Rules We Like Breaking [Published as TEMPTING VICTORIA]

7 - What Did I Do

The room was...a room. A nondescript square space, a box they managed to sneak a bed into. She had at least booked him one with its own bathroom, if he would fit in there.

Nathan was used to rustic accommodations, but the reason why he was being put in a box excited him more than he wanted to admit.

Fuck yeah. She actually wanted him.

And yet that raised another red flag, related to the rule that kept him from pursuing her: Not a woman who thinks you’re shit.

Or a piranha, apparently.

What did he do to her though? To Victoria, in particular? Did they have anyone else in common, apart from Chris? What did he do to someone else that would make her think he was shit?

He stepped into the tiny bathroom, washed his hands. Nathan as a rule didn’t force himself on anybody, anything. He left when he was no longer needed. When he sensed that his presence was burdening someone out of obligation, he orchestrated his own exit, so they wouldn’t have to worry about theirs. Maybe to someone who didn’t know him very well, that would seem callous and uncaring. But it was the honest way to live, and people appreciated it. In fact, he was friends with most of his exes. Well except for…

Shit.

Lana. It would have been Lana. She knew Chris too, lived in his neighborhood, if he recalled correctly.

He was done washing his hands but went back into the bathroom to splash his face, as he remembered the shitstorm that was the relationship with Lana. They hung out in college, met through Chris. He liked her, was friends with her for about a year, then slept with her off and on for another six months. He thought she was on the same page about that, it being an “off and on” thing.

She wasn’t.

It got ugly.

Lana was fine now, of course, but he understood if anyone who had witnessed that thing go to hell would see him as the one at fault.

But this was good. That meant Victoria’s intense dislike was based on incomplete information. He could work with that.

Not a woman who thinks you’re shit, he reminded himself.

The woman also barely knew him. Nathan was fully intending to keep his hands off her, because he said so. If she put her hands on him first, all bets were off.

Maybe he should work on that.