Chapter 3

With nothing at all between them. Nothing but unfamiliar motel bedsheets. A bed she'd never sleep in again and a man she would never sleep with again.

She understood that.

Any number of her friends had had those sort of experi-ences. And she never had.

It was such a funny thing. Because she had felt...

She'd felt lonely and wrong a lot of the time in her life.

Not quite the golden boy her brother was, though her parents loved her, and she knew it. But she'd had to work to reach even a minimal standard. She hadn't been popular at school.

Hadn't excelled at anything in particular.

She wasn't conventionally pretty. Her hair was frizzy and a mousy brown color, her curves unremarkable as far as she was concerned. She had never been popular, but she had never been particularly alternative either.

She hadn't had a big group of friends, until she'd started dating Jared at fifteen. And then suddenly it had changed.

He had been fun and funny. He had a whole group of people who surrounded him.

And she'd been one of her first friends to lose her vir-ginity.

She'd felt worldly and sophisticated. Special. Because she knew all about those things that transpired between men and women. It had caused a sort of rift between the old friends she'd had before beginning to date Jared, who were convinced that she was losing herself and her perspective.

She'd felt like she had gained perspective. She was in love and they didn't understand. She was ready for deeper, more mature things than they were.

She'd kept it all a secret from her family. Carving out a division between her social life and the life she had at home.

Trying to be perfect in every arena. Sexually experienced, confident Mallory at school. Studious and well-behaved Mallory at home, who might not be quite the all-star Griffin was, but who was self-sufficient, didn't cause trouble and didn't give her parents grief.

And then her world had caved in around her. And she'd still tried to keep everything separate.

The impending changes, the fear, then the overwhelming grief.

Only Jared knew. Only he had walked her through it. The course of her whole life had changed-her grades had suffered and her parents had been so disappointed when she'd missed getting into the school she'd wanted to get into.

Because her grades had slipped so much in her sophomore year of high school and had never recovered. And she'd never told them why.

But their disappointment over her not getting into the university she'd wanted, into deciding not to do medical school at all, had only confirmed her decision to keep her other transgressions from them.

But she'd found a purpose in training to be a midwife; she'd gotten a good position, earned good money. And Jared came along for the ride.

It was like everything had stalled out. Like she was still dating Jared in high school.

And her friends had gone on to have all these experiences that she'd never had. They'd left their hometown. They'd dated multiple men. Had one-night stands. Brief flings. Lived alone, lived with roommates, lived with boyfriends.

She'd lived with Jared.

In a house that she'd paid for.

And the sheets on that bed had been paid for by her.

And that was her experience. Her one and only experience.

This was an unknown. And it felt... Dangerous.