Page 53 of Heartbreaker

She settles the basil on the cutting board, starts tearing the leaves into chunks that she adds to the sauce. “Yeah,” she murmurs. “My parents…well,shewas my parent, for all intents and purposes. I was so young when I lost my dad, and then losing my mom…” Her throat works. “I needed her a lot then, and my grandma stepped in.”

“I’m glad you had that,” I tell her.

Her gaze slides to mine, face gentling. “And you didn’t?”

I freeze. “I just know a little bit about parents who weren’t all that great at parenting is all.”

Her eyes soften further. “What does that mean?”

I shrug. “Usual shit. Toxic people. Extra toxic together. My dad was a serial cheater and workaholic. My mom shopped her feelings away.”

“Did they ever get divorced?”

I shake my head. “Nope. They were still together till the end, still living to make each other miserable.”

“They’re gone now?”

“Mom to cancer. Dad to a heart attack,” I say. “And maybe it makes me an asshole, but it was a relief, in a way, when they were gone. No more phone calls bitching about each other. No more drama. No more mistresses to pay off for my dad or credit cards for my mom. My real family is far more peaceful.”

She snags the spoon from me, takes over stirring, and is quiet for a long moment. “What do you mean, yourrealfamily?”

“I firmly believe that you can pick the people you deem family.”

More stirring.

“You disagree?” I ask.

The spoon pauses, and she glances up at me with those gorgeous gray eyes. “No,” she says slowly. “Not exactly. I just…I just never really thought about it that way, I guess. But with my grandma being gone and Farrah doing what she did, I just realized I don’t have a bio family, and I don’t have a work one either.”

My cold, dead heart squeezes. “You have the chance to make your own. Get people around you who you trust. Connect with those who fulfill you.” I wink at her, hating to see the sadness in her eyes. “Maybe find someone who can make a really good marinara?”

The corners of her mouth turn up. “Is that how you made yours?”

“Nope,” I say, “I was dragged kicking and screaming into my family.”

She laughs, but it sounds as though it’s been torn out of her, the sad not completely erased from the corners of her expression, and maybe that’s why I keep talking.

“I played hockey with the guys in college—Banks, who you saw when you went to the Vipers’ game?—”

She nods.

“He, Atlas, Dash, Colt, and I. We were really good together—though Banks was the best of us. It’s why he made it to the NHL while the rest of us had to find other things to do.”

Her smile this time is genuine, and it warms that place where her giggles touched earlier. “Other things to domeaning…being part of the biggest rock band on the planet, and”—she taps her bottom lip—“being friends with…Atlas Delarosa?”

I nod.

“The billionaire who has his hands in all sorts of successful companies?”

I grunt. “He’s always been a show-off.”

She grins. “I don’t know a famous Dash though.”

“He prefers it that way. Hudson—or Dash as they called him on the ice, a nickname that stuck—runs a security firm for the rich and famous.”

“Handy.” A strand of hair falls into her face, and I tuck it behind her ear.

I know I shouldn’t.

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