Hard and Fast (Fast Track #2)(65)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“I hope I didn’t look completely awful on TV.”

“I’m sure you looked beautiful,” he murmured. He was used to being on TV, so it didn’t unnerve him.

There was a pause, then she said, “We should sync our calendars in e-mail. That way we can see each other’s schedules at a glance.”

That made him shift a little in bed. “We don’t need to do that. Anything you tell me, I’ll remember.” He tapped his head. “It’s all right here.”

“It would be more practical to use a calendar feature.”

“Hmm,” he said noncommittally.

“Why don’t you use e-mail?” she asked. “It’s so convenient.”

“Too busy. And I have an assistant.”

“Who I’m sure was thrilled to open the e-mail from me in which I was offering you o**l s*x.”

Ty laughed. “Really? She didn’t mention that to me. But don’t worry, Toni’s cool. A bit of a dictator, but she keeps me where I need to be.”

“That’s good.” Imogen ran her fingers over his chest. “What kind of wedding do you want?”

“I don’t know.” Truth was, he’d never thought about it one way or the other. “Whatever you want, babe.”

“Maybe a destination wedding. What do you think of that?”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Where you get married on a resort, like in Hawaii or the Caribbean. You invite just a few close friends and family.”

“That sounds nice.” Sun, sand, he could deal with that. And considering his only months off from the season were December and January, going to the tropics was appealing. “We could go barefoot.”

“Then again, that has the potential to offend a lot of people who are important to us. Maybe we should have a traditional wedding here so we could invite everyone.”

“Okay.”

Imogen glanced up at him anxiously. “Is that what you really want? Because planning a wedding like that is a lot of work.”

“Which is why we don’t need to do it all tonight,” he told her, kissing her on the forehead. “Go to sleep.”

She was quiet long enough that Ty let his eyes drift closed, the feel of her warm and snug up next to him lulling him toward sleep.

But then she spoke. “It would really be helpful if you answered e-mails and we synced our calendars if we’re going to plan a wedding.”

Ty sighed, and ran his thumbs along his eyebrows. He had to tell her, he knew he did. He was going to marry the woman, he could trust her with his secret. But the shame still bit hard. Forcing that aside, he said, “Imogen.”

“You’re going to tell me to shut up and go to sleep, aren’t you?”

That almost made him laugh. “No. I’m going to tell you that e-mail isn’t a good form of communication for me because I’m dyslexic.”

“Oh.” She blinked up at him, squinting since her glasses were off. “Oh. I had no idea . . . God, I’m sorry. I’m harassing you about it.”

“That’s okay, you didn’t know. But now you do.”

She didn’t just look upset, just startled. “So, it’s difficult and time-consuming for you to read? Is it just regular e-mails or is it the complexity of a calendar feature that jumbles words for you?”

He should have known she would ask curious questions. It was time to be completely honest, instead of the half-truth he’d just given her. “It’s both. I can’t read at all, Emma Jean. I was good at faking my way through school, and I didn’t figure out what was wrong with me until I was twenty or so. By then, it didn’t matter. I had dropped out of high school to drive cars.”

Another little secret he had failed to mention to the woman getting her master’s degree.

“What?” That finally seemed to stun her enough that she sat up in bed and stared at him. “You can’t read at all? Like, at all? How do you function, then?”

Ty shifted up in bed as well, a little stung by how much her wording hurt him. “I told you, I’m good at faking it. I pick up on cues from everyone around me. I have a fantastic memory. You only need to tell me once and I’ll remember it. I have Toni, the only person who knows, guiding me through paperwork and anything I can’t figure out. And thank God for the BlackBerry and its little pictures. Technology has been a wonderful thing . . . Now I can tell who’s calling by the picture that pops up.”

“But, but . . .” She squeezed her fingers into her temple. “I’ve seen you do stuff. Like the touch screen at the airport . . . How did you . . .”

“When those things first started popping up, I had the ticket agent help me do it. Now I do it partly from memory, partly from common sense based on the pictures. It’s not that hard.”

“Ty . . .” Her look was agonized. “Shakespeare?”

His heart was thumping a sickening, dull thud in his chest. He didn’t like the way she was staring at him but he had to be honest. “I listened to it on audio.”

Her mouth fell open. “Oh, okay, I guess that makes sense. And . . . and you’re saying you dropped out of high school?”

Ty nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me? You don’t have to hide anything from me.” Imogen reached her hand out and touched his cheek.

Overwhelmed with emotion and relief that she hadn’t called him an idiot, Ty swallowed hard. “It’s not something you run around telling people. If they know, they’re critical, passing judgment, or they treat you like you’re a moron. If they don’t know, it’s a level playing field. And hell, I’m embarrassed. You’re a very intelligent woman, Imogen.” He used her real name intentionally instead of his nickname for her. “I didn’t want a door closed in my face with you before I could even get it open all the way.”

“I would never pass judgment,” Imogen said, but even as the words left her mouth, she knew that wasn’t entirely true. Before she had known Ty the way she did now, she might have dismissed him as a typical Southern male, too stubborn to bother to learn how to read, even when it would make his life easier. She had since learned there was so much more to him than that, and she could see why he wouldn’t tell anyone. Ty had pride, tons of it, and he would see dyslexia as a weakness. Why admit a flaw when he could just work around it?

But nonetheless, it bothered her that he had hid it from her.