Insecure (Love Triumphs 1)

She inclined her head. Her turn, that was fair. “My father died when I was five. He had a brain tumour. I only have the vaguest memories of him.” Mace watched her, but his expression gave nothing away. “My mother didn’t cope well without male affection. She had a series of boyfriends who I do remember, then suddenly there was new daddy, Malcolm. He left his wife for her. He was always ambitious, a social climber, and she was very beautiful. She was a better fit with his plans than his first wife. I was eight when they married. I was twelve when she died.”

“How’d she die?”

“An accident.” He took that and gave nothing back. He made her want to tell him more, simply because he felt no need to push for it. “She broke her neck skiing.” She shook her head remembering her fractured childhood, where she’d wanted for nothing but was starved for affection. “I had a stepfather who found me a nuisance because he already had two boys who lived with their mother. He remarried almost immediately. He didn’t know what to do with me. There were lots of babysitters, tutors and activity camps, then boarding school.”

“Do you look like her?”

“Like my mother? No. Why do you ask?”

He shifted, closing some of the distance between them. “You said she was beautiful.”

“I don’t look like her.” Not beautiful, decorative. Not the kind of woman men lost their heads over. Not the kind of woman who needed them to. She had a figure that was fashionable and wore clothes easily. She had a face that was pleasant to look at but was too strong to be called beautiful. It was his turn. “What happened to your parents?”

He looked away, then reluctantly back. “My father shot through before I was born. My mother was...Buster used to say, delicate. Now I know she was bipolar.”

He looked back to the TV again. He had a way of making a full stop physical.

“What happened to your mother, Mace?”

“Want to go to the bedroom?”

And then starting a new, altogether disconnected sentence.

She did, even if he only wanted her to avoid talking, but she wanted this first. “Tell me.”

His eyes came back to hers. “She stepped in front of a bus.”

Her toes curled. He looked down at his leg, hooked up on the seat, but that was the only hint of emotion in him.

She couldn’t ask the question she wanted to. “How old were you?”

“Seven.”

But she couldn’t not ask it either. Something about what he didn’t say. “Were you there?”

He looked up and sighed.

“You can tell me to shut up.” But if he did, she’d feel cheated, depleted somehow.

“Would you shut up if I took you into the bedroom?”

She gave him back a dose of the silent treatment he was so good at dishing out. But if he dragged her in there by the hair she’d do what she could to help him.

He dropped his head forward and rubbed the back of his neck. “One minute she was holding my hand, the next she stepped out on the road. I remember the driver’s face. He was screaming before he even hit her.”

“Oh God.” It was her turn to look away from the flatness in his eyes.

“Don’t.” He touched her foot and she brought her vision back to him, confused. He’d closed more distance between them. “You have nothing to feel bad about.”

“I’m not so great at casual conversation either. I don’t know how not to push the point. It works in business, but otherwise I make everything too serious.”

He said, “Princess Severe,” but his hand was warm over her instep.

“Apparently so.”

He shifted again and her foot was in both of his hands. He stuck a thumb into her sole and it hurt. She flinched and he pressed again, but this time she was ready for it. “What are you doing?” He stroked up her instep and the move was inextricably connected to her eyelids. She closed her eyes and groaned.

“Why are you glad you don’t look like your mother?”