Systematic Seduction Read Online Free PDF Page B

pretty and smart, yet there was a naiveté to her that he could see some
asshole taking advantage of.
    “He
wasn’t a boyfriend. I mean, I’ve had them before, but the last actual relationship
I had wasn’t with a boyfriend. He was my husband. His name was Donny
Gallagher.”
    Whoa…
    “I
didn’t realize you’d been married.”
    “It
didn’t last long. Three months.”
    Holy shit. Did anyone at work know about
this? “I’m so sorry.”
    She
finally faced him, and he was shocked to see the venom in her eyes. “Don’t be.
I’m not sorry. The bastard tried to force me to have sex with him and two of
his equally drunk friends. Let me clarify that. He didn’t try it only because
he was drunk. He talked about it all the time once I had the ring on my finger,
despite my telling him I wasn’t the least bit interested in being gang-banged
by him and his drinking buddies.”
    Oliver
swallowed hard, totally at a loss for words. He tried to picture this
beautiful, capable, intelligent woman married to someone like that, but
couldn’t. There was a huge piece of this picture missing.
    “They
were all more drunk than usual that night, so I was able to fight them off
easily, but I realized things were escalating and knew the next time I might
not be so lucky. I left our apartment that same night, taking only what I could
carry. I never came back for the rest, and he never contested the divorce.”
    “Do
you still talk to him?” Please say no .
    “No.
He used to email me every time a woman dumped him, but I never answered. I’d
block him and he’d email from another address, so I’d block him again. The last
time I heard from him was to tell me he’s married again to some woman he met in
a bar.”
    Why
did the asshole feel the need to keep in touch with her? “How long ago was
that?”
    “I
don’t remember. A few months probably. I don’t care.”
    “I
don’t know what to say.”
    “It’s
all right. You asked, I answered.”
    She
crossed her arms and legs, staring straight ahead at the fake river. Oliver
didn’t want the evening to end this way. There was much more to this story. He
sensed it. More importantly, he wanted to get to know the person inside. The
person he saw and admired at work.
    “Where
did you meet him?”
    “Not
in a bar.”
    She
had a witty sense of humor, and that she could use it now made him want her
even more.
    “We
met in one of my classes. Not the engineering classes. This was one of the
pre-requisites. English, to be exact. He was at the university earning a
general studies degree which he never finished.”
    No surprise there.
    “He
asked me out for a year before I finally said yes. It was kind of creepy,
actually. Followed me around the campus even when we didn’t have classes
together. He was always showing up, now that I think about it. He must have
known my schedule.”
    He
decided not to remark that he’d asked her out twice that long before she
finally said yes. The reason why she’d avoided dating him had suddenly become a
bit clearer, although he realized the fact that she’d also avoided going out
with her ex-husband meant this story went back further than that.
    “I
couldn’t even tell you why I married him. I think it was because I wanted to
believe him. I desperately wanted to believe someone in this world wasn’t…”
    Her
words trailed off and she cut her gaze to him. The same trapped animal look
he’d glimpsed this morning was back.
    “After
I married him, I found out about his criminal record.”
    The
hair on the back of Oliver’s neck prickled.
    “Petty
stuff. Shoplifting, theft, and one arrest for rape but it was never prosecuted.
She recanted, and he swore to me she was a girlfriend who had accused him
because of a fight they’d had.”
    “Oh,
Blair.” He wanted to find this Donny Gallagher and beat the shit out of him.
“Did he know about your past?”
    “No!”
She hugged herself tighter. “I never told him any of that.”
    Oliver
acted on