Page 85 of Sky High Obsession

Beside him in the limo where Bethany arranged to ferry the IL guests to his hotel, she turned sharply, her senses tuned perfectly to his mood.

“Something wrong?”

“Yes.”He stopped for a moment, marveled at how easy it was to talk to her now.To share his joy and his pain.“The zombies are sabre-rattling.”

Worry clouded her eyes.She put a hand on his thigh, and he covered it with his own.“Explain.”

He looked out the window at the passing view.Early evening sunlight glinted over the Colosseum’s ruins.Shorts and T-shirt-clad tourists aimed their phone cameras at the ancient architecture, and for a moment he yearned to be one of them, with no worries or bitter past or threats of losing the one precious thing in his life.

He refocused on Bethany.“He wants me to leave the non-disclosure alone.”

“Or?”she pressed.

“Or he’ll unearth a few skeletons.”

“Your skeletons?”

“Yes.”He sighed and passed a hand over his face.He needed a shave.Badly.But Bethany had protested when he’d tried to shave this morning.Her reason for wanting him to leave it unshaved brought a fleeting smile to his face and a hard kick to his groin.His Peaches loved a good and rough Princess Treatment.And he had no intention of denying her.He refocused when her hand tightened on his.“I never told you why I cut my mother out of my life.”

Her breath caught.“No, you didn’t.”

A wave of shame slammed into his gut and spread outward.“I have a vague recollection of my father.Nothing concrete.But even before he walked when I was four, I knew something wasn’t right with our family unit.”He stopped and sucked in a breath.“There were too many uncles drifting in and out, you know?”

She made a distressed sound, and the wave of shame crept higher, threatening to engulf him.

“At first, I would just stay in my room.No one bothered me, and I didn’t go hungry or anything like that.I just recognized very quickly that staying in my room was the best thing all round.

“Then I got older.Things began to make more sense.”She winced, and he realized his fingers had tightened.He loosened his grip immediately.“I couldn’t avoid the truth.And she didn’t really bother to hide it from me once I hit puberty.”

“Are you… are you saying that your mother was?—”

“A glorified prostitute?Yes.And the thing was, she wasn’t doing it for the money.She just did it because”—he shrugged and noticed his whole body was coil-tense—“she enjoyed it.My mother enjoyed giving herself freely to men just for the hell of it.I asked her once why she did it.”His jaw locked for an instant, so tight he was stunned when something didn’t break.“She told me she enjoyed the attention.Of course, she couldn’t be like every other mother and join the fucking PTA or book club.She let other men use her.Because she enjoyed it.When I was old enough to stay away without supervision, I did.I spent hours at the pool and only came home when it was strictly necessary.”

“And your father?”

The long-buried scab ripped raw.“He wasn’t interested enough to stick around when I was a kid.I have no interest in getting to know him now.Kudos to the man, though.He paid enough child support to allow my mother to support her exemplary lifestyle.”He couldn’t stop the bitterness from spilling out.“You know, sometimes I hated him for that.For supporting us from wherever the hell he was.I thought that maybe if he didn’t, my mother would’ve been forced to get a real job.”

“Zach… I’m so sorry… God, I don’t know what to say.”This time, her fingers gripped him hard enough to hurt.

He risked a glance at her and saw sympathy, concern and a sheen of tears in her eyes.But no judgment.

No judgment.

His breath fractured out of him, and he swallowed hard to keep from losing it.

She was so giving.So damned generous, with her body and her soul.She was currently guarding her heart due to his intense stupidity, but he intended to do everything in his power to win it back.

“You’re still here.That’s all that matters.”

Silence followed, soothing the jagged edges of his confession.

“So, Karim is threatening you with your mother’s past?”

Bitterness soured his mouth.“Yes, he’ll leak a story unless I let the Farrah issue go.I’ve refused.As for my mother, I wish the past tense applied where she’s concerned.”

Her eyes widened.“You mean she’s still…”

“She never stopped.Not when I threatened to leave and never come back.And not when I made good on the threat.”

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