“If it wasn’t me, no one else would have been able to do it.”
“But itwasyou, and you were too young, so I think that some resentment is understandable. I had both parents and they were healthy, but they couldn’t be what I needed, and God knows, that messed me up for a long time.”
I stroke a finger along silky skin. “What do you mean they couldn’t be what you needed?”
“My dad was abusive—physically,” she adds matter-of-factly, and I can’t stop the rage from encroaching on my vision, from narrowing it to a tiny point that is solely filled by this woman. “He hit my mom. He hit me…until I was old enough to protect myself.”
“How could you protect yourself against a grown man?” I rasp.
Her hand finds mine, lacing our fingers together. “I’m okay,” she says. “Safe and whole, and he found out that I have a natural inclination for softball.”
I appreciate that she’s trying to lighten the mood.
I still want to hunt the fucker down and make his life a misery. “You introduced him to your bat?”
A nod. “Luckily, I got my smarts from him, and he was a fast learner. I made it clear that if he kept his distance and stopped hitting my mom that a repeat of the events would never happen…and I’d make sure that it stayed under wraps.”
I frown.
“For him, ego was everything.”
“Was?”
A nod. “He died about eight years back, six months after my mom. Turns out being a selfish leech your whole life makes it hard to take care of yourself. I was low contact from the time I left for college. It was the only way to survive. Unfortunately, the wounds he left ran deep.”
“How, gorgeous?”
“I picked bad men—selfish, mostly. Emotionally manipulative, for sure. And”—she sighs and my rage ramps up because I know her next words are going to infuriate me—“the last one hit me.”
I curse. “Please tell me you have his name and address because that fucker is going topay.”
“So blood-thirsty,” she murmurs, lightly running her hand over my front. “But sadly for you, Jean-Michel found out and he took care of it. Last I heard, Oscar had to move back to Iowa and was living with his parents because he was downsized and couldn’t get a job.”
“Jean-Michel blacklisted him?”
She nods. “And had a pointed conversation with the owner of the company Oscar worked for. It didn’t take long for him to be sent packing.” Her hand slides back up, and she cups my jaw. “But this is mostly me talking, handsome, which isn’t helping my selfish streak.”
“You need to stop talking bad about my woman.”
“Trouble.”
“Me?”
“Definitely you,” she murmurs, pressing her lips to my jaw. “You’re far too charming for your own good.”
“Or maybeyourgood.”
Laughter in the air. “Oh, we know that already, considering how much I fought ending up right here.”
I tug at a curl and she leans in, lips brushing over mine. “Will you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“That deepest darkest secret,” she whispers. “Because I think it’s why your eyes go extra sad when you talk about your mom.”
“It’s hard to lose a parent.”
“That’s true enough.”
