My heart squeezed like a vice had clamped around it. “You have a library.”
Mitchell looked up at the books, beaming like a proud little boy as we stopped at the railing by the stairs. “Do you like it? I’m sorry I didn’t show you sooner, we were just… doing other things.”
I’d laugh, but I couldn’t speak. My chest felt as if it hadcaved in. A library. A real library in a real castle, with a real prince.
Mama would have no words.
Mitchell looked down at me and his expression shifted instantly. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask me why I was falling to pieces. He just picked me up and pulled me onto his lap as he dropped down onto the top step. He wrapped the blanket he’d worn over mine and let me cry softly into his chest.
I don’t know how long we sat like this. There was a clock in here somewhere; it ticked softly from down below.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just… the library was the only place he never tarnished.”
Mitchell stroked my hair. “Never say sorry,” he said. A long beat passed. Finally, Mitchell said, “You don’t ever have to tell me about it, Winona. But maybe, sometime, you should tell someone. Sometimes shining the light on things gives them fewer places to hide.”
My skin zinged at his words. When I first met Mitchell, I’d wanted to stuff my past into the darkness. I thought if I never went in, I’d never have to feel that pain again.
But I’d been exposing myself to pain every day I was with Mitchell. Opening up bit by bit, and it hadn’t killed me yet.
Mitchell was right. Adam would love to lurk in the darkness. To stay hidden, controlling me still with my avoidance.
I’d never told anyone about Adam before. I’d never wanted to.
I never could.
But Mitchell had seen so much of me. It was only fitting that he be the one to know the truth.
CHAPTER 29
No More Darkness
MITCHELL
I’d gone to therapy for a while, when I was starting up LoupTeq and found myself unable to get out of bed on the days I needed to be most involved. It had helped, and I’d at least learned that truth I just told Winona. I didn’t stick with it, once I was able to function again. Maybe now I would.
Winona climbed off me, and for a moment, I thought I’d ruined it all. But she didn’t leave. She wrapped her blanket tighter around herself and settled onto the step next to me. She took my hand, slipping her fingers through mine.
“His name was Adam,” she said.
I forced myself not to demandAdam who?A last name and date of birth would be all I needed to track him down.
“My mom had me young. Really young, and of course was on her own with me. She said I was the only thing that kept her from floundering. We were on our own for a long time—until I was eleven. We were poor, but happy. At least, I was. I didn’t know she used the food bank, or that the library was our second home because it was free. But then… Adam found her. She was a part-time housekeeper at one of his properties. He was older. Rich. The richest man we’d ever met.”
She glanced at me briefly, and I knew she was thinkinguntil now.
I was quiet, willing her to continue, wanting to know even as I didn’t.
“He was nice at first. He spoiled her. Me too. Bought us gifts. Set me loose in the bookstore and told me I could buy as many books as I wanted.”
I thought about the box of books I’d bought her, feeling ashamed at my inadvertent callousness. But I kept quiet.
“He started paying our rent, and then within a couple of months… we moved into his house.”
She took a deep breath and I saw the pain in the clench of her fists on the blanket.
“You don’t have to...” I started, but she shook her head.
She needed to tell me as badly as I felt like I had to know. It was a part of the fabric of who she was. Fuck this fucker for how he’d wormed his way into her identity.
