Dirty Sexy Sinner (Dirty Sexy 4)

“Fair enough.” Was he disappointed not to discover why she believed she shouldn’t be here with him? Absolutely, but he wasn’t one to push or pry, and what he wanted more than anything was to get them back to that place where they were both comfortable with one another. “Then how about you tell me how long you’ve been working for Clay?”

She latched onto the safer topic and smiled. “It’s been about six years. I started at Kincaid’s as a cocktail waitress, and he eventually trained me as a bartender while I went to school part-time for a business degree.”

Jackson recalled their conversation from last week, when she’d told him that she’d been one of those employees Clay had hired because she’d been down on her luck. More questions rose to the surface, but he decided to let her reveal what she wanted, in her own time. Now that they’d established more than just a casual acquaintance, he didn’t want to give her an opportunity to pull away, which would be too easy for her to do since she’d just expressed doubts about him.

“Now that I’ve finally graduated and have my business degree, Clay promoted me to manager of Kincaid’s,” she went on, picking another piece of fried dough off her fritter. “With me in charge and handling the main operation of the bar, it allows him to be home with Samantha a lot more, especially now that she’s pregnant.”

An unexpected pang of envy struck Jackson, and he resisted the urge to rub at the slice of pain in his chest. “He’s a lucky man.” It seemed his brother had the kind of perfect life Jackson himself once believed he’d had, as well. Getting married, having a devoted wife, envisioning a future with a family of his own. Yeah, Jackson had once thought he’d had everything he’d wanted since he was a young boy—unconditional love, a sense of security, and someone to create a solid life with—until he’d been blindsided by yet another betrayal by the one person he should have been able to trust the most. Unfortunately, his wife had been more interested in fucking one of his colleagues than being faithful to him and had ultimately chosen that same guy to marry once the ink was barely dry on their divorce papers. She’d gone on to have a kid with him, further twisting that knife she’d stabbed into Jackson’s heart, since he’d thought they’d been trying to conceive at the time.

Collette was yet another person who’d not only deceived him but made him feel as though he wasn’t good enough. Was it any wonder he had issues when it came to trusting people with his emotional well-being? His entire life had been a farce and filled with rejection, and his marriage had been a complete sham. His track record sucked.

He pushed thoughts of his ex-wife from his mind, far more interested in Tara’s story. “Now that you have a degree, are you going to find another job, in a different field?”

“No.” She hesitated, fiddling with the corner of her napkin, then seemingly decided to explain why. “I wanted a degree because . . . well, it helped me focus on something positive at a time in my life when I desperately needed a direction. I’m perfectly content where I am, and Clay is incredibly generous when it comes to my salary. Not only do I enjoy working at Kincaid’s, a part of me owes Clay for . . .” She shook her head and glanced away. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

She pretended interest in drinking her coffee, and he was beginning to realize that this woman was full of deep, difficult secrets. He wanted to know what she’d been about to say, because the pain he’d momentarily glimpsed in her eyes did matter to him. But again, he traded in one topic for another.

“Does your family live around here?” he asked, hoping that was an easier subject for her to talk about.

Another strained smile told him he’d missed the mark. “No. My father is an army sergeant at Camp Butler in Springfield, which is about two hundred miles away from here. My parents have lived there for about ten years now and I don’t see them much. My brother is also career military and is currently stationed in Germany.”

He tipped his head, curious to know why she’d live so far away from her family. “So what brought you to Chicago?”

“I needed a change.” She shrugged, her reply just as vague as the rest of their exchange. “What about you? What is your family like?”

Now that he was in the hot seat, he understood Tara’s reluctance to delve into parts of her life that were less than perfect or ideal. He finished his coffee, debating where to best start to describe the people who’d raised him.

“I’ll admit I’m curious to hear how you were adopted,” she went on when he remained quiet for too long, more relaxed now that she wasn’t the focus of their discussion. “Clay said his mother sold you to the woman who raised you for three grand . . .” Her voice trailed off, a sudden apologetic look passing across her expression. “I’m sorry. If you’d rather not talk about it, I completely understand.”

“No, it’s okay,” he assured her.

Since learning the truth from his aunt, the only three people he’d told about the illegal adoption were Clay, Mason, and Levi. Up until this point, he’d kept everything to himself because the situation was so fucked up, and honestly, he was still trying to come to terms with his true identity—as a Kincaid and not a Stone as he’d believed his entire life.

“It’s true,” he confirmed of his birth mother’s actions, and told the story as he’d heard it from his Aunt Becca a few weeks ago. “My mother, Leila, didn’t think she could have kids. My father and she tried for years, and when she couldn’t get pregnant, they went to a specialist who confirmed she had endometriosis, and even though she underwent surgery, the doctor told her that, without fertility treatments, the likelihood of her conceiving were slim to none. At the time, my father was just getting his construction business started, and they couldn’t afford the cost of in vitro fertilization, but my mother was desperate for a baby.”

Tara sat back in her chair, her eyes soft and compassionate as she listened intently. He had to admit that it felt good to really talk about what had happened with someone who was sincerely interested in hearing the details, unlike his brothers, who’d only heard the bare facts and had barely believed those as it was.

He exhaled and continued on. “Someone at the diner where my mother worked told her they knew a way she could get a newborn. They set her up with a guy who was a go-between for my birth mom, who was a junkie looking to sell one of her twins for money to buy more drugs. Three thousand dollars in cash later, my mother had the baby she thought she’d never have.”

“She must have wanted you very badly to go to such extremes.”

“I’m sure she did,” he agreed, though he couldn’t stop the bitterness that rose to the surface. “My father, though? Not so much. From the moment Leila brought me home and he found out she’d bought me from a crack whore and prostitute, he didn’t want to have anything to do with me. But he also realized that they were stuck with a baby she’d essentially bought on the black market, along with the lies my mother told people about how they’d adopted me through legal channels. I felt his resentment every day of my life.”

He hadn’t realized he’d clenched his fist on the table until she reached a hand across the space separating them and placed her cool fingers on his tense arm. He looked into her deep blue eyes, and the kindness and caring radiating from them made the tight feeling in his chest start to ease.

“Who you were born to wasn’t your fault,” she said emphatically.

He heard the trace of anger in her voice, all on his behalf, and it made him feel lighter somehow, knowing finally someone cared about what had been done to him.

He pressed his fingers against the table before answering. “That would be a logical person’s thought process, but according to my Aunt Becca, my father couldn’t get over where I’d come from. When I was little, I remember wanting my father’s a

ttention so badly, and I couldn’t understand why he ignored me and treated me like I was a leper. And when my mother got pregnant five years later and had my brother, Oliver, the fact that he was that miracle baby they never thought they’d have—and now I realize their legitimate child—made that separation between me and my father even worse.”

He paused and drew a deep breath. “It was like I didn’t even exist for him, and when he did acknowledge me, it was usually to point out some kind of failure or to put me down. But it was never that way with my brother. As Oliver got older, he’d take him fishing and leave me at home. He coached Oliver’s soccer team and never bothered to come to any of my baseball games, and because my brother watched the disdainful way my father acted toward me, he did the same thing.”

Tara winced but Jackson was more lost in his own thoughts. Now that everything was out in the open, he couldn’t seem to stop the flood of memories from escaping. It was like a vein had burst open and all the toxic poison he’d been carrying around was finally spilling out, purging him of all the pain he’d kept buried for so long.

And Tara was there, listening, comforting him with her understanding silence.