Galen is a stunning man.
He could be a model with that mass of dark hair, piercing green eyes, thick, lush lips and high angular cheekbones I’d kill for.
“Keep looking at me like that, angel, and we won’t be doing much talking.” His husky voice penetrates skin, lodging bone deep, and a flurry of shivers skips through my veins.
I cup his face. “You’re beautiful, Galen. Hot as fuck, and I won’t deny I want you, but I’m not ready to take it there yet.”
He gulps, nodding. “It’s okay. I understand, and I can be patient.” His lips lift. “At least, I’ll try to be.” He brushes his thumbs across my cheeks as my hands drop to my lap. “And so there’s no confusion, I’m fucking hot for you, Lo, and I’m done pretending otherwise.”
“I’m glad we got that cleared up,” I joke, pressing a soft kiss to the underside of his jaw. “But now, you need to explain why you hated me so much.”
He tightens his hold on my arm. “It wasn’t so much you I hated as—”
“My father.” I finish for him.
He nods.
“Why? What did he do? Is this something to do with those pictures of your mom we found in his office?”
He grinds his teeth, and anger flashes in his eyes. “Yes.”
“Where did those boxes come from?”
“Your mom had them.”
“What? Why?”
“All I know is, she gave them to Sinner when he asked about your father’s paperwork. And we’re getting off point.”
I nod, urging him to continue with my eyes, parking that little nugget of information in the back of my mind to think about later.
I patiently wait for him to continue, and the longer he remains silent, battling an invisible enemy, the more anxious I become. “Galen, please. Just spit it out. I need to know.”
He looks at me, the hardness softening a smidgeon. “This is going to hurt you, Lo, and I promised I wouldn’t do that again.”
“Don’t hide behind that! This only works if we get it all out. I’m a big girl. I’ll handle it.”
“Your father had an affair with my mother, and it set off a whole fucked-up chain of events,” he blurts.
Okay, wait. What?
I shake my head. “No. No way. My father wouldn’t do that! He worshiped the ground my mother walked on!”
“I saw them myself!”
“What?” I whisper as pain slices across my chest.
“That same day. You’d run off on me after I tried to kiss you. I sulked out here for a while, and then, I went looking for you. I stumbled across your dad kissing my mom.”
Tears sting my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. “Are you sure it was him?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Maybe they were drunk, and it was only a onetime thing and—”
“He knocked her up,” Galen says, pursing his lips.
“What?” Tears pool in my eyes this time. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “No!”
