He nodded slowly, then swallowed. “You’re right,” he said, as if the admission cost him something. “Seeing her just reminds of how stupid I was to ever trust her, and how I had no clue what she was up to. I had no idea that it was happening right under my nose. I was such a fool, Casey,” he said, shame thick in his voice. “I went out to dinner with the two of them. They were at our apartment for a New Year’s party once. He even thanked me for supporting my wife and putting her through the MFA program. The whole time they were having an affair. It probably would have gone on for another year if she hadn’t left an email open on her computer when she asked me to check the movie times for a film we were going to see that night,” he said, cringing, and she rubbed a hand gently down his arm, as if that would somehow take the pain away. It wouldn’t, but it was all she could do. “What if it happened again? How would I even know?”

“She’s the exception. She’s not the rule. Most people don’t do that. I’ve never done that. I never would.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” he said softly. “And yeah, I’d really like to keep moving past her too. So if you want me to be totally honest, this thing with you,” he said, gesturing from her to him and back, then wiggling his eyebrows in a suggestive fashion, “has done more for me than anything has to put her farther in the rear-view mirror.”

Her lips curved into a smile. “Aha! So this isn’t totally one-sided!” She pumped a fist.

He dropped his hands to her shoulder, clasping her firmly. “It was never one-sided. Get that through your head once and for all. It’s all-sided. It’s me-sided. It’s two-sided. It’s fifty-million sided,” he said. “But if you want to start bringing up exes and talking about the past, I could say the same for you. Because Scott made you think you can’t be true to yourself with a man. That you can’t be forward. But some men love when you talk back and say what you want,” he said, flashing her a naughty grin that was like a shot of sunlight in her chest when he pointed at himself. “Yet he somehow convinced you that you’re not as beautiful or sensual or passionate as I’ve known you to be in just a few short weeks of playing your lover,” he said, and she bristled at the word playing. Right now, she didn’t want him to be playing. She wished they could stop playing, and he could simply be her lover. Not forever, not for all time, but for now.

For real, here in London.

But she focused instead on what he’d said about Scott. If she expected him to be honest with her, she had to do the same. “Yeah, he did a number on me. I felt like a failure in bed after him, and you’ve made me feel anything but,” she said, and there it was again. That flash of vulnerability in his eyes. She’d seen playfulness in them, she’d seen laughter, she’d seen passion, and she’d seen anger. But now, there was something that seemed to go deeper; something that was usually reserved for someone who was much more than a friend.