Page 26 of Titan

“I really do just want to talk to you. The fact you’re a sex worker doesn’t change anything for me. I respect what you do.”

Her eyes went to the floor and her face clouded over as if the realisation I genuinely wanted to know her without sex being involved was an odd concept for her to wrap her head around. She let out a sigh and rubbed her face before pushing off the wall.

“I feel kind of stupid I accused you of all that shit. I’m so sorry.”

“There’s no need to be sorry. You didn’t know. I’ve never told anyone.”

Her eyes darted up to mine.

“You haven’t?”

I shook my head.

“As if I was going to admit to my very traditional father who raised me in his image, I don’t feel sexual attraction the way he thinks we’re all supposed to.”

Theia smiled and gave me a small shrug.

“I suppose he wouldn’t have approved.”

“No, it would have only made him even more disappointed in me.”

Her expression turned sad.

“He was disappointed in you?”

I rubbed my chest, a sudden pain overtaking it with the memories of the way he spoke to me. How he made me feel small and like I could do nothing right. How he’d complain about Zayn’s insolence and how he hoped I never turned out like my brothers. I’d tried so hard to make him proud of me, but he never was. Gennaro was a monster, like Zayn had said. He was nothing but cruel to everyone around him. And he’d tried to make me as cruel as he was. He told me it was the only way to be a leader. The only way a Villetti stayed on top. I wasn’t sure I believed that any longer… or if I ever had.

“I don’t think I ever made him proud.”

She released a breath and looked as though she wanted to reach out to me, but she didn’t.

“I know how that feels.”

“You do?”

“I’m estranged from my parents. They treated me like shit, so I moved to London when I was eighteen to get away from them.”

The idea of anyone treating Theia like crap, let alone her parents, was abhorrent to me. My mother had been nothing other than a doting parent, a complete contrast to my father, but I understood the pain of parental disappointment and being treated as though you were nothing.

“That can’t have been easy.”

She gave me a sad smile.

“No, but I’ve never known life to be anything but difficult.”

I handed her back the tablet. She placed it on the bedside table and let out a sigh.

“I feel like I’ve been fucking this up ever since I met you,” she said after a moment. “So you genuinely just want to talk to me?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head.

“Okay.”

Stepping closer to me, she bit her lip and rubbed her fingers together at her side.

“Can I ask you something?”

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