Page 87 of Late Harvest

“Tell me about what you did today. I was busy catching up with Nell, one of the volunteers.”

“Anya toured me around. I played video games with a couple preteens—they kicked my ass.” He winked at her. “I talked with some of the residents. And I watched you read to that little girl.”

He’d just finished spectacularly losing a video game when a woman and her young daughter emerged from a bathroom. He’d greeted them, politely ignoring the extreme bruising around the young mother’s face and neck. The left side of her face had been grotesquely swollen, she had a vicious black eye, and bruises the shape of fingerprints ringed her neck.

Just as heartbreaking was her little girl—a tiny thing in a tinier arm cast who jumped at the smallest sounds. She’d been terrified of Bash, but after a few wary moments, she’d warmed up to Arabella, snuggling in her arms as his queen read her a children’s book while the mother attended a therapy session.

“I expected misery and sadness.”

“You didn’t find it there, did you?” Arabella’s sad smile was knowing.

“No. It was…hopeful and helpful. And watching you in your element—it was just…everything. I’m so glad that’s where you wanted your devil’s deal money to go, Arabella. I can’t get over the magnitude of need. And you make a difference, every time you walk in the door.”

Bash shook his head, punched in the solar plexus with new evidence of the frivolity of his existence. He reflected on his tunnel vision about Paradise. How it had once seemed like the most important priority in his candy-coated life.

“Your day job and your volunteer work are important, Arabella. You change lives. And me? I memorize lines and pretend to be someone I’m not. I’m just an overpaid fool and a charlatan.”

Chapter Forty-Six

When life knocks you down, stand the fuck up and say ‘You hit like a bitch.’

—From Remy’s Badass Bitch Affirmations

Remy

“Sebastian,” she sighed out, her heart filling with something big and unnamable for this unexpectedly kind, thoughtful man. “You offer people the gift of escapism. You bring stories to life. You help illuminate and entertain. I can tell you fr—” her voice caught, “from personal experience, the chance to lose yourself in fantasy, even if only for a few hours, is powerful.”

“Arabella—”

She stood abruptly, moving to the mantle. His realness. His openness. His massive, beautiful heart. His authenticity today at the shelter sharing an important part of her world. It galvanized her. And it was time. “I’m ready to tell you. About me. My childhood.” She touched the clown figurine, adjusting it slightly so his smiling visage faced Etta and Tasha Remington.

“You don’t need to⁠—”

“I want to.” She shook her head. “I need to. If you want to hear it.”

Sebastian scanned her face from his spot on the couch. Over in his pen, Chicane chirruped for attention. “Let me get our little prince. I think we both might need some emotional support.”

Remy nodded, already losing herself to the vortex of crushing memory.

“I suppose the best place to start is the beginning.” Remy turned her back to Sebastian, instinctively knowing his natural empathy would break down hard-earned internal scars she required to prevent deep wounds from bleeding out. A devastating emotional hemorrhage was not an option in this moment, or in her life for that matter.

She toyed with the figurine.

“My mother was from a middle-class family. Classic Wonder bread, Leave it to Beaver stuff. After a high school mixer early her senior year, she was hanging out with friends at a diner. She met a guy there who was a few years older and apparently fell in love at first sight. By her account, and according to the only photo I saw of him at that age, he was striking. Dark hair. Blue eyes.”

Remy huffed a sarcastic laugh, as much at her apparent physical likeness to him as at her mother’s professions of love. Because Remy had been quite sure whatever it was between her parents, it hadn’t been love. Far from it.

“He was from the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak.” She paused, swallowing past an onset of dry mouth. Some memories were harder to bear than others, and revisiting these always left her wrecked.

“My grandmother gave my mother an ultimatum to end things. Instead, she got pregnant. Dropped out of high school and moved in with him. Apparently, my grandmother offered her money for an abortion—which my sperm donor then stole to fuel a drug binge with his buddies. When my grandmother found out, she washed her hands of everything to do with my mother. Including me.

“My father’s favorite pastime was getting drunk or high, or both, then beating my mother.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Sebastian sitting rigidly upright on the edge of the sofa cushion, every visible muscle taut, hands clenched, jaw popping.

“Did he—did he hurt you, too?” His voice was low, controlled. But Remy could hear the vein of anger lacing the question.

She huffed, her laugh devoid of any amusement, taking a moment to steady herself against the mantle before turning to fully face him.