ve been trying for the first one for days now, but you’re not cooperating.”

      Clearly, he used humor as a defense mechanism when she came close to hitting a nerve, to making him face something he didn’t want to deal with.

      “Don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t make a joke out of this or nothing will get resolved. Just talk to me. I know you’re not used to talking about your feelings, but you’re going to have to if we really want this to work.”

      He was quiet for a second and she could see the wheels spinning, see him working things through, trying to decide if this was worth the hassle.

      What would it be?

      “I had every reason to be upset,” he finally said. “Neither of us was ready to start a family.”

      “You were more than upset.” He had been furious.

      How could she let that happen, he’d shouted? How could she be so careless? As if he’d had no part in it.

      The pregnancy test she later took had been negative, but by then the damage had already been done.

      After that it had been as if they were afraid to touch each other, afraid there might be an accident that would bind them together for life. And without the sex, there had been nothing left to hold them together. She knew that it was only a matter of time before everything fell apart. But admitting it was over was as good as admitting that her mom was right. So she had hung on until the bitter end.

      “I overreacted,” he admitted, then he really blew her away by adding, “I think that deep down I knew I was a lousy husband and thought I would be an even worse father.”

      It was the most honest thing she had ever heard him say. The first time he’d ever admitted he wasn’t flawless, that he had doubts just like everyone else.

      “You weren’t a lousy husband.”

      He got that stubborn, sulky look. “You sure as hell made me feel like I was.”

      Her first instinct was to lash out and deny the accusation. But Dillon was not the kind of man to admit to having feelings he didn’t really have. He was too damned proud.

      “I didn’t mean to,” she said.

      “It wasn’t always that way. After we got married, you changed.”

      Another denial sat on the tip of her tongue. Why was this so hard? Why was her gut reaction to go on the defensive?

      Instead, she asked, “How did I change?”

      He shrugged. “You were just…different.”

      Well, that wasn’t much help.

      She tried another angle. “What was I like before we got married?”

      He thought about it a second, and the hint of a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Fun. You were a little repressed at first, but you were willing to try new things.”

      They did have fun. So much that she used to believe it was too good to be true. She wondered why a rich, handsome man was even remotely interested in someone as boring and plain as her. Dillon had brought her out of her shell. He’d made her feel good about herself. At least for a while.

      The next question was harder to ask, since she was pretty sure she wouldn’t like the answer. “And after? What was I like then?”

      “You were so…serious. All you did was study.”

      That was entirely unfair. Not everyone had the luxury of screwing around. “I didn’t have an eight-figure trust fund to fall back on and a ready-made job being handed to me. I needed to get my degree. And I had to maintain my GPA or I would lose my scholarship. Which, as you know, I eventually lost anyway.”

      “Because