Page 30 of Saved By the Billionaire

She felt his gaze burning into her, his chest shifting with the power of his indrawn breath. He was trying not to react, but she felt it anyway.

“Who else?”

She glanced up at him, a smile tugging at her lips despite the heaviness of their conversation. “Why? Are you going to fly to Australia and get them arrested as well?”

“You think I wouldn’t?”

“No, I think you probably would.” She lifted a finger and traced a line on his cheek—the remains of a long-ago scar. “So the question is, who hurt you?”

He caught her hand, holding it still, his eyes pushing hers. “Don’t ignore me.”

She lifted a single brow. How easy it would be to keep baiting him. To push him to talk, or at least admit that he wasn’t willing to. But she’d started this conversation, and deep down, she knew it was because she wanted to tell him. There was something about him that made her feel safe. Not just because he had saved her but because it felt like he knew and understood her, and wouldn’t push her to give more than she was willing to.

“One of my foster ‘brothers’,” she used the word with disdain. “And then, a foster mother. Though hers was more a severe form of punishment than straight up abuse.”

“Same thing, I suspect.”

She nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s true.”

“How long were you in the foster system?”

“Most of my life.”

His eyes lingered on her face.

“It wasn’t all bad, except for the moving around. I learned pretty young that nothing was permanent and not to get attached. I kept my bag packed, didn’t bother to learn the names of too many people at school.”

“Why couldn’t they find you a more secure home?”

“Too many kids in the system at the time. I don’t know. Maybe I was a difficult kid, I can’t remember.” She said it lightly, but the admission came from a deep space in the centre of her very bruised heart. She’d carried a sense, for a long time, that she’d been moved around because she’d deserved it. Because she’d been difficult and unlovable.

“I doubt it.”

“I didn’t let people get close. Mum died suddenly. I was pretty traumatised. I don’t remember a lot from that time, but I remember crying a lot. And the home I’d ended up in, the mum, she seemed so disappointed. I wasn’t what she’d wanted.”

Roman swore under his breath. “What a cruel failure of a woman. To take in a grieving child and not understand what was required of her.”

“Obviously I’m only seeing this through my own memories. My filter.”

“I suspect you have a pretty good handle on it.”

She lifted one shoulder.

“So what happened to them?”

“Who?”

“The people who hurt you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you report them?”

“The foster ‘brother’ was the biological son. I doubt anyone would have believed me.”

Another curse. “Kate, this isn’t right.”

“I know.”