“You justtalkedabout your friends loving you.”
He grinned, leaning in to kiss the corner of her mouth. “Told you I wasn’t predictable.”
“You’re lucky to have them.” She sighed when his lips dallied with hers, nipping, tasting, retreating, and nipping again. The sound of their play filled the bathroom. “They’re your family. In all the ways that matter.”
To her utter dismay, he was suddenly gone, having pulled away from her.
Chapter Eighteen
6:49 p.m.…
There was no mistaking the note of melancholy in Olivia’s voice when she spoke of family. And it punched Leo in the gut like a heavyweight fighter, forcing all the air from his lungs. He knew she was an orphan. She’d said something to that effect once. And even though he’d wanted to question her then, one look at her narrowed, guarded eyes had told him the topic was off-limits. Likewaythe hell off-limits. The Siberia of subjects. But now…
Had she opened the door to him? Just a crack? He stood in front of her, searching her face, looking for permission to step through,wantingpermission to step through because…helovedher. And he longed to know everything about her. All her fears and hopes and dreams. Her past and her present, because maybe that would give him the key to her future.
He tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear and chose his words carefully. “Iamlucky, even if they’re a pain in my ass most days.”
She smiled, and it looked almost…wistful. He nearly moaned at the sight. Managed to hold it back at the last minute. “I’m told most familiesarea pain in the ass. That’s what makes them great.”
He couldn’t stand it a second longer. He barreled through the door she’d cracked open. “What happened to your parents?” he whispered. This was a test of sorts. If she had enough faith in him to share her story, then maybe, just maybe she thought there was a chance for them.
Her face blanked, her eyes taking on that glassy, near-doll-like sheen that said all her inner walls had sprung up. His stomach somersaulted over his disappointment and self-reproach. He’d gone too far. Pushed too fast. She didn’t trust him enough to—
“I…uh…” Her gaze slid from his face to his throat, where his pulse was pounding. “I never knew who my father was.”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple sticking. He was afraid to move, afraid to breathe lest he scare her away.
“I don’t think mymotherknew who my father was.” She made a face, her eyes taking on a faraway look, as if she were thumbing through the Rolodex of old memories in her mind. “I can remember a lot of men going in and out of our house…um…trailer. We lived in a broken-down trailer park on the outskirts of Cincinnati. And I remember her telling me when I asked where my father was that it didn’t matter because she loved me enough for a mommyanda daddy.”
He began to form a picture in his mind of Olivia as a child. Wild black hair and blue eyes that took up her whole face. She had probably been a serious kid,tooserious. “And your mother? What happened to her?”
Even though she was still staring at the hollow of his throat, he could see her eyes cloud over. The pain flashing in them was as bright as lightning bolts. “Drug overdose when I was five.” His lungs became lead ballast stones in his chest, his heart an anchor. He wanted to travel back in time and tell her everything would be okay. That she’d grow up to be this strong, brave, amazing woman.
“She usually met the school bus at the end of the road to the trailer park. But that day after kindergarten she didn’t. I walked home by myself and found her lying at the end of the drive. I thought she was sleeping. She slept a lot because of hermedicine—that’s what she called it. But when I couldn’t wake her up, I started screaming. The neighbors heard me and called the police. I was placed with social services that night and stuck in an orphanage by the end of the week.”
“No grandparents? No aunts and uncles?”
She managed to meet his eyes. “My mother was an only child. Andherparents died in a flash flood when she was seventeen. Weird, I know. To die in a flash flood. But it’s true. She dropped out of high school, got a job as a gas station attendant, and had me a couple of years later.”
And then died soon after, leaving a five-year-old girl all alone in the world, adrift, parentless, friendless, and afraid. He tried to imagine it and couldn’t. When he was five, he was chasing fireflies, playing in the sandbox at the park, and pretty much getting into everything his dad told him not to. “And foster parents?”
She shrugged, her expression droll. “The first couple who took me inwantedto keep me, I think. But I was too young to understand death. I thought my old mommy would come back for me if I acted like I didn’t want my new mommy. I was a royal terror, wetting the bed, drawing on the walls with permanent markers, throwing tantrums one minute and withdrawing into sullen silences the next. They were a young couple. They didn’t know how to cope. I was back at the orphanage after six months. And then mysecondfoster family only took me in as a placeholder. They really wanted an infant, and the minute their adoption petition for a baby was approved, they sent me back.”
Sent back. Like a pair of pants that didn’t quite fit. It took every ounce of self-discipline he had not to wrap his arms around her, bury his nose in her damp hair, and tell her over and over again how sorry he was she’d had to go through that. But she wouldn’t welcome his pity. She was a proud woman…as well she should be.Justlookhowhighshe’s risen from such meager beginnings.“And that was it?”
“No.” She shook her head. The overhead light glinted against the auburn highlights in her hair. “There were other foster families in between stints in the orphanage. But by that point, I’d been in the system a while, had been passed over for kids who were younger than me, cuter than me, more outgoing than me. So when Iwasplaced with a new foster family, I was so afraid they’d reject me in the end that I always rejectedthemfrom the beginning. Isolating myself, never showing any affection. Neveracceptingany affection. You know, basically being a stupid, insufferable little shit.”
Some of what he was feeling must have shown on his face, because she wrinkled her nose and attempted a smile. “I know, right? I’m a modern-day Oliver Twist. Just without the pickpocketing and the all-around misadventures.”
“Olivia…” Her name was four hoarse syllables on his tongue.
She held up a hand, the look on her face going steely. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Leo. It could’ve been worse. I was never abused. Which, from what I hear, is a miracle for a kid in my position. I got my GED when I was seventeen, went to community college, then university, then filled out an application for the CIA. And the rest, as they say, is history.”
“You’re amazin’,” he breathed.
“No.” She shook her head adamantly. “I’m not. Not at all. I just happened to survive a rough start. Alotof kids do that.” He opened his mouth to say many survived it only to turn down a dark path of drug abuse, crime, and overall self-destruction. But she continued before he could utter a single word. “In fact, didn’tyoulose your mother when you were young?”
And once again he clocked her change in subject—the dear woman wasn’t very subtle about such things—and decided to let it slide. She’d told him what he wanted to know. And while the story broke his fucking heart, her faith in him, in letting him hear the awful truth of where she came from and what she’d endured, gathered up the sharp pieces and made it gloriously whole again.
