I spent the rest of the wedding reception doing something I usually didn’t—dancing. I’d had just enough drink to be light on my feet and out of my head. A constant line of single ladies kept me busy, and I was glad to give my family, Vlad, and the mob a peek at the life they believed I led. To be regarded as a womanizer was highly preferable to the alternative.

Returning to the apartment, sweaty and beat, I expected to see a smile from my man, but found a clenched jaw instead.

“Hey,” I said as I entered our bedroom.

Cal was lying on the bed, reading Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express for what must have been the fourth or fifth time.

“You already know how it ends,” I quipped, slipping my tie off and draping it over a hanger. I glanced over my shoulder to find him glaring at me, unamused.

“What’s eating you?”

“Nothing,” he answered, burying his nose in the book once again.

“I can tell you’re annoyed.”

“Why would I be?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked,” I replied, sitting on the foot of the bed and waiting for him to regard me. He didn’t.

“I never said I was.”

“Believe me, you’re saying it, even if you’re not using words.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

Finally, I drew his eyes.

“It makes perfect sense and you know it,” I stated. “Since when do I have to pull your thoughts out of you? Just tell me what the problem is so I stop asking.”

“Maybe you’re the one with the problem. Why don’t you fill me in on what your problem is?” He tossed the book aside and crossed his arms over his chest. A portrait of a petulant pansy.

“My problem is that you have a problem and somehow you made me into a sap who gives a shit how you feel.”

“I mean the problem you have with who you are. Why don’t you tell me why you’re so ashamed?”

“How did this turn around to me?” I asked flabbergasted. “I was asking you about you and you’re telling me about me.”

“Don’t you see it’s one and the same? My problems are yours, and yours are mine. What affects me affects you. You being ashamed of who you are is you being ashamed of me.” Cal’s voice climbed with every word he punched out, his face tinging red.

“Don’t go there,” I warned, pointing my finger. “Should I have paraded you around in front of my family today, Cal? Is that what you wanted? For them to think I was a certain way?”

“For them to think you’re the way you are?” he corrected. “Maybe.”