Dirty Sexy Sinner (Dirty Sexy 4)

“My mother died of breast cancer when I was ten, and after that, I swear I never felt so abandoned and alone and confused. I couldn’t understand why my father treated me the way he did, and I spent years trying to be a good kid, doing everything I could to please him, to earn even an ounce of the attention he gave to Oliver, but it never made a difference.” Looking back, Jackson could only imagine how pathetic his father thought he’d been in his attempts to gain his approval. His affection.

“Jackson . . . ” Tara’s husky voice was filled with heartache for him. “I’m so sorry.”

A sharp exhale escaped him as he scrubbed a hand along his jaw. He forced an indifferent smile, trying to eliminate the oppressive mood that hung in the air now that he’d tainted it with his depressing backstory. “It is what it is, right?”

She nodded, but the warmth and caring never left her gaze. “Now that you know about where you came from, have you tried talking to your father?”

“No.” The word came out harsh and unyielding. “We’ve been estranged for years. That relationship is irreparable.” Initially, he’d thought about confronting his father about the past, but Jackson knew there was nothing Paul Stone could say or do that would allow Jackson to forgive him for the emotional and mental abuse his father had put him through. There was no remorse on his father’s end, so what would it resolve?

“I get it,” she said, her reply giving him the impression that she’d had challenging relationships of her own that hadn’t ended well, either. He hoped that someday she’d trust him enough to confide in him as he’d done with her.

“Some things . . . some people, won’t ever change,” she murmured. “Sometimes, it’s for the best to just move on.”

Jackson would like to believe he had moved on from his father’s narrow-minded ignorance. And now he was more than ready to move on from this dismal conversation.

He crumpled his napkin and stuffed it into the empty paper bag. “Jesus, for a first date, that was way too depressing,” he joked.

“No, it wasn’t.” She smiled at him as she added her napkin to the trash, too. “I’m glad you told me. Your brothers should know how you grew up, that it wasn’t as easy or perfect as they might think.”

He shook his head and sighed. “I don’t think they want to hear the truth.”

“Maybe they’re not ready to hear it yet,” she qualified. “They’re not going to ignore you forever, and I think they just need some time to come around.”

She sounded so optimistic that he decided to remain hopeful, as well. He had nothing left to lose. “I suppose time is the one thing I have plenty of.”

“Exactly,” she agreed with a bright smile as she stood, then looked down at her hands with a grimace. “I need to wash my sticky fingers before we go.”

He watched her walk down a short hallway, his gaze drawn to the sensual sway of her hips and that pert ass he knew would be a distinct part of his fantasies when he went to bed tonight. Once she disappeared into a side door, he collected their empty paper cups and threw all of their trash away, then waited for her to return.

As he stood there, he realized that over the course of their conversation, that constricting feeling in his chest that he’d been carrying around the past few weeks, since he’d learned of his illegal adoption, had decreased. It no longer felt like a crushing weight, and even some of his anger toward the situation had abated. He wasn’t a guy who was big on spilling his guts and airing dirty laundry, but then again, he’d never had someone who’d been so focused on him and genuinely interested in what he had to say that wasn’t work-related.

In an hour’s time in Tara’s company, he’d given her more insight into his past, had revealed insecurities he’d carried around with him for most of his life, and laid out the entire foundation of his not-so-great childhood. Trusting someone didn’t come quickly or easily for him, yet he’d let his barriers slip with her, had shared deeply emotional things with Tara that he’d never even told his ex-wife because she’d never asked. And he’d never offered because a part of him feared she’d find him lacking, just as his father had.

And fuck if that hadn’t happened anyway. In the end, he’d realized that Collette had her own agenda when it came to their marriage. She’d been enamored with his wealth, his success, and his social connections in Chicago. After two short years of marriage, everything had lost its luster, including him.

But there was something about Tara that got him, in a way that no one else ever had. Maybe it was her connection to the Kincaid brothers and being privy to their turbulent past that made it easy for her to understand all the pain and grief their birth mother had caused, for his siblings, and for him, each in different ways. Or maybe it was those secrets of her own that he’d glimpsed that allowed Tara to relate so well to his predicament.

Whatever the reason, he wasn’t ready to let her go just yet.

Chapter Five

Tara let the cool water rush over her hands as she glanced up at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, thinking how so much of what Jackson had revealed about himself had resonated with her. She might not have been illegally adopted, but her childhood had been equally rocky, and it had led to an addiction to drugs as a way to escape the pain of never being able to live up to her parents’—her father’s especially—expectations. Learning of their daughter’s substance abuse had only compounded their disgrace and shame and condemnation, which in turn had given Tara even more of a reason to keep those opiates in her system to numb her upheaval of emotions.

Instead of getting her the help she desperately needed, they’d kicked her out of the house and cut her off completely, because her strict, hard-ass of a father had zero tolerance for disobedience and no patience for mistakes or a lapse in judgment. And her mother . . . well, she’d been too timid and meek to contradict her husband’s orders. Even when Tara and her boyfriend at the time had ended up in the hospital for an overdose, and Michael had died of cardiac arrest that morning as a result of their excessive bingeing, her parents had never acknowledged her near-death experience.

There had been no one to console her through the devastation of losing someone she’d cared deeply for. No family to help her through her overwhelming grief and survivor’s guilt she’d struggled with. Even Michael’s wealthy family had blamed Tara for his death, and his sister, Brynn, had spewed such hate-filled words the last time Tara had seen her that Tara had wanted to curl up and die herself.

It had been the darkest, most terrifying time of her life, and she’d never felt so isolated and afraid. Or abandoned.

Clay Kincaid had changed all that. Once she’d left rehab clean and sober, he’d offered her a job and a chance to get it right. From the moment she started working for him, she’d felt the support of his brothers and the rest of the employees at Kincaid’s. They were all

like family to each other, including Katrina, Samantha, and Sarah—the amazing women who were now a part of each brother’s life.

Other than that small circle of people, Tara was a loner. She’d spent the past six years focused on her job, going to school, studying, and working through the guilt of Michael’s death with a therapist. She knew the self-blame would never go away completely, that sense of loss, but at least she’d learned to deal with the pain without reverting to those prescription drugs that had dulled her senses.

She exhaled a sigh and glanced away from her image in the mirror as she lathered up a dollop of liquid soap over her hands. Everything about that time in her life had left her cautious, careful, and guarded. A part of her was afraid of letting go again, of allowing herself to feel deeply for someone, especially a man. She held herself back out of fear of not being good enough, of being tainted by a past filled with disgrace and shame, and therefore she was alone . . . and lonely. And that solitude was most evident when she witnessed the intimate, loving relationships that Clay, Mason, and Levi had managed to find for themselves. With them all paired off, she sometimes felt like the odd woman out.

She’d dated a few times over the years since leaving rehab, but nothing had ever panned out. There had never been any sparks worth pursuing, and while the guys she’d gone out with had been more than eager to make it all about a casual hookup, it had never felt right for her. Therefore, she’d been deliberately celibate for the past six years. She and her battery-operated boyfriend were on really good terms. He gave her as many orgasms as she wanted and expected nothing in return.