She shook her head, amused. “Because you’re not Catholic.”
He ran his finger along her jaw line. “From all the things I’ve ever been judged for, not being Catholic was never one of them. Still not scared.” He shook his head. Why the hell would he be? It would be a weekend with her seemingly overbearing folks in New York City, and then he’d go back to life as usual in Colorado.
“Are you afraid of anything at all?” she asked, her inquiring gaze pinning him to the spot.
He swallowed. “Not fond of elevators.”
She frowned, and rested her chin on her palm. “Really? Why?”
Propping his head over his crossed arm, he said, “I got stuck in one for a few hours as a child.” His gut clenched, and he glanced around even though he knew they lay on the floor of his nightclub office.
She ran her fingers along his jaw, with a sympathetic smile on her beautiful face. “Oh no. Hours? That’s bad. Who else was with you?”
“I was alone. I was seven,” he said, and snippets of that gloomy evening flashed through his mind. The cracks on the elevator wall. The squeaky sound it made whenever it reached a new floor. The look of disgust of his mother, after she had to wash his wet pants. You just had to pee in your pants, didn’t you? Useless kid. Always giving me more work.
“Poor thing.”
He looked away, then shifted to a sitting position, his shoulders against his desk. “Don’t poor thing me.”
She pulled her dress over her naked body, and sat next to him. Lord. Why had he told her? Couldn’t he just think straight whenever she was near him? “What happened?”
“It’s in the past.”
“You really wanna play that game? I can be really annoying when you pique my curiosity.”
“I lived with my mother in Chicago. Every time my father was in town and visited her, she sent me out of the apartment so they could have sex. That day, there was a problem with the elevator and it took her hours to notice my absence,” he said in a steady tone as if he described people he heard about. Hadn’t that been what his childhood was like? He’d heard what it was like having a dad—without having one. And the same went for his mother. Even when he moved to Imani’s house in Colorado, when he was fourteen. Even though she had been much more of a motherly figure than his own mom, Matthew always ensured Devon knew he wasn’t welcome.
The contours of her face hardened, and she tapped his leg. “Go on.”
“A neighbor realized the elevator wasn’t working, and called for help. Back then, they really didn’t have phones in elevators as they do today in most places, and apparently the emergency red button was broken. It was a pretty shitty building.”
“I’m sorry, Devon. No kid deserves to go through that.”
“I remember I closed my eyes and kept hoping to see colorful balloons when I opened them. Pretty stupid. But I clung to that fantasy to calm myself down.” He drew in a breath. No. No kid deserved to know his mother was a spineless coward who kept having sex with her ex, the bastard who came to screw her but didn’t even give her enough money to raise her son—their son—properly.
“I like balloons. What happened to your mother?”
“When I was fourteen, we came to Denver. She left me with a note at Imani’s doorstep and took off,” he said, and wondered if the nonchalance in his tone fooled her. His heart squeezed. He hadn’t experienced the type of mother who prepared snacks or went to teachers’ conferences until he moved in with Imani. And her trying hard to make him feel welcome only pissed off Matthew even more.
“And your father?”
“My father, the sperm donor, disappeared with his assistant after stealing a shitload of money from the company. But you already knew that, right?”
Silence descended upon them, and the peace he had experienced earlier deserted him. Was that what was happening? Was he reliving history, worst of all, his father’s history? No. Because he wasn’t a thief like his father, even if they shared banging the assistant.
His father had fooled Imani into thinking he was a one-woman kind of guy. Devon promised himself not to ever make that mistake, and be honest upfront. Why would he pretend to be into commitment and happy-ever-afters when he knew it was all a lie and cause pain?
“Yes, I’ve heard. I’m not stealing from your company, you know. And I’m sure you aren’t either.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Why would you? You don’t need it.” She gestured with her index finger. “Just look at this club.”
“Impressed?”
She gave him a small smile. “Intimidated. I feel so out of my element. Like the small town Catholic girl who went to a rave. Go Go dancers? An all-female employee team? No wonder your ex was on board with the whole open relationship rule. Otherwise, she’d get an ulcer. I know I would.”
He chuckled. “I realize how hypocritical this sounds, but I don’t sleep with employees. At the club or the company. And the all-female team doesn’t mean they get to screw me as a bonus.”
