As we got ready to leave, Asher was a perfect gentleman, gathering my things for me and asking me if I wanted to stop anywhere on the way back. What Iwantedwas him. What Iwantedwas to feel his hands running through my hair as he groaned into my lips.
“I think we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves,” I say when we pull up to the cabin and he cuts the engine. “So we almost had a slip-up. This is a lot to be going through together, and we’re gonna be spending a lot of time in each other’s company. But I want you to know I don’t, um … expectthatfrom you.”
Asher’s silence is stifling in the darkness of the truck.
“It’s not about what you can expect,” he says finally. “It’s about what you deserve. I can’t be the shining knight you have in your head, Liv.” His hand covers mine. “That Prince Charming you want. I’m nothim.I’ll never be him.”
He takes a deep breath as I sit quietly, unsure how to respond. I already knew this about him, but the words still sting.
“It’s not just that I didn’t come from a good place.” His admission takes me by surprise. “Where I came from isunthinkablefor someone like you.”
A shiver runs up my spine as he turns to face me. I canseeit. I can see the demons he harbors deep inside.
“I swore I would never look back. I changed my last name to Reed, my mother’s family name. But the curse of the man my father raised me to be still haunts me. Because I was almost him.”
My mouth falls open as I register what he just told me.
“What was your last name … before?” I ask cautiously, still in shock at his openness. I get the feeling he doesn’t do this ever, and I don’t take it lightly.
“I was born a Donovan.” He says the name as if it pains him to admit it. “I come from generations of men I’m not proud of. But I can promise you now, that cycle ends with me. I’ll always be there for you and our child. I’ll never hurt you. You both are my priority.”
“I know,” I admit. We sit quietly for a moment; it doesn’t feel as though either of us wants to get out of his truck just yet.
“Can you tell me more about your father?” I say softly. Another beat of deafening silence passes.
“He is …” Asher pauses. “A ruthless businessman. No one crosses him and everyone is at his command. Even me for a time. The world was whatever I wanted under him: drugs, women, money. And then, I went to prison for thirteen months for him, Liv. And that’s what finally changed something in me.It’s what made me realize I needed out, but still it took me years to do so.”
I think I make a weird kind of squeaking noise as my mouth falls open again. Prison? The father of my child was inprison?
“Why were you in prison?” My voice is a shaky whisper.
“Assault. It wasn’t my crime, but I claimed it was to protect my father. It’s what we did. My world was hard as fuck to survive in. I was young and I took one for the team to savehim.The men who caused the assault got away; I didn’t. I wasn’t fast enough. I wasn’t strong enough. I told the police that I was responsible for hurting a man very badly in one of my father’s warehouses.”
Shame lines his face, and my heart hurts for him.
“It was my choice to take the blame.”
“Whatkindof world is this?” I ask.
“The kind where the lines are very, very blurred between my father’s ruthless business empire and the criminal world.” His throat bobs as he swallows, and my stomach drops. My hand instinctively moves to my low belly to cover it. His eyes follow, then return to mine.
“So he what? Took bribes? Worked with criminals in exchange for the growth of his business?”
Asher grips the hand that rests against my belly, and I feel the scars that line them in a new way.
“Yes. Among other things.”
“How could your father let that happen to you?” My brain can’t wrap around this. My father would die before he’d let anything happen to me. Yet his father let him take the fall for something he didn’t even do?
“I don’t let myself think about that,” he replies. “Going to jail was the best thing that ever happened to me. It pushed me to listen to my mom and finally escape my dad. When I was in jail, my ‘family’ was nowhere to be found. After, I knew I needed a career, one that could help me leave his world behind.”
He runs a hand through his hair.
“I know this is scary to hear. But it’s not who I am now. It’s not the man I’ll be for you and the baby.” His thumb strokes against mine. “But I need you to understand why talking, expressing, feeling … it doesn’t come easy for me.”
“Itisscary,” I admit. “But we have no choice about who we’re born to or the path their lives take, Asher. I know that better than anyone. Is your father still alive?”
“Barely,” he says. “He’s been sick for years.”
