Bound Beneath His Pain (Dirty Little Secrets 1)

Liv agrees with a nod. “Yup, and then there’s this little thing we also need to discuss.” She holds up the tabloid magazine Gotcha!, which shows a picture of Micah and me dancing together, with the headline: Billionaires unite. Micah Holt’s mystery woman is none other than Darius Bennett’s half-sister. I cringe and glance into her eyes, watching them narrow. “So, your half-brother is Darius Bennett, huh?”

I nod.

“And you’re rich?”

I expect a clench of my chest or my palms to grow sweaty, but that’s not what happens. I breathe a sigh of relief that the truth is finally out there. It’s like a million-pound weight is off my shoulders. The tabloids, the public eye, the scrutiny, I realize now I’m okay with all of this. Heck, I love my life and I’m proud of it, because it’s mine. I half shrug and grin. “Maybe a little rich.”

“A little?” Liv scoffs, smacking my arm with the magazine. “Giving a million dollars away to a charity makes you a helluva rich woman.”

“Ouch. Okay.” I rub my arm, soothing away the sting. “I’m a lot rich.”

Her hands go to her hips, glare very much there, as the blue and green lights from the ring toss dance across her face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I…” I take a deep breath and then I let the truth out. “Please don’t be mad. It’s not because I don’t love or trust you. It’s my insecurity. I wanted you to see me, not the money.”

Liv frowns. “You thought I would be after your money?”

“No. No, of course not.” Sometimes our biggest fears are self-made—I’m beginning to realize by Liv’s scowl, instead of glassy, money-hungry eyes, that I made a big mistake. “But people change when they know about the money. They don’t see me anymore; it overshadows who I am. And, well, when we became friends, and you didn’t know about Darius and everything, it was nice, you know. You were the first new friend I had in a long time that actually saw me and wanted nothing from me but my time.”

Liv glares for a few seconds longer before she throws herself at me, wrapping me in a tight hug. “You know I adore you to pieces and love everything about you.” She pauses, stepping back, then laughs softly. “Well, maybe I would’ve expected a seriously nice Christmas present for being the best assistant ever.”

“Santa will do better. Promise,” I reply, even though I know she’s joking. But maybe it’s time to spoil Liv with some new Louis Vuitton high heels. Because if I’ve learned anything from all this, it’s that living in the past gets you nowhere but remaining in the shadows of pain, instead of seeing things standing right in front of you.

I can’t live like that anymore.

I won’t.

Loud, squealing children catch my attention and I glance up at the Ferris wheel. Hands are waving in excitement and smiling faces is all that I see. My heart warms, feeling good about this. Hell, feeling good about me. I refuse to regret not having done this sooner. But I’m going to make sure I do it again…and again…until the money runs out.

“Oh, shit, I almost forgot,” Liv quips, snapping my attention to her. “There is a reason that I’m standing here waiting for you. It’s not only to interrogate you.” She gives me her classic Liv smirk, waggling her eyebrows at me. “Micah asked me to tell you to meet him where you were before.”

“Did he?”

“Oh, yeah, he surely did, and he’s all focused and serious, with a special little twinkle in his eye.” She steps in behind me and pushes me forward. “Go. A hunky billionaire is waiting for you, so get that fine ass of yours over there.”

I chuckle, striding off and wiggling my hips, sending Liv into a fit of laughter. I absorb the happiness in the air, and it feels tangible as I pass the ringing of the Tilt-a-Whirl. I feel that pull again with each step, needing to get toward only one place, toward one person, as I’m heading down the same path Micah and I walked before. It feels like a lifetime has passed since that first night out together. And maybe, in a way, a lifetime has gone by, because I know I’m not the same women I was when I first walked this path with Micah.

I round the corner, seeing the sparkling lights of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Then I find him.

The strongest, most broken man I’ve ever known.

But I realize he’s not the only broken one.

We’ve both come from pasts that could’ve broken us completely, and yet I can’t help but feel that they somehow had to happen, to make us. That without the one side, the other wouldn’t have been fulfilled. It makes me think that life is this big circle that’s been spinning in the wrong direction for a while, and right now, in this moment, our lives are going to correct themselves.

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; I stop a few feet away from him sitting on the bench we sat at on our date, staring out at the bay. My entire being narrows on him. The sounds, the smell, the view, it’s all gone, as he becomes everything. I’ll never know what it is about this guy that makes my heart race, body burn, chest nearly explode, but it’s one of those things that’s unexplainable in this crazy, big world.

“Micah,” I call out.

He glances over his shoulder and my mouth hastily shuts as my body suddenly becomes his with a single look. That’s when I realize my life is going to be defined in only two ways.

The time before Micah.

And the time after this conversation.