So I knew I was going to be polite, but not an inch more than I needed to.

She was so mean, it honestly surprised me she still got invited places and that everyone hadn’t just had a meeting where everybody agreed to keep family get-togethers a secret so she wouldn’t go.

I settled for shrugging at her. If I didn’t say anything, maybe she’d get bored and stop talking to me faster.

It didn’t work.

“Where are your parents?”

That’s where she was going with this from the get-go. I should’ve expected it. “They’re in Nicaragua right now.”

Her “Hmmph” said everything. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

And she went there too.

I blinked at her; then I blinked at her some more. I couldn’t exactly call my aunt a nosey heifer, could I? As much as I might fucking wish I could. Knowing I didn’t have time, I smiled at her. “Which one?”

She blinked.

I hoped she got a bunion.

“It was nice seeing you, byeeee,” I called out over my shoulder as I sped toward the door and got the hell out of there.

Turning around, I gave the door both middle fingers. Fucking hell, I was going to have to tell Connie all about that shit. That woman was something else.

“What are you doing?”

I jumped and found a figure leaning against the pillar in front of the bathroom door with a big grin on his face.

It was Zac, and his face was flushed.

“Escaping my aunt and flipping her off,” I told him as I stopped in front of him, tucking my fingers back into my fist, ready to fight another day. “What are you doing, creeper?”

He snickered and ignored my question, throwing out one of his. “Which one?”

I reached forward and slipped my hand into the crook of his elbow, trying to pull him away. The last thing I wanted was for her to come out and see us talking and make some other dumb comment or question. Luckily, he let me. “Licha. She only managed to ask if I’d gained weight and then ask about my ex, so it was kind of my day in a way.”

He followed me toward the doors to the hall, his inner elbow cupped in my palm. “Your ex?” he asked.

“Uh-huh. She made it seem like she didn’t know we had split up when I know she damn well knew about it,” I explained.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him glance down at me, but I didn’t look up. “What ex?”

Well, it wasn’t like it was some secret, and okay, maybe I’d purposely avoided mentioning him, but it was just because I liked to pretend that stage in my life hadn’t happened. A whole five years. “Kenny. I don’t like to talk about it. We split up almost two years ago.” I didn’t want to tell him the rest, but knowing him, he was going to ask. “We were together for five years. He’s why I moved here. We met when I lived in North Carolina with Connie. His job transferred him here, then eventually Richard—that’s Connie’s husband—got moved to Texas, and they came back too.”

“Five years?” he asked slowly.

“Yeah, we were engaged for a minute and everything.”

Under my hand, his arm tensed. “I didn’t know that. What happened?”

Of course he was going to ask. “At first, it was the same old shit. He told me he was going out of town for work, but surprise, my coworkers invited me to go to the movies and I said yes, and he was there with his ex-girlfriend, who I guess had flown down to see him. He had his arm around her and everything. How about that, huh?”

There. Done. I glanced up at him and instantly met his eyes.

He was frowning. “What’d you do?”

We stopped just outside the doors to the event hall, and I let go of his arm. “I went to his condo, left the ring and the key on his kitchen counter, then spent the next two hours texting everyone that we both knew what he’d done and to please not tell him anything about me, and I blocked his number. Connie drove down that night with the kids and stayed with me. It just so happened that my lease was almost over with my roommate at the time, and I moved out two weeks later and got my new one.” I had originally been supposed to move in with him, but….

The lines across his forehead got deep.

I smiled at him. “He went to my job a couple times, and I pretended not to know him. He made excuses, tried to say nothing happened, then said it was the first time. Whatever. I should have known he was a dud when he said he’d rather get a vasectomy than go to Disney World with me.” Shrugging, I said, “Then he tried to sue me. So that’s that. Next time I’ll listen to Boogie when he tells me he doesn’t like someone.”

“Boog didn’t like him?”

“Nooo. But he was already dating Lauren and things were already awkward between us, so we just didn’t talk about them in front of each other.” I thought about the women Zac had supposedly been with and decided not to ask about his dating life.

I didn’t want to know.

He stopped suddenly and turned. “Hold on, darlin’. Did you say he tried to sue you?”

I’d been waiting for that. This wasn’t where I wanted to talk about it, but I knew he wouldn’t let me put it off any longer. “Yeah. He claimed he was entitled to part of my Lazy Baker business. That he helped me come up with it. That he helped me run it, even though all he did was edit my videos and help with filming. Dickhead. I ended up having to settle with him so he’d finally drop it.”

Zac’s head reared back, and his forehead was furrowed. “You settled with him? For how much?”

I bit my lip. “I’ve never told anyone before the right amount.” And then I told him.

And Zac blinked slowly. “US Dollars?”

“Unfortunately.”

Even in the poor lighting, I could tell his face went pale. “Where the hell did you come up with that kind of money?”

I poked him. “My piggy bank, where else?” I grinned at him, pleased with myself for doing well enough that even he couldn’t believe it. It made me feel extra proud of myself. Just for a moment, before I remembered how much of an idiot I had been. “He knew everything. How much money I was making, how much I had in savings. Everything. So he went after me for all of it.” Anger stirred my chest, and I forced a tight, uncomfortable smile on my face. “That’s why I didn’t quit my job at the gym. We just settled six months ago. I’m barely getting my feet back under me. I stopped accepting sponsors while all of that was going on because I was genuinely worried that the more money I made, the more I’d have to give him, and I didn’t want him to end up with more of my hard-earned work. But he still got so much of it. I feel like an idiot.”

His mouth parted, and his gaze was intense on mine. “That’s why you never said nothin’?”

“Yeah. How stupid was I, Zac? I considered marrying that asshole. I didn’t see that he was capable of something like that. I wasted so much time and energy. And he got almost all of my money. Honestly, between us, it really fucked me up for a while. I still have trust issues. It took me almost a year after we split up to finally break down and hire someone to help me film because I didn’t want to let anyone in.”

“I can’t believe you paid him.”

“His family had money, and I know he would have fought me forever. I had to tell myself that it wasn’t worth it to me, to stunt my business for so long. And at least I’ll never have to see or hear from him again. That was what I added to our agreement when I paid him off. That he better never contact me again. I regret all of it, but I learned a valuable lesson.”