Page 92 of Royal Flush

“They hurt you?”

“Let’s just say they let it be known what would happen to a pretty white boy if I ever landed in prison.”

“Ugh.” I nuzzled into him even closer. “I’m sorry.”

Together, we sat quietly but I sensed he was bursting out of his skin to know what happened.

“You father is a real piece of work.”

“Lured into a life he wanted but didn’t know what to do with.” My sigh was as exaggerated as his had been.

The silence over the next few seconds was far too quiet. I was pulled into the kind of darkness I’d tried to avoid, but it seemed opening up more than one can of worms had been inevitable.

“What happened? I could tell you went through something more traumatic than being bullied by two huge dudes.”

I knew he was trying to make me feel more comfortable and I adored him for it. I squeezed his hand, trying to find the courage left in me to say the words. It was even tougher than I’d originally thought. “There’s little to tell. I was the kind of young girl to jump off the walls I had so much energy. My parents were having a party and allowed me to consume my favorite treat. Ice cream. Little did I know they’d put sleeping pills in the ice cream.”

“What the fuck?”

“Well, it was an important event for both of them, the introduction of them into the upper echelon of society. My father had calculated every aspect of his career. No, I didn’t know that then. However, when I got older and had started snooping, I learned how important being in several important social circles had become.”

He remained quiet, which of course prompted me to continue. The pit in my stomach was intense but for once, it felt almost good to expose the darkness. “Anyway, the night of the party I understand a lot of alcohol had been consumed. The party got louder, music blaring and it kind of woke me up. It was dark, just the moon streaming in through the open blinds but…”

The way Braxton gripped my arm allowed me to continue.

“Anyway, someone was standing over me. A figure. A man. I thought at first it was my dad, but his breath was laced with something nasty. Then he put his hand over my mouth and…” The choke I’d tried to keep from releasing the demons I’d fought so hard to keep under control finally gave way like a dam with far too much pressure.

I sensed by the way he wrapped his arm around me I didn’t need to say a word to finish the story but I had to get through it. The one decent thing the psychiatrist had told me much later in life was that if I wanted to have a successful relationship, I’d need to face what happened by telling the person I cared about.

God help me, Braxton was someone I wanted with all my heart to fall desperately in love with. Was the concept nuts? Maybe, but people had become attracted to one another from far less.

“You don’t need to do this,” he growled.

“Yes, I do. The asshole can’t hurt me any longer. Not my body and not my mind. I refuse to allow it to happen. He touched me inappropriately, holding me down as he did so. The only good thing was that someone had interrupted us, preventing the asshole from finishing the horrible deed.”

“Who the fuck was it?”

“I don’t know and my parents didn’t push it. They told me it was just a nightmare and nothing more. I tried to believe them because as a kid, I wanted to, but it never left me. The nightmares, the visions. Finally, when I was back in school years later and I’d started acting up, I had a very nice counselor who listened and believed me. That started a whole issue with my parents and it wasn’t pretty.”

“Jesus. Fucking. Christ. I should kill the man.”

“You should understand that the scandal could have ruined his career. No, it’s something I can’t forgive him for, especially since my parents knew I wasn’t the kind of kid who lied. It took me until after I’d graduated to put it into perspective. They honestly didn’t believe anything had occurred.”

“I don’t care how you play this, what they did was reprehensible. You protect your family. My father wasn’t the most loving, but he would have scoured the ends of the earth to hunt and destroy anyone who hurt his kids in any way.”

“You were lucky. Maybe that’s why I never wanted a relationship, and the ones I had were always toxic.”

Braxton pressed his lips against the top of my forehead. “You will never need to endure that shit around me. We could have a dozen kids and I would watch out over all of them.”

While I knew his statement was heartfelt, it still surprised me. His conviction also brought me out of the darkness, as if finally the memory could fade away, locked in a dark box and buried where it belonged.

And what struck me was that I could see us having children together. Lots of them. The feeling was something I’d never experienced before but I knew it in my soul.

But more than that, more than the sun, moon, and stars, I knew I was falling in love with him. No tragedy, no monster could prevent that from happening.

I loved him.

CHAPTER 25

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