The Rogue Hunter by Lynsay Sands Page A

he was too damned lazy to cook and was leaving it for her to do.
    He'd also offered little help with cleaning. There was no need to bother, he'd always insisted; the house looked fine. When she brought up the subject or complained, he'd claimed that her standards were just higher than his. But it had been hard for Sam to ignore that if his mom called and said she was coming over, those lax standards of his suddenly jumped upward to match her supposedly higher ones and there was a mad dash to clean the house.
    Tom hadn't even been willing to do the manly-type stuff around the house. Sam was the one who'd spent her rare time off climbing a ladder to clean the eave troughs in the fall. When a pipe burst and their basement flooded, she was the one who'd had to call in the plumbers and the city to tend it, and when it came to insulating the attic of the older house they'd bought together—
    Sam cut her thoughts off. Just thinking about these things upset her all over again. Every incident had left her feeling more and more on her own, as if they weren't a couple at all, but as if it was her house, her responsibility, and he was just visiting and needn't help out or take some of the burden. It had left her feeling unloved and taken advantage of.
    Worse yet, while she'd been killing herself at work and doing everything around the house, he'd been running around whining that he wasn't happy, that she worked too many hours, that he hated their house with all its "time-consuming needs," and so on.
    "It's been more than six months, Sam," Jo said gently, distracting her from the distressing memories.
    "Yeah." Alex nudged her from the other side. "What are you planning to do? Swear off men and join a convent?"
    "Maybe," Sam said, thinking the idea wasn't without merit. Honestly, men could be such a pain. The lawyers she worked with all seemed to be selfish, greedy, demanding bastards. Not unlike Tom.
    "Tom was a jerk," Alex said abruptly. "Don't let him put you off men."
    "I thought you liked him," she said with surprise.
    Alex made a face. "He was all right at first, but by the end I was ready to strangle him myself."
    Sam's jaw dropped. "Really? You never said anything."
    "How could I?" she asked helplessly. "You were with him forever. Everyone thought the two of you would marry. I mean, you were talking marriage after graduation, but then you got that job and were so busy and put it off and the two of you just moved in together…" She shrugged and then shook her head. "I couldn't make you uncomfortable by telling you I thought you could do better. But I kept hoping and praying you'd see what an egotistical little jackass he was."
    "Egotistical little jackass?" Sam echoed with a slow smile.
    "Definitely," she said firmly. "He was envious as hell when you were approached by Babcock, Hillier, and Bundy. Everyone else was happy, and he claimed he was too, but you could see the resentment and bitterness on his face that it was you and not him. He was miserable about it and set out to make you miserable too."
    "Really?" Sam asked, almost eagerly. She'd been obsessing over her broken relationship ever since it had ended. While she'd been angry and resentful of Tom's behavior, his insults to her attractiveness and womanliness at the end of their relationship had still hit home and left their mark. Her logical mind had reasoned that if he'd loved her enough and found her attractive enough and wanted to keep her, surely he would have tried a little harder? Surely he would have helped out. The logical answer to that question was that she had somehow been lacking and not worth his expending the effort to keep her. She truly hadn't been "woman enough," as he claimed.
    "I don't think Mortimer is anything like Tom," Alex added suddenly.
    Sam stiffened. She wasn't ready to get back into a relationship. She didn't want to be told, once again, that she wasn't good enough, or didn't give enough, or was insecure and needy when she tried to get her mate