Page 2 of A Damaged Soul
Elle
I could tell just by looking at Rhett he held a lot of guilt for something. I easily saw the torment in his blue eyes, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it.
My father always said I had a knack for finding the wrong men. He liked to call me the fixer because I was drawn toward men who were damaged––as he liked to describe them––and maybe dear ole Dad was right because at the moment I wanted to relieve Rhett of whatever guilt ate him up.
I knew I had Rhett where I wanted him when he held out his hand for me to shake. "So what do you want to spend the next hour talking about?"
I thought about it for a second and decided the best way to get to the root of a problem was to be direct. Rhett thought he was a murderer, so that probably meant his job required him to protect people. "Tell me what you do for a living?"
Nailed it!
It was safe to say I was on the right track when Rhett's eyes glossed over. "I work for a private security company."
I waited for him to say more, but apparently that was all I was going to get. Or so he thought. The poor guy didn't know what he’d gotten himself into when he agreed to be my fake boyfriend to get rid of Musclehead.
"And what exactly do you do for this private security company?"
I was walking on thin ice. That was plain to see by the way the area between Rhett's eyebrows scrunched up. But considering I liked to live on the dangerous side, I didn't mind.
"You could say I rescue people."
Plopping my elbows on the table, I dropped my head into the palms of my hands. "Heroic. Tell me more."
This time Rhett shut me down with a shake of his head. "I'd rather hear about you than talk about myself."
Okay, I would give him that.
For now.
"Well, let's see. My name's Elle. I'm thirty-six years old, a Virgo, I love to bake. I'm especially on a sourdough kick at the moment. What else?" I pretended to think. "I teach third-grade math and social studies. Not nearly as exciting as what you do but it fulfills me. I love to read, mostly romance, but I throw in the occasional murder mystery for the fun of it. I prefer action movies over romantic ones though. A little strange I know, considering what I read but there's something about guns blazing that gets my juices flowing if you know what I mean." I wiggled my eyebrows at him.
Rhett laughed, and I could see, clear as day, the tension melting away the more I spoke about myself.
"Action movies, huh?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "What can I say? I like to live vicariously through others."
That was apparently the wrong thing to say because the hood came back down over Rhett's eyes. "The real thing isn't all it's cracked up to be."
He didn't flinch like I expected him to when I reached my hand over and placed it on his arm. "I'm sorry for whatever happened to you to make you feel that way."
Now more than ever, I wanted to fix whatever happened to make him this jaded in life.
"There's nothing to be sorry about." Rhett snatched his arm away, and I realized my mistake. I had pushed too hard, too fast. If I wanted any chance of saving this conversation, then I needed to backpedal and do it fast.
And yes I wanted very badly to continue it.
"Okay, fine. You twisted my arm. I'll tell you more about me. Hmmm." I once again outwardly pretended to think. "Let's see. I'm an only child, so I'm used to getting what I want." That was enough to turn Rhett's one side of his mouth up ever so slightly. I wouldn't call it a smile, but it was progress. "Although my mother's side of the family is huge, so I have lots of cousins I grew up with who are like siblings to me. What about you?" I figured family might be a safe topic, so I put out a feeler. When it didn't appear he was going to shut me down, I asked, "Do you have any siblings?"
At first, I wasn't sure Rhett was going to answer the question, and based on the torment in his eyes, talking about his family wasn't a much better topic than work, but finally he answered. "I have five siblings. Three brothers and two sisters."
"Oh wow." I didn't hide my shock. "Your parents were busy."
Rhett threw his head back and let out a howl. It was so damn rusty and primal I decided, in that second, I wanted to hear it more often so the man got used to doing it. "You could say that." He eventually got himself under control enough to respond.
"So where do you fall in the pecking order? Youngest, oldest, or middle?"
"Youngest of the boys but second youngest overall."
