“I’m an only child,” he repeated patiently. “My mother died of leukemia when I was five and a half. My father remarried soon after that. And then he divorced and remarried again. And so on and so forth. I’ve lost count of how many there were. And he’s getting remarried to a woman about a decade younger than me in a couple of weeks’ time. He always falls head over heels in love, marries without protecting himself or his assets, and then is surprised when he gets taken to the cleaners a year or two later.”
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked, horrified and fascinated by the story he was telling her, but not at all sure why he would choose to divulge this to her, now or ever.
“You might not want me to know about you, but I think it’s time you learned something about me.”
“Why? That ma
