“I know you do.”
“Really? Well, that’s good to know, because sometimes I don’t think other people do.”
“Corrie, I didn’t ask you to come here because of your tits. I wanted you here because you’re the smartest person I know.”
She paused, letting the atmosphere in the tent reset.
“Do you mean that?” she asked, quietly. She wasn’t looking for feigned compliments. She truly wanted to know—did he . . . did he respect her?
“Of course I do. Honestly, Corrie, the only reason I did well in school is because I had you as my competition, always keeping me on my toes. I had to work a hell of a lot harder because of you. It was kind of annoying, to be honest,” he said, finishing with humor in his tone.
“And yet you still came out on top,” she said, looking away, “And no one recognizes that I was right behind you. People genuinely act surprised when I tell them I have a PhD. Do you know how insulting that is?”
It was one of the main reasons Corrie didn’t like going on dates with new people. When she did, she often didn’t tell them what she did for a living. The surprised looks and claims that You don’t look like a doctor had gotten old long ago. Besides, they didn’t need to know about her career if all they were going to do was grab a drink and bang.
“I’m sure plenty of people recognize how brilliant you are.”
“Really? Then why wasn’t I selected as lead for this dig? I mean, no offense, Ford, but this is my life’s work. I’ve written articles and papers on it. Hell, it was the subject of my dissertation, the dissertation you’re using as a guide.”
Ford wrinkled his brow, as if uncomfortable with her comments. She hadn’t intended to make him feel bad. But he’d asked why she didn’t like receiving help, and this was the answer.
Because deep down, she knew she’d never earn the same respect as someone without a pair of double Ds. Not in this industry. And, unfortunately, not in many others, either.
“And so earlier today,” she continued, “when you made those comments about being in charge, it hit me hard. I was actually starting to think that maybe you weren’t the asshole I’d thought you were, but when you said that? Well, I changed my mind.”
Ford winced and rubbed his face. “Corrie . . . I’m really sorry about that. It was a shitty thing to say and the minute I did, I regretted it. I was pissed about that not being the spot and pissed at myself for making the impulsive decision to come all the way here for nothing, wasting our time. Then you said we needed to tell Jon and Memo I was wrong. Between that and you pointing out that in the three months we’ve been here, I haven’t taken the time to get to know anyone, well, it felt like you were egging me on again. Which, after I started thinking that maybe you weren’t so bad, kind of hurt. So I pulled a dick move. But I’m sorry. I know I’m not better, smarter, or more qualified than you. I’m where I’m at right now, and you’re not, simply because I dated the right woman at the right time. That’s it.”
Wow. Maybe she was wrong about Ford. Again.
“Thank you for saying that.”
“Well, it’s the truth. And you know how hard it is for me to admit when I’m wrong.”
“So what you’re saying is all I had to do was date Addison and I’d be a professor at Yale leading high-profile digs all over the world?” She waggled her brows and he laughed, lowering and shaking his head.
“Honestly, you would have been the better fit for her.”
Corrie’s curiosity piqued. “Oh yeah? Is she into ladies?”
“First of all, Corrie, you’re no lady,” he joked. “But no. She . . . I . . . I wasn’t exciting enough for her.”
Exciting enough? Well, this just got a helluva lot more interesting.
Their conversation had made its way full circle. Corrie stared at Ford as if saying, Explain, and he groaned, lying back on the ground. She lay next to him on her side, propping her head up in her hand. Waiting for more.
“Do tell, Dr. Matthews,” Corrie said. “You can’t lead with that and then leave me hanging.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this,” he said, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples.
“What happened?”
He let out a long sigh, then finally started talking. “I honestly don’t know when things started going the wrong direction with her. Things were good, or at least I thought they were. I mean, I was gone a lot, but as the daughter of Dr. Crawley, it wasn’t anything new to her. But then my dad died when I was on a dig, so I ended up coming home early without telling her. I was so upset about my dad, I thought that if I could surprise Addison, her excitement to see me would make everything better. And she was surprised to see me all right—I walked in on her masturbating with a dildo.”
Corrie fought to keep her face straight. Well . . . this was unexpected.
“What happened after that?”
“Well, first she screamed and threw the dildo at me because she thought I was an intruder. Gave me a black eye, in fact.”
Corrie snickered.
“Don’t laugh. It’s not funny,” he said, unable to keep himself from chuckling.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, waving her hands in front of her face to stop herself. “I’m just picturing a dildo hitting you in the eye, and you have to admit—it’s an interesting visual.”
“I’ll give you that.”
“So then what?”
“We talked about it later and she apologized, but she also said that she was lonely because I was gone too much. I decided to stick around for a while, trying to rebuild our relationship, trying to satisfy her. I tried thinking of ways to reignite the spark so I thought, well, maybe we could experiment with toys together. We’d never tried that before, but I’ve always been open to exploring new things. Whenever we had sex, though, it was different. She . . . she was faking it.”
Hmm. Maybe she was right about him not being any good in bed.
“Like, faking having an orgasm.”
“Yes.” He paused. “God, why am I telling you this?” he muttered as he shook his head, still looking up. “This is so embarrassing.”
“Do you think she was always faking it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. But at this point, who knows? Then we had sex less and less, and it was always she was tired or wasn’t in the mood or was on her period or she’d just taken a shower and didn’t want to get dirty again.”
Mm, wasn’t that half the fun?
“But I swear, Corrie, she’d say she was too tired and so she was going to go to bed and then I’d hear her later. Hear her muffling her moans. Do you have any idea how that messes with your head? Like, I don’t know. Not like I’m God’s gift or anything, but I always thought I was decent in the bedroom. Or, I don’t know, thought our emotional connection was stronger than that. I suppose I was wrong.”
This only stoked Corrie’s interest.
“Did you ever talk about it?” she asked as she shifted over to her stomach and propped herself up on her forearms.