Chapter 23: A Long Line of Disappointment

I blinked. "Your parents loved each other?"

David nodded, but his eyes sharpened. "Yours didn't?"

I shook my head.

His handsome brow furrowed. "Suddenly your distrust makes a great deal of sense."

He spoke the words gently, but something inside me died a little bit and I bristled, almost pulled away. His grip tightened on my wrist, though not aggressively.

"Zara, I did not mean—"

"I don't trust men because every man in my life who has claimed to love me has hurt me. Deeply."

He nodded. "That was precisely my point."

I waited, unimpressed. "And I suppose you are the man who will prove to be the exception to that rule?"

Despite myself, I loved that his face went thoughtful. That he didn't just answer the question with a cocky affirmation, but turned it over in his mind and considered it.

"I would hope so, yes," he said with a shrug.

"And yet, you plan to sleep with how... many women, exactly?"