Oceans Untamed Read Online Free PDF Page A

seeing someone else.”
    “You’re having a fling. When you get back to New York, then what?”
    She thought it was a rhetorical question, but he waited for an answer. To buy some time, she took a long sip of coffee and tried to decide how much she owed him. Less than total honesty, but more than a brushoff. Shechose her words carefully.  
    “It doesn’t matter what happens between me and… my friend,” she said. She couldn’t bring herself to say Koenraad’s name; it would have felt weird. Thomas was her past. Koenraad was her present, and possibly her future. “I guess that’s what I wanted you to understand. I’m sorry you had to come down here to hear it.”  
    Her sandwich arrived at that moment, but she leftit on the edge of the table. She was hungry; her watering mouth and sharp hunger pangs had become distracting, yet she had zero appetite.
    Breaking up sucked, especially when one person didn’t want to let go. The next time a guy told her it was over, she would do them both a favor and graciously walk away.
    Thomas cleared his throat, and Monroe braced herself. “You promised to meet me for dinnerto talk about this,” he said. “I’m holding you to that.”
    “No. You and I, we’re bad for each other.” How many times did she have to tell him?
    “That doesn’t make sense. A few days ago you were crying, begging me to fly down here with you—”
    “And you didn’t, did you?” she snapped before she could think better of it. “Yes, I begged you. Shamelessly. Do you remember what you did?”
    “Well—”
    “Youhanded me a tissue and told me I was too needy.”
    Thomas winced.  
    “Yeah,” Monroe said. “It was really low.”
    “It was. But we’d both had a few glasses of wine—”
    “Don’t you dare !” she hissed.  
    His eyes went wide as he realized his misstep. He threw up his hands in conciliation. “You’re right, of course. From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry.” Then he smiled. “If you were over me, you wouldn’thave reacted like that just now. You’re upset, and you’re lashing out, punishing me by hanging out with this other guy.”’
    “We’re not just ‘hanging out’.” She grabbed her sandwich and took a furious bite, not caring if she offended Thomas with her lack of table manners.  
    “This isn’t you, Monroe. You’re not the kind of woman who jumps into something with a stranger. Anyway, I don’t need to knowthe details.”
    “I’m starting to think you do,” she said around a mouthful of food. She swallowed. “He and I are…” She didn’t want to tell Thomas all the reasons she liked Koenraad. “I don’t know what we are. But I like how he makes me feel. No one has ever made me feel this way.”
    “Monroe, I don’t need to know.”  
    “What happened to veritas ?”  
    “It’s still my personal motto, but I don’t want yousaying things you’ll later regret. Take it from me. You don’t want to be that person.”
    It was Harvard’s motto. He was so obsessed with his alma mater, she wondered if he knew the difference anymore.  
    But she felt bad for him, now. If she hadn’t been seeing someone else, she’d probably have considered getting back together just to make the tension go away. Which was really stupid.
    He set downhis empty coffee mug and toyed with a paper-wrapped cube of sugar. “You used to like the way I make you feel.”
    “No, you still don’t understand. It’s not about him. Let’s assume you’re right, that he’s a fling and I’ll never see him again. That changes nothing between us. We are bad for each other.”
    “That’s an exaggeration and you know it. Until I screwed up, things were great. And if we’re reallyover, explain this: you were willing to discuss things in New York, and then an hour later you weren’t. Nothing of substance can change in an hour. You’re using this man as a distraction, but sooner or later you have to come home. And then we’ll talk.”
    “It… I…” Why had