Page 79 of Irresistibly Wicked

“Dark and dirty go together,” he said seductively.

She realized he might be just unfiltered enough to share something dark and dirty with her, and she didn’t want to hear about his sexual escapades with other women. “I was thinking more like teenage drama or a tattoo you regret getting.”

“I don’t believe in regrets. They’re a waste of energy. Life happens fast, and you can’t change the past, so why bother overthinking it or beating yourself up over it?”

“Must be nice.” She couldn’t imagine what a life without regrets would even feel like.

“Sounds like you have a few.” He leaned in, the candlelight reflecting in his eyes. “Want to share them with me?”

“I don’t want to bore you.”

“You haven’t bored me yet, and you’re my wife. I want to know more about you.”

When he looked at her like that, like he was genuinely hoping she’d share, it made it hard not to believe there was something more between them. “You can probably guess what they are. I wish I’d handled things with my parents differently, stood up for myself, asked my grandfather to raise me before I started drinking and smoking. I wish I’d gotten help for myself, and help for Brian, sooner.”

“I understand why you feel that way, but maybe you should cut yourself a little slack. Kids learn from their parents. You were afraid you might go into the foster system if you had tried to help yourself, and you’d been told that was a bad thing. You can’t blame fourteen-year-old you for any of that. And as far as Brian goes, you’ve beaten yourself up long enough about that. You’ve given him the opportunity to regain control of his life. If you’d tried sooner, it might not have worked.”

“Somehow, hearing it from you makes it easier to believe.”

“Good, because like I said, you’ve spent enough time worrying about what could’ve been. Don’t second-guess yourself, darlin’. You had good reasons for everything you’ve done, and you ended up with a fantastic husband.”

“And he’s not at all cocky.”

“You’ve seen me naked. You know that’s not true.”

She laughed and shook her head, trying to clear that scorching visual. “Time for a subject change.”

He chuckled and took a drink. As he set down his glass, he said, “I’ve got a wholesome secret I can share.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“I was nine,” he offered in explanation. “The cutest girl in class wouldn’t give me the time of day.”

“The nerve of her,” Shauna said.

“Right?” He grinned. “She was a goody-two-shoes, and she was friends with the well-behaved boys.”

“You were too wild for her?”

“Too wild, too funny, too cute.” He winked. “Anyway, I brought a grasshopper to school, and I walked by her table at lunch and casually dropped it beside her. It jumped onto her arm, and she gasped and made that sound girls make when they’re scared—”

“What sound? I’m picturing her saying, Zander, what the heck? and swatting it away.”

“She wasn’t as tough as you. She kind of squealed, so I swooped in to save the day. I picked that sucker up and ate it.”

“You ate it?”

“What can I say? I’ve always been willing to commit.”

She arched a brow. “That’s not what you told me.”

“I mean commit to getting the girl, not keeping her. But it didn’t matter, because she yelled, ‘Ew! Zander ate a grasshopper!’ and then I became known as the kid who ate bugs.”

“Aw, you poor thing. That must’ve hurt your little ego.”

“Hardly. I used it to my advantage and told everyone I was practicing to be a Green Beret, which made me the toughest boy in class.”

“Only you would come up with that.” It was easy to imagine him as a little smart-mouthed charmer.