Yes, he obviously had no idea what he was doing wrong, and that was a problem. She wasn’t sure if it was her place to fix it. She wasn’t sure she wanted to have to be the one to fix it, but she still found herself talking. “You shouldn’t have made a decision for me at all. You should have trusted me to know my heart and my mind. You shouldn’t have plotted and planned behind my back. And you pretend you wanted me so desperately, but you didn’t come after me when I graduated.”

“I didn’t have a chance because you didn’t come back,” he argued. “I thought you would come back to Papillon after you graduated. Most everyone does while they’re looking for a job. You had a job waiting for you in DC. The first time you did come home, you brought Brad with you. Do you remember when you broke up with Brad and I showed up in DC three weeks later? That’s how long it took me to clear my calendar so I could pop up in your part of the country. And you were already dating Chad. You had a thing for preppy douchebags.”

“I had a thing for guys in suits, and you told me you had a conference you were attending.”

“Yes, it was the ‘romance Sylvie Martine’ conference, and I spent the whole time wanting to punch Chad in the face.”

She had a confession of her own. “Chad was a friend. He actually had a boyfriend at the time, but he agreed to help me out. I couldn’t stand the thought of you thinking I still pined for you.”

“Are you kidding me?” His hands tightened on her.

She’d believed everything he’d told her. He’d called and said he wanted to catch up with an old friend while he was in town on business. She’d recently broken up with one of the few men she’d dated for a long time, and she hadn’t been able to stand the idea of Rene seeing her vulnerable. “No. I did need time after breaking up with Brad. And I truly believed you didn’t want me that way. You did an excellent job at pushing me away. Did my brother help you game-plan that talk? Because Dre is usually much smoother with his breakups. He’s had plenty of them. He would be an excellent coach.”

Her brother was probably a better ex-boyfriend than he was a real one. The women he broke up with talked about how amazing he was. Rene really could have used his advice.