Page 70 of Christmas with the Elkin Billionaires

14

ANNA

Anna knew it would be so easy to give in to Gabe.

With his hands on her face and his stormy eyes locked on hers, she wanted nothing more than to tell him everything. Every last, awful detail. She’d barely scratched the surface when she’d told him that her parents hated each other.

But she didn’t come to Elk Lodge to unburden herself about her past, and tension between them was the last thing she wanted. Tiredness pressed down on her shoulders, a bone-weary feeling that had dogged her for years. It was easier to give him the edited version of the past than to convince him that he didn’t need to know.

Because he didneed to know. Anna’s stomach churned as though she was standing at the edge of a high cliff, waiting to fall, knowing it was inevitable. If she was going to live with the way she felt about him, then he deserved to know more. Better now than later when her past could only do more damage.

“My parents went through a bitter divorce when I was young,” she said, finding it the easiest way to begin. They’d divorced because it was the first time her father had been in prison for longer than a year. The information rose to the tip of her tongue, but just as quickly died away. It was one fact that didn’t come under thesharecategory. “I had to take care of myself because my mother was working nonstop to provide for us, and my older brother was always busy.”

She could still remember the stepstool in the kitchen that she would pull up to the stove to cook macaroni and cheese before she grew tall enough to do it unaided. The extra food from school had come home in a plastic bag that was painfully obvious—all those packages of oatmeal and granola bars and things to tide her over through the weekend. Anna had tried her best to stuff the food deep into her backpack, so nobody else would see, but those telltale bags were handed out in the lunchroom. There was no hiding it.

And her mother hadn’t just been working. She’d been bringing lots of different men home. Those men would stay the night, leaving early without being quiet. “I was on my own a lot.”

Gabe studied her, compassion in his eyes. It wasn’t pity, no—she’d seen plenty of that. It was empathy. But how long would that last? Gabe would never really understand what it had been like to grow up the way she had. He would never know what it was like to watch her older brother follow in their father’s footsteps with one stint after another in prison. All those facts simmered beneath the surface, never far away, but she couldn’t let them free.

Not to Gabe. Not to anyone.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “You shouldn’t have had to be alone.” Hearing that from him made her feel painfully vulnerable, like he could see inside her mind to all her roiling thoughts.No.Letting people in like that was a recipe for disaster.

Anna straightened, hooking her hands around his wrists and feeling the warmth of his skin through her palms. “But I was, and I made it through. I—I finished high school without their support, put myself through college, and none of my family showed up for graduation. For either of them. Not that I expected them to. I’ve been on my own a long time and prefer it that way.”

Gabe closed his eyes as if she’d told him something too awful to bear. It had merely been her life. There were other things she could imagine that were worse, and she’d done what she had to do to survive. “And Jonas wouldn’t stop bothering you about them,” he said, his voice pained. “I’m sorry about that.”

His eyes met hers again, and she wanted to fall into his gaze. Fall into that simmering blue heat and roll herself up in it until there was nothing except Gabe. “It’s all right.”

“It’s not all right, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of, either.” His brow furrowed. “Was there anything else that happened?”

My father’s a criminal,she wanted to say. Gabe had accepted everything else she’d told him, but that—that was the worst thing. It could be the tipping point between seeing her as a person and seeing her as a charity case—someone to help for the sake of helping. Or worse, he could judge her unworthy to be around his family.

“There was more with my ex-boyfriend, Freddie.” She bit her lip. “I’d thought he was going to propose to me, before I’d realized that I was some sort of guilty secret. Or indulgence. When I’d asked him why he never invited me out to LA, he laughed. The realization that I meant nothing to him hit me hard. It’s made me wary of relationships. But you know that,” she said quickly. “We don’t have to have this conversation, you know. We could keep things simple.” Anna slid her hands down the front of his shirt. “Simple, like it was earlier.”

He caught her wrists in his hands. “When you’re this on edge? I don’t think so. By the way, he was wrong.”

“Was he?”

“Yes.”

Anna allowed herself a tiny grin. “Exercise is a good stress reliever.”

A smile broke over Gabe’s face, so handsome she wanted a painting of it. “I have another idea.” He took her hand, led her to the sofa, guided her to a seat in the middle, and sat next to her. “Do you like it hard or soft?”

She burst out laughing. “What are you talking about?”

His hands on her shoulders should have answered the question. “A massage, silly.” His voice lit up something sensuous inside of her, but Gabe was serious. His hands kneaded her shoulders.

“Medium,” she allowed, sinking into his touch. “I like it medium.”

Gabe lingered over her shoulders, releasing the tension there, working down her back until she had to lie forward on the sofa.

It was actually the first massage she’d ever had.

Anna had never thought of massages as something available to her. Her mom certainly hadn’t had the money for such a non-essential. And when Anna was out on her own and starting her career, the essentials were things like an apartment and professional work clothes—not massages. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. No one she’d ever been with had touched her like this. Not as a way to remove the tension from her muscles and help her relax.

Which, of course, had the side effect of sparking a new desire in her, low down where there had only been nerves and dread. Gabe had worked his way down to her calves and was gently kneading the muscles there. Anna couldn’t stay on the sofa anymore. She pushed herself up and into his arms, sliding her palms over his shoulders and to the back of his neck.

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