Murphy's Law by Lori Foster Read Free Book Online

“Are you mocking me?”
    This time he actually chuckled aloud. “I’m trying to understand you and the choices you’ve made. That’s all.”
    â€œIt wasn’t exactly a choice. More like something that just happened and I decided I didn’t care enough to change the situation.”
    He gave her a chastising look. “Men are easy, honey. A glance, a smile—and they’re ready. Especially for someone as attractive as you. You’re definitely a virgin by choice. I just want to know why.”
    â€œYou want the nitty-gritty, huh? Fine.” She wasn’t the type who opened up easily, but with Quinton, she wanted to. “It’s tough to get laid when I’ve never even had a boyfriend.”
    His surprise lasted one heartbeat. “Another deliberate choice, I’m sure.”
    â€œActually, it wasn’t. You see, my family was poor. Not poor as in, new shoes were hard to come by. Poor as in, we relied on the church and neighbors for clothes and food. Mom and Dad could have worked, but they didn’t. And whenever they did get money, they blew it on things that in no way changed our circumstances.”
    â€œThey couldn’t find jobs?”
    Ashley toyed with her coffee cup. She hadn’t seen her folks in ages. Sadly, she didn’t miss them at all. “They could’ve if they’d wanted them, but they enjoyed their leisure time too much. I mean, what’s better than sitting on the couch all day with a cold beer, a cigarette, and the soaps?” She laughed, remembering how, even as a little kid, she’d known they weren’t good people. “Dad had been a truck driver, but after he got laid off, he spent all his time bitching about the company instead of looking for new work. He wanted everyone to feel sorry for him.”
    â€œHow long was he off work?”
    â€œFrom the time I was ten until I skipped out at seventeen. After that I don’t know. I haven’t been back.”
    â€œYou left your home at seventeen?”
    â€œYeah. I was a real crusader, out to prove something. I’ve forgotten what.” But she didn’t want to talk about that. The memories sucked big-time, and rehashing them wouldn’t change a thing. “Trust me, leaving was the best decision I ever made.”
    He grew very solemn. “Then home must have been pretty tough.”
    She mustered a heavy dose of sarcasm. “Mostly it was an embarrassment. I had a self-proclaimed ‘stay at home’ mom, who was determined that I’d be different. I wasn’t allowed to do…anything—but that was mostly because anything I might have done would have required her involvement. Our house was a dump. Our yard was a jungle, housing a bad septic system that could be seen and smelled for blocks. It seemed everyone who looked at me did so with pity.”
    â€œJesus.” He reached for her hand, but she didn’t want sympathy any more now than she had as a child.
    She slid into the corner of the booth and affected a casual slouch. “Yeah, well obviously if I’d had any friends, which I didn’t, I wouldn’t have brought them home with me. I didn’t like being at my house, so subjecting anyone else to it was out of the question.”
    â€œYou had no friends at all?”
    She didn’t tell him that other kids had ridiculed her. “They didn’t want me around, and I didn’t want to be around them.”
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    Through a haze of remembered humiliation and learned aggression, she saw the compassion in Quinton’s eyes. It made her stomach churn. She considered making a run for it, but that felt too cowardly.
    Instead, she resorted to more sarcasm. Staring him straight in his sexy green eyes, totally deadpan, she said, “And then my dog died.”
    So much horror filled his gaze that she half laughed and took pity on him. “Ah, buck up, Buttercup. I was