Page 92 of All for her Forgiveness

"Does she live here too?"

"No, I wish. She's married to an Italian and lives in Florence."

"What's it like growing up with siblings?"

She looks at me with a serious expression. "I think I gave you the wrong impression, Kennedy. I didn't have a regular childhood. We were raised in a religious sect, ran away in our teens, and only met our brother, Amos, as adults."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring back sad memories."

"It's okay. It doesn't hurt me. I accepted a long time ago that I can't change the past and that I have to focus on how blessed I am today."

"You sure are. You have beautiful children and a loving husband."

She holds my hand. "I won't pretend I don't know your story, Kennedy, and I'm sorry for everything you've been through."

"How do you know I'm not guilty? In my heart, I think I'd never hurt anyone, you know? But I'll never be sure because of my fingerprints on that statue that injured Pam, according to the evidence."

"You know what I've learned over the years? It may sound like a silly statement, a cliché, but no saying is truer than 'looks can be deceiving.' I've lived with monsters disguised as angels, and every night, I have in my bed a man society would label a psychopath, yet I've never met anyone more honorable than him. You'll only be able to understand the context of your story when the memory returns, no matter what they say you did."

I look at my hands. "You know what I'm most afraid of? To find out that I'm as much of a monster as Pam."

"Pam is the dead girl, right?"

"Yes. Sometimes I lie awake at night, thinking, 'what if?' Ernest believes the best of me, and I cling to the idea that I did nothing wrong and that if I hurt her, it was in self-defense, but there's always a possibility." I pause and run my finger between my eyebrows, massaging where my head hurts a little, I think due to the tension of the day.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, just a bit of a headache, probably due to anxiety about what happened." I notice she hasn't asked me about the incident, and something tells me it's because events like that are not uncommon in her life.

"Do you need a headache pill?"

"No, it's okay."

"Do you want to talk about you and Hades?"

I shrug as if it's no big deal, as if I didn’t commit, about an hour ago, to marry the man who hated me for years. "We have a son together."

She laughs. "And plenty of passion, too."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Well, I won't meddle, but I kind of know your story, and if it helps, my relationship with Beau didn't start out as a fairytale either. I was tasked with seducing him because someone told me to."

I stare at her in amazement, and I understand what Amber meant when she said looks can be deceiving. Looking at the two of them, so in love, I would have sworn their story had been the typical 'boy meets girl, they fall in love and live happily ever after.'

"And when he found out?"

"He hated me, but he loved me more than he was capable of hating because we were destined to be together."

"In my case with Hades, I don't think there was time for him to love me. Maybe he had a crush, as I did too, but love takes time, and we didn't have that."

"I think all love starts with passion, physical attraction, but for men like ours, mere physical attraction doesn't last. You know why?"

I shake my head.

"Because they've always had it with a snap of their fingers. Too easy. And I think over time, it kind of loses its appeal. Men, Kennedy, are essentially hunters. They like the taste of excitement. The woman doesn't have to be stunning or have a perfect body to trap them, but she has to be 'the one' that will make them desire more than they've ever had until they find her."

"Hades is still attracted to me, but that's not love. Until recently, he hated me."

---