Page 126 of Shattered

“Can I ask you another question?”

Or, maybe hewasabout to pry. She narrowed her eyes at him, not sure where this would lead.

“You promised before, when we were at the beach, to tell me about your past. Do you feel like you can talk about it now, or do you need more time?”

She rolled over to lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling. She didn’t want this bubble of perfection to burst. She didn’t want this to end, or for anything to change between them. She was about to open her mouth when he spoke.

“When I was a kid, I thought my father walked on water. He was everything I wanted to be when I grew up.”

She turned back to face him.

“My mom always said I was a carbon copy of him. I wanted to be an architect just like him, too. They spent so much money on drawing lessons and art classes for me. I loved it.”

“What happened?” Sam asked as she began to draw small circles on the palm of his hand.

He smiled at the gesture.

And then his smile fell.

“When I was a freshman in college, I spent a lot of time at my father’s firm, learning from his team. Connor was always going to be a doctor, and we knew Millie would be in some form of healthcare from the time she was a toddler, so my father had planned to hand his firm down to me one day. I had a 4.0 GPA and a ridiculously bright future ahead of me. At least, that's probably what everyone would have said if you asked them.”

He took a deep breath and then his sad smile faded as he continued.

“I walked in on my father fucking his secretary. It was obviouslynottheir first time and, once I knew, I guess he didn’t feel the need to hide it anymore. He tried to win my silence with gifts and money, and, for a while, I kept my mouth shut. But by junior year, I couldn't even keep count of the number of women he’d snuck into his office at all hours of the day. Literally, my mom would stop by for lunch and then as she was hopping on the elevator to head home, Julie from marketing, or Janet from billing, or Heather from HR was hopping off the elevator and heading into his office. I think I finally cracked when I caught him fucking one of the interns I went to class with. I was twenty-one at the time, the intern was eighteen. I told my mom and ruined my perfect family.”

Her heart broke. He had blamed himself this whole time for what his father was actually at fault for.

“Callum. That’s not your fault.”

“They’re still in the process of the divorce. Apparently, it takes longer when you have a shit ton of money and assets to divide. I became the black sheep when that happened.”

“You aren’t a black sheep to me. You’re just Callum.” She quickly added, “MyCallum.”

He turned to fully face her and smiled.

“I have my degree.”

Sam furrowed her brow in confusion. “What?”

“Everyone thinks I dropped out. But, in reality, I just changed my major from architectural engineering to business. It took a little over a year to finally graduate since I had to backtrack some classes, but I’m not the college dropout everyone thinks I am.”

“I wouldn’t have cared either way.” She gave him a quick kiss to comfort him.

“I know. But I wanted to tell you in case someone said that about me.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t tell anyone. No one even came to my graduation, but I can’t blame them for that

since they didn’t even know it was happening in the first place.”

“I would have come.”

He smiled at her words and then he continued.

“Connor hated me for what I did. I had told him about what was going on and he’d told me to keep my mouth shut. That it would hurt our mom and ruin their marriage. But I couldn’t keep watching it happen every day and not say a word.” Callum shook his head as he gathered his words. “My dad had never really accepted Connor for who he was, but they had somehow found some kind of peace between them once he had gotten into medical school. We haven’t really discussed it, but I think, even though he hated our dad, he still needed his approval for something. Our dad wouldn’t accept who he was, but maybe he would accept his job. And then he could be proud of Connor. I think that’s all Connor really wanted. He wanted our dad to be proud of him. But then I fucked up and broke our family apart, and it gave more fuel to themy sons are massive fuck-upsfire and my dad stopped coming around. There was a fight, and it was like Connor and I no longer existed. He still sees Millie from time to time, but we are dead to him. It won’t matter if Connor becomes the head of the largest hospital in the world, just as it wouldn’t matter if I became an amazing architect or not. We will never measure up.”

She hated the look of pain that covered his features. She was desperate to take it away. Her mind raced with what to say or do. Then her lips rose in a slight smirk and he cut his eyes over in confusion.

“You know, if your sandcastle building skills are anything like your architectural skills, then it's probably a good thing you changed majors.” She covered her mouth to try and conceal the giggle that was about to burst free.

“You dork,” he stated with a laugh and pulled her closer. “I’ll have you know I have excellent sandcastle building skills. I just had faulty equipment. Next time I take you to the beach, we are stopping by Costco and I’m buying the biggest damn sandcastle building kit they have.”

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