Page 66 of Kiss Me Forever

"It was from your mother," Andrea continued. "I'm sure you remember what it said."

"I can't believe you looked at my phone."

"It wasn't intentional."

"It was just an opportunity."

She gave a guilty shrug.

"You went to meet her, didn't you?" A wave of anger ran through him. "You saw your chance, and you took it. How can I be surprised? I let you into my house. I put you in a position to do just what you did."

She gave him an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Alex."

He got to his feet, too restless and furious to sit. "Don't bother to pretend that you have a conscience."

"I do have a conscience, which is why I didn't ask her anything about you."

"I don't believe you."

"It's the truth," she said, a pleading note in her voice as she stood up. "I was going to talk to her, Alex. I admit that. I wanted to ask her why everyone thinks she's dead and what happened to your father, and a dozen other things. But when I saw her face, and her eyes, so much likeyoureyes, I couldn't do it."

"You just walked away? You didn't say one word to her."

"I did introduce myself but that was it. She started to talk to me, and I told her I was a reporter, and I needed to hear the story from you, not from her. She didn't tell me anything, I swear."

Even if he could believe that, it didn't negate the fact that she'd gone behind his back to talk to his mother.

"Why did you let the world think she was dead, Alex? What happened to your father? How did you end up in foster care? And who is the pink bedroom for? Please talk to me."

He paced around the room, debating his options. The truth was he had no options. All he could do was surrender to the inevitable. He sat back down, motioning Andrea to the couch. "You might as well sit. This will take a few minutes."

She perched on the edge of the couch.

He drew in a long, deep breath. "I haven't talked about any of this in probably a decade."

"Take your time."

"My mother, Rose, was born to older parents in a small town in Nebraska. She wanted to be a famous actress. When she was eighteen she moved to Hollywood, but it wasn't what she thought. Occasionally, she got to work as an extra on a TV show or in a movie," he continued, "but her main source of income came from her job as a cocktail waitress. She met my father in that bar. He was a dentist, not at all the kind of man she was used to hanging out with. He knocked her up about three months after they met. They were shocked by the unplanned pregnancy, but apparently in love, so they ran off to Vegas and got married." He paused. "She used to tell me it was the best three years of her life. But they broke up before my third birthday. My father had gone to a dental conference in Canada and had apparently fallen in love with another dentist he met there. My mother was heartbroken when he left us."

Alex cleared his throat, seeing the patient expression on Andrea's face as she waited for him to continue.

"My mother's dreams were shattered. She didn't have a husband, and her career was in the toilet. Oh, and there was that kid she had to take care of, too. To make herself feel better, she drank and got high. By the time I was six, I was taking care of her and trying to make sure she remembered to pick up food for us." He saw the gleam in Andrea's eyes. "Yeah, I guess my hoarding of food goes back to those early days."

"That's understandable."

"As my mother's problems worsened, she couldn't keep jobs. She drifted from man to man, letting anyone who would pay the bills move in for awhile."

"Oh, Alex," Andrea said softly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't interrupt." He held up a hand. "You wanted to know the story, and I'm only going to tell it once."

"Sorry. Go ahead."

"When I was ten, my mother met a musician. This guy was a cut above the others. He was talented, and he was in a successful band that was touring around the world. He wanted her to go with him, and she wanted to go, because she was in love. Unfortunately, she had me to worry about. She wanted to send me to Nebraska to live with my grandparents for a few months, but they were getting older, and my grandfather said they weren't up to taking me."

He could still remember when she'd shown him pictures of the farm in Nebraska. He'd wanted to go there. He'd thought it would be a lot better to live in a place with trees and land and horses to ride. But then his grandparents had said no, his mother had been furious, saying they never ever wanted to help her. He'd tried to make her feel better, but the only thing that could do that was a bottle of vodka.

Shaking his head, he forced his mind back to the story. "About a week later, she took me to a church and told me the priest was going to help her find a babysitter for me. She told me to wait there; she'd be back soon." His muscles tightened at the memory of that horrible day. The church had been big and dark and cold. He could still feel the hard pew under his ass and the terror of being alone, the certainty that he would never see his mother again.

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