How You Remind Me Read Online Free Page A

mistake, he couldn’t help but
grab Kate by the elbows when it looked like she might fall. She instantly
tugged out of his hold and lowered herself onto the edge of the bed.
    “I don’t understand,” she said.
    He muttered a curse, disbelieving how massively he’d screwed
up. He should have told her the truth before things went so far, but the allure
of her seduction had been too powerful for him to resist—especially after how
much he’d resisted that night she couldn’t recall. But after tasting and
inhaling and experiencing the full breadth of her climax, he’d known that his
world would remain in turmoil until he came clean.
    “I want to be with you, Kate,” he confessed.
    She shook her head, as if trying to clear away her confusion.
“Isn’t that what we were aiming for?”
    “Like an arrow,” Shaw said. “And I swear to God, I want it—I
want you—more than anything. But there’s a lie in our way. Actually, not a lie.
A truth. A truth I haven’t told about what happened that night.”
    “No one knows what happened to me,” she said. “I asked around.
No one even remembers seeing me. I was at the club and then, I wasn’t. I ended
up at home, in bed, alone.”
    He dropped to his knee, needing her to see his face. “That’s
because I took you home.”
    “You? You didn’t even know me then.”
    “I knew you were in trouble.”
    She snorted, but couldn’t meet his eyes. Her confidence was
cracked—thanks to him.
    “I can take care of myself,” she insisted.
    “You couldn’t that night, Kate. You were vulnerable. Maybe
more vulnerable than you’ve been in your entire life.”
    Her chin notched upward. “I was an attorney, a junior
partner in a major law firm. Very good at my job and very well respected.”
    “And very unhappy.”
    She narrowed her gaze. With every secret he revealed, her
anger increased. He couldn’t blame her. While under the influence, she’d
confessed secrets about her life, her career and her most intimate sexual
preferences—secrets only an intimate friend or lover would know—secrets he
could keep to himself no longer.
    “How do you know about my job? Did Erica tell you?”
    “No,” he replied. “She didn’t need to. You told me yourself.
How bored you were in the corporate world. How you hit the clubs, desperate for
some fun after feeling like a caged bird all day. You told me how you went into
law to please your parents and your friends, but that you hated being cooped up.
You wanted a job where you could be creative and maybe a little wild. You told
me everything, Kate.”
    With each admission, she leaned another inch away from him. “I
wouldn’t.”
    Shaw cradled his pounding head while he wondered what to say
next. Except under the influence of drugs, Kate wasn’t chatty about her
personal life. But that night, she’d talked for hours. She’d gifted him with
her life story, from growing up as an only child to type A personality parents
to the time she’d seduced the lead singer of a well-known eighties hair band.
    “Under normal circumstances, you’d never tell a stranger so
much. But the circumstances weren’t normal, Kate. My band was on stage. You
were in the front row. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. For one heartbeat, we
connected. Then some guy, I don’t think you knew him, slipped something into
your drink.”
    The color drained from her face. “I was drugged?”
    He inched closer, his hands aching to take her palms in his.
“Yeah.”
    She faced him dead on. “You’re sure?”
    He nodded.
    “And you’ve known this for over a year?”
    The snap in her voice cut straight through the center of his
chest. “Yes.”
    “And you didn’t think,” she scooted around him and stalked across
the room, “that maybe you should tell me?”
    He stood. “I’ve thought every single minute we’ve been
together about how I should tell you. I just couldn’t figure out how.”
    “Couldn’t figure out how?” she repeated, incensed. “You