Page 61 of The Billionaire's Accidental Legacy

“I’m sorry...”

“There’s no need to be sorry.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry.” She said it as if she was full of wonder. The strangest tone.

“I just... It’s terribly sad.”

“Yes, it is. But there’s nothing you can do about those sorts of tragedies. They just are. If you’re lucky they don’t turn you into a monster. My father wasn’t so lucky.”

“Did it happen at...the estate?”

He nodded.

“That’s why you don’t like being there. You don’t. I can feel it.”

“No. I don’t like being there. But it’s less about that and more about what happened right after, and years that followed. He beat me after she died, to stop me from crying.”

“Ewan...” She breathed the word, a note of shocked horror.

“He would have his heir be perfect. And then there was all the time after. All the time that I spent being abused and locked away by my father. All the rage that I felt, all of it swamps me when I go back there.”

“That’s terrible. It’s an amazing thing that there are so many different kinds of terrible in the world. I’ve only lived one of them. My life has been so sheltered and small that I’ve only ever really put thought into my sort of terrible. Maybe that’s why I worried I was a sociopath. Well, that and my father. You do worry that that sort of thing is hereditary.”

“You love your sister.”

She nodded. “I do. And Maren... She’s soft. And all I ever wanted was to protect her softness because it’s so beautiful and lovely in this ugly, ugly world.”

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who protected you?”

“Maren tries. You’ve seen it.”

“But you saw things, didn’t you?” he asked, his voice heavy.

She nodded. “When Maren and I were girls we were sometimes used as decoys. Once I pretended to be lost in a train station, specifically to catch the attention of an elderly man. He comforted me, and he told me about his granddaughter. I told my father his granddaughter was his weakness.”

“How old were you?”

He could see remorse rising in her like a tide; he could see it in her eyes. “Nine. But it didn’t matter. My father kidnapped the man’s granddaughter. They hurt her. I could hear her screaming. The man told my father he’d give him anything he wanted...anything at all.”

“And then what?”

“That night I helped them both escape. I knew exactly how to get them out of the compound. I knew every code. But I will never get the sound of screams out of my head. I will never be able to make that moment any less clear.”

“Did your father find out you did it?”

She smiled. “Of course he did. I made sure he knew Maren had nothing to do with it. I accepted his beating and I considered it a trade. He would have killed that girl. But I realized that I couldn’t walk through life feeling so much. I couldn’t have emotion attached to every image, or I’d never have a sleep that wasn’t made of nightmares. So I cut them off. I worried maybe I would never be able to get my feelings back. But...” A tear slid down her cheek. “I met you and felt something. We made love and I felt something. You told me that story and I feel something. This story is very sad indeed.”

He looked at her and he felt...indescribably desolate for having caused her tears. This was perhaps the best reason of all to continue to be the playboy. That man felt so little he could never have such hollowed-out feelings over his mother and dead brother.

He could never feel like killing Jessie’s father with his bare hands.

Or offering comfort to Jessie, like he wanted to do now.

Even though he wasn’t certain how to do it.

“You went to see my father?”

“Yes. I’m not afraid of him. I don’t feel fear for myself. I was broken of that when I was a boy. Because there were a few times when I was certain I was going to die. I knew what dying looked like. When you go through those things as a child, I think you become dead to them later on. I don’t worry for my own life.”

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