Page 39 of The Pretender

Heat radiated off him and soaked into her bones. She was relaxed but rode the edge of being anything but. If she had any energy or could move a muscle she might turn over and slide over him. It was so tempting.

She shifted a bit and his arm tightened around her waist. They were naked, because why bother to put on clothes now. He mumbled something against the back of her neck before placing a kiss there. The touch was enough to send a new tremor spinning through her.

He warned her that he didn’t do feelings. That he was not the guy a woman should risk anything on. Sex was about sex. She got the message, appreciated the warning. Hell, she felt the same, so they seemed like the perfect match. But tonight was not about the touch of a man without feelings. He didn’t keep his body and mind separate. There was nothing selfish about how he acted in bed.

Thinking about him and back to the story he told about his mom... she tried to make sense of it all. She understood that he didn’t share easily. She could tell that about him from the start. But he’d opened up, run the risk of her not believing him.

She knew he expected they’d both share their secrets, but he only got a one-sided deal. Not that she’d promised, because she really hadn’t. She’d gone out of her way not to utter the words. But now, lying there in the dark, the need to say something pummeled her. She’d held in her secrets for so long. This one nearly destroyed her family. She didn’t know how to tell all of it, but her brain begged for her to share at least a part.

His weight grew heavier against her and she knew he was drifting off to sleep. If she waited just a few more minutes the moment would pass. He’d be asleep and then she could try to rest. If only she could turn her mind off.

“I didn’t plan my own kidnapping.” There it was. She’d made the statement over and over during the years. She’d told police and private investigators. Two lawyers and her family. She’d screamed it at her parents until they just stopped listening.

Harris didn’t say anything. Didn’t pepper her with questions. His legs shifted and his body felt more alive. Yeah, she’d woken him up. Now the question was if she could go through with it. Baby steps. God, she wanted to tell him all of it because she needed him to know she wouldn’t intentionally hurt her parents that way.

“I joked with friends about this movie I’d seen and how I could fake a kidnapping to get my trust and break free of my parents’ control. It was stupid teen crap, kind of a my-parents-are-worse game. Big talk, but not real talk. Not to me.”

Harris made a humming sound. “But to someone.”

“Friends of friends heard. They were the ones who planned it.” She’d never guessed the stupid ramblings of bored kids could change everything in her life, but that was exactly what happened.

She’d been dependent on the money and all the benefits it brought. She never debated how privileged she was because that was obvious, but her parents weren’t the must-make-more types. Her father was uncomfortable with the money and her mother didn’t really want any of it. She would have been happy to keep designing houses, which was exactly how she met Gabby’s dad.

“These other kids knew my schedule and when I was home from college and the general blueprints of the house because they’d been there for a party I had when my parents were away.” The party they forbade her to have, not caring that she was in college now and it was sort of expected.

Thinking back now, if she’d only listened... wasn’t that always the way?

Harris made a humming sound that vibrated against her skin. “That’s the evidence that was used against you.”

“I drank a lot back then and would talk big.” She’d started at sixteen because she thought it was cool. That was one downside of being her mother’s child. Her mother liked to drink and Gabby learned that skill by watching. “I started young and didn’t stop. Well, I did after the kidnapping. Consider it a scared-sober thing.”

Harris dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder. “Did you know in advance they were going to take you?”

“No.” She didn’t sense any doubt in his voice, so she continued. “I think they started it as a joke but then more people got involved and it spun out of control.”

His thumb rubbed up and down on her stomach. “Did they hurt you?”

Getting beaten up didn’t matter. The ones who went through with the kidnapping weren’t actually her friends. She barely knew that group and they insisted the injuries were necessary to make the ruse more believable. She begged them to stop all of it, but there was that one guy who seemed to be in charge. The one who called her “spoiled rich girl” and made it clear he thought she deserved being hit. Later, he insisted she ordered them to hit her to be realistic.

“They destroyed my parents’ trust in me. That was the worst part. I didn’t do it, never would have, but there was a piece of my mom and dad that always doubted.” It was the one time in her life where the darkness nearly overwhelmed her. She’d searched for reasons to stay alive and couldn’t really find any. That scared her right back into therapy.

Harris’s hand spanned her waist in a reassuring touch. “You were gone for days.”

“Being taken turned out to be the easiest part to recover from.”

He turned her over until her back rested against the mattress and he balanced over her. “And all this has something to do with the shovel.”

“Yes.”

He didn’t ask anything else. Didn’t push.

He was letting her tell the story her way, in her time. This was all she could do now. There was so much more. The pain and the betrayal. The begging and the map. But that could wait. Truth was, the spark of attraction she felt for him ignited into a full-fledged flame, and she didn’t want to lose that.

“I’m going to kiss you again.” He started to lower his head.

She put a hand on his shoulder because she needed to see his face when she asked the next question. “You’re not going to insist on knowing everything about me and what happened and every fact?”

“No.”

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