All the way along, his father’s drunken voice dogged him: You can never trust a woman. They’re sluts, every one of them. Give them a chance and they’ll fuck you every time—and not in a good way.

Marie-Terese caught up with him about a third of the way to the exit, her high-heeled shoes clipping over the tiled floor. Grabbing his arm, she tugged him to a halt. “Vin, why are you—”

“Behaving like this?” Damn it, he couldn’t look at her. Just couldn’t do it. “You know, I don’t have an answer for that.”

She seemed nonplussed. “No, I was asking…why did you come? Is there something wrong?”

God, where to start with that one. “Everything is fine and dandy. Just frickin’ perfect.”

As he started to walk off again, he heard her say loud and clear, “I wasn’t with him. That man in there. I was not with him.”

Vin glanced over his shoulder; then marched back up to her. “Yeah, right. You’re with men for a living—or do you think I’ve forgotten what a prostitute does for money.”

While he watched her pale, he felt like a total bastard. But before he could backpedal, she filled the silence.

Lifting her chin, she said, “It’s the truth, and whether or not you choose to believe it is your problem. Not mine. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to change.”

As she brought up her hand to push her hair over her shoulder, he saw that she had something gripped in her fist…a rumpled paper towel with smudges of red all over it.

“Wait.” He stopped her and glanced at the thing. “You took off your lipstick.”

“Of course I—Wait, I guess you assumed that man kissed it off me, right?” She pivoted around and beelined for the locker room door. “Good-bye, Vin.”

Now it was his turn to drop a newsflash: “I broke up with Devina this afternoon. My girlfriend is now an ‘ex.’ That’s what I came to tell you.”

Marie-Terese halted, but did not face him. “Why did you do that?”

He traced the back of her with his eyes, from her small shoulders to the proud set of her spine to the dark hair that fell below her shoulder blades. “Because when I looked at you across that table at the diner, no one else existed. And whether or not anything happens between you and me, it took meeting you to show me what I was missing.”

She looked over her shoulder, her spectacular blue eyes astonished.

“It’s the truth,” he said. “The God’s honest truth. And it’s why I was so upset outside of that bathroom. I’m not saying you’re mine…I just wish you were.”