“What is then? That your parents wanted to be successful and provide for their daughter?”
“You don’t get it, Mitch,” she said, leaping from the couch. She stalked to the windows and stared out at the city, the Detroit River a wide, glittering ribbon below, the lights of the Ambassador Bridge blotting out the stars. “They left me alone on Christmas.”
“What?”
“Christmas the year I was twelve. I was barely old enough to stay home alone, but do you think the parents of the year cared about that? No. They didn’t. Up to that point, I had been moved around so much and left alone so often that I had to figure out ways to fend for myself. I never expected…” She took a fortifying breath. This was the one memory she always buried deep, the one that hurt the most to recall. Her parents had said and done a lot of damaging things over the years, but this one…
“It was a few days before Christmas when they told me they had to go out of town. Apparently, they needed to put out some fire with one of their investments. Naturally I whined, not wanting them to leave me so close to the holiday. But they promised me they’d be back in time for presents on Christmas morning, and that they had called one of the local nanny services to have someone stay with me. My mom said I’d only be alone for a few hours.
“I was alone in that big, stupid house in Connecticut for three days, Mitch.”
Mitch sucked in a breath and stood, his footsteps sinking into the carpet closer and closer until he wrapped his arms around her from behind.
“I survived on cereal, soup that I microwaved, and popcorn. I spent Christmas by myself. The only saving grace was that I searched that house top to bottom and eventually found my presents.”
“I bet your parents felt horrible.”
Lexie snorted derisively. “Of course they didn’t feel horrible. They blamed me.”
Mitch’s eyebrows drew together. “I don’t understand.”
“I was always a bit of a loner. I had to be to survive. But I was also incredibly smart. Precocious. Resourceful. My parents assumed that I just called the nannying service and cancelled my sitter so I could stay home alone anddestroy their house.”
Those had been her mother’s exact words when she yelled at Lexie after they’d returned to find the kitchen a mess of empty tin cans and cereal boxes. The living room was overflowing with shredded wrapping paper—they must have felt extra guilty for being shitty parents that year, because she never received as many gifts before or after—and Lexie had been found in the center of it all, reading her new set of Harry Potter books while lounging in her dad’s recliner.
Her parents had screamed and screamed and screamed. And then they called the nannying service to scream some more about leaving a twelve-year-old unattended.
Until the woman informed them they had never called to have anyone watch Lexie in the first place.
“It was like a flip had been switched,” Lexie told Mitch as he settled them back on the couch. “They were the ones who fucked up, so they went out of their way to make it up to me. A few days after Christmas, my mom took me into New York City on a shopping trip. Anything I wanted, she didn’t say no to. It was a fun kind of game for me. I would pick out the most outrageously priced little bauble in the store and tell her I had to have it. And she didn’t argue. Didn’t fight me on any of it. Just let me have whatever I wanted. I learned then that she and my dad were the kind of people who thought they had to buy affection, that it couldn’t be given freely.”
“God, Lex,” Mitch said as he pulled her onto his lap. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” she said, desperately wanting to wrap up this conversation.
“It all makes sense now,” he said.
“What does?”
“Why you fought this so hard.”
“This?”
“Us. Why you fought giving us a chance, givingmea chance.”
“And why exactly does it make sense now?”
“You’re scared,” he said gently. “You’ve always been scared.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because you think you’re unlovable and easy to leave. Because the two people in the world who were supposed to love you the most and without conditions, who were supposed to make sure you felt safe and wanted every day, spent your entire life acting like you were some cross to bear instead of a gift.” He snuggled closer and cupped her face in his hands. “I am not your parents, Lexie. Youarea gift. The greatest one I’ve ever been given. And I’m going to spend forever proving it to you.”
He was right, and he was so very wrong. She wasn’t just scared; she was petrified. To her, there was nothing scarier in the world than this man and her feelings for him.
Lexie could do nothing to stop them as her tears flowed, even if she wanted to. A dam had broken inside her, spilling free all of the things Mitch inspired in her that she had tried so desperately to bury. With his arms wrapped around her, she felt safe. She felt loved and wanted and treasured, all of those things her parents had denied her all those years.
She finally felt like she washome.
