Forbidden Gold (Providence Gold 5)

She’d had an old crate turned into a couch looking bed for them with their names painted on it. It was kind of cool and totally Ari.

Turning back to her, I caught her watching me like she was trying to figure me out. That was my problem, she always picked up on more with me than I wanted. Well, until now. Now, I wish she could just read my mind, so I didn’t have to say the words out loud, but that went against what I’d discussed with my new therapist.

Leaning forward, she tilted her head to the side, looking at me more gently than I’d seen her look at me in a while, like she knew I needed that from her.

“Parker… What’s going on?”

Leaning forward, I put my face in my hands and braced my elbows on my knees. I’d been all fired up to tell, but now that we were here, I needed a moment to get the courage back to do it.

Feeling the cushion beside me move, I dropped my hands and turned my head to look at her, seeing the worry on her face.

“I have something to tell you,” I told her lamely.

“Okay?”

Fuck, this was hard!

Struggling to look her in the eyes, I dropped my head to stare at my feet. Even all these years later and looking at it through adult eyes, I knew it wasn’t my fault, but I felt dirty and ashamed.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath in and clenching my hands into fists, I started.

“I need to explain why I reacted the way I did. There’s… fuck, there’s a lot you need to know. I’m going to start by saying that my reaction was in no way a reflection on you,” I turned to look at her so that she could see how honest I was being. For a second she looked hurt, but that changed when she saw my expression. “When I was twelve, Dad remarried. Losing Mom was hard, and watching her die slowly from breast cancer… I don’t think any kid would recover from it.”

“I can imagine,” she murmured. “Is that why you became a doctor?”

“In part. I also did it to piss my dad off.”

Her head jerked slightly, and her eyebrows scrunched into a frown. “What? How could being a doctor piss him off? I thought every parent wanted their kid to become something big like that?”

“He wanted me to take over the business and had been preparing me for as long as I can remember. When I told him I was going to Med School and what I intended to do, he flipped his shit. After that, each achievement was another twist of the knife.”

I didn’t regret that one bit to this day.

“Is that why Dale went into it, too?”

Grinning, I shrugged. “Probably, but I can’t say for sure. But when it came to me, Dad tried to stop me from doing it, including tearing up acceptance letters and getting rid of my college fund.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “What did he do with it?”

“Gave it to his new wife. She spent it on a tummy tuck, a nose job, getting her tits done, a Brazilian butt lift, fillers, and a whole ton of shit.”

Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, then just remained open with the shock of it all.

“Anyway, after he married Chantal,” I cringed even saying the name, “I thought maybe we’d have one of those perfect homes, the ones in the movies where the stepmother loves the kids as her own. I missed Mom so much, and I guess I was looking for a way to have her back.” Fuck, it hurt saying that. I still missed her.

Reaching over, she took my hand and gave it a supportive squeeze. “I think any kid would.”

Clearing my throat, I continued, “A week after my thirteenth birthday, I woke up because someone was touching me. I didn’t know what it was, but when I turned the light on, she had my dick in her mouth.” I could have worded it more delicately, but there was nothing delicate about what had happened.

Ari gasped, and her hand spasmed around mine.

“I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew I didn’t like it, so I tried to pull away and told her to stop. She let go and told me that it’s what stepmothers and her boys did.”

“That’s a lie,” she hissed, moving to stand up but changing her mind. “That fucking bitch!”

I smiled a smile that I knew didn’t reach my eyes. “I knew that. Even at thirteen, I knew she was lying.”

“How did you get away? She could have done it again.”

“She did,” I said quietly. “At least once a week for two years. If I argued with her, she’d do things to Dale in front of me, stroking his shoulders and hair, kissing him close to his mouth…”