“She’s doing okay, now,” Lana says, inserting a gentle reminder into the conversation. “It doesn’t mean she didn’t go through a lot.”
“My life wasn’t normal,” I admit, though I can’t bring myself to complain when I know now what I was kept safe from. “But I didn’t know I was a captive. It wasn’t torture. I thought … I had a job. I worked and I spent time in the gardens. That’s all.”
He frowns, and his gaze moves to Lana. “I don’t understand. Wasn’t Robin hospitalised?”
Lana sighs softly beside me. “Robin had to be treated for malnutrition when she got here. She spent the majority of the last few weeks in our hospital ward until she reached a healthy weight and her vitals were normal. The housekeeper who looked after her had some strange ideas on how to keep Robin from looking like an attractive prospect to the man who bought her mother.”
I shrug when he looks back at me. The pure horror in his eyes is enough to make me glance down. Colleen didn’t know she was hurting me. She was trying to keep me safe.
I guess anyone who wasn’t there wouldn’t know what it was like.
“It worked. I was never sold or whatever.”
I can’t erase what happened to me, but I don’t need to hold onto the pain.
I won’t blame Colleen for how close I came to death.
I didn’t die, and I won’t let myself fixate on what could have happened.
That would only allow the man who bought my mother to continue to hurt me.
Ivan Hamilton has no hold over me now. He can’t get to me here.
“I’m so, so sorry.” Steve reaches across the coffee table, hand coming close to mine.
I unclasp my hands and move them forward, allowing him to take my hand in his.
He seems relieved once his warm hand is holding mine.
It feels strange to me, but I don’t want to pull back.
I’m not used to physical contact, but I can’t say I hate it.
Just like having Katie braid my hair, having his hand clasp mine feels good.
Small touches like this were never a part of my life in the past.
I have vague memories of Colleen holding me as a young girl, but she didn’t keep that warmth as I grew older. I learned to soothe myself when I was upset or in pain, and that became the norm for me.
This is better. It’s so much better. I’ve missed this.
“You never should have had to grow up in that house,” he tells me. “You should have had me and your mother. We should have been a family.”
“I would have liked that.”
He gives me a smile, and I give him one in return.
I have a father. He had feelings for my mother, and he cares about me, too.
Right here in this moment, I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Chapter Forty-Two
Falcon
Some time between last night and this morning, every last drop of tension leaked out of my body, leaving me in an oddly serene state that I can’t say I’ve ever experienced before.
It’s not like I’m happy about the long drive out to the city, or the thought of speaking to Lana again so soon after she warned me about lying to her.
