She told me about her painful secret—and it was all I could do to let her carry on as if I was hearing it for the first time.
As if I didn’t already know about the whole ugly mess.
She didn’t tell me everything, of course—like the fact that her mother was once arrested for prostitution, or that she died in a car crash while being chased by a lover whose bank account she’d emptied earlier that day. But what she told me was enough.
Enough to know that her fear of turning out like her mother—the fear she’d talked about in her college essay—is still there, as much a part of her as her red hair and softly freckled skin.
And I, asshole that I am, used that fear against her, sending her expensive gifts so that she’d have no choice but to see me in person.
In a way, I am like her mother—willing to do whatever it takes to get my way.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly when she continues eating without speaking. “Emma, kitten, I’m so sorry you had to go through all that.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket, but I ignore it. Work can wait.
She looks up from her plate, blinking. “What? Oh, no, it’s fine. My mother wasn’t abusive or anything, and in any case, she died in an accident when I was eleven, and my grandparents raised me from that point on. I was just telling you all that in case, you know…” She stops, pretty color spreading over her fair skin.
“In case we get serious?”
Her flush deepens. “I wasn’t—”
“It’s okay.” Fuck, it’s more than okay. I like the idea. Love it, in fact.
To my shock, I realize that I want her to think about getting serious, to picture us together in the future… because I’m already doing that myself.
Shoving the unsettling thought away, I focus on the topic at hand. “Emma, listen to me,” I say when she resumes eating. “I don’t give a flying fuck about your mother. Well, I do—I’d love to go back in time and have you taken away from her long before you were eleven—but I don’t care what kind of woman birthed you. That doesn’t determine who you are, doesn’t change my opinion of you in any way.”
She puts down her fork, her lips curving in a faint smile. “You don’t think blood will tell?”
“No, I don’t.” How could I, with parents like mine? I hesitate for a moment, then say bluntly, “My father was killed in prison when I was two—he was there for armed robbery and assault—and my mother was an alcoholic. Not the functional kind, either—a full-on, twenty-four-seven drunk. She died from liver failure when I was eighteen.”
I haven’t told anyone this in decades; in fact, I’ve gone to great pains to obscure my past from the media as soon as I had the resources to do so. The only thing my current friends and acquaintances know about my childhood is that I was raised in Staten Island by a single mother, who passed away from a rare liver disease.
No ugliness, no drama, just your run-of-the-mill lower-middle-class upbringing.
For some reason, though, I want Emma to know everything—to understand what kind of man she’s dealing with. Because if there’s any kernel of truth to the whole “blood will tell” business, mine is far more tainted than hers.
Her eyes widen at my revelations, but to my relief, she looks neither put off nor disgusted. “I’m sorry,” she says softly, reaching across the table to lay her small hand on my arm. “That must’ve been so hard for you, growing up that way. Did you have anyone you could turn to for help? Grandparents? Other family members?”
There’s genuine sympathy in her voice, and I know that she, of all people, understands what it’s like to grow up essentially on your own, to take care of yourself from a young age.
To know that your mother, the person who’s supposed to have your best interests at heart, can’t be trusted.
“Neither of my parents came from a close-knit family, but I had a lot of support in school,” I answer, figuring she might as well know everything. “My second-grade teacher, Mr. Bond, was particularly instrumental in guiding me through elementary school and beyond. It’s thanks to him that I chose to focus on my studies rather than making a quick buck on the streets.”
“Oh?”
I smile at the curiosity in her gaze. “Money was tight, as you can imagine, so by the time I was eight, I was doing whatever it took to put food on the table—running errands for the local gangs, peddling weed on the streets, stealing school supplies. It’s the latter that got me caught and nearly expelled. Mr. Bond stepped in at the last moment, vouching for me, and then he sat me down and told me about some legitimate ways I could make money—starting with the tutoring of kids whose math skills weren’t as good as my own. He also gave me several issues of Forbes magazine and told me all about the rich people on the cover, about how they got there and how I could get there too.”