“Her name was Melanie.”
Seraphina’s eyes widen slightly, but she doesn’t say anything.
“About three years after I ran away from my foster home, I met her in line at a soup kitchen. She was smart, tough and a year older than me.”
I look away, gaze out toward the horizon.
“I fell for her. My hormones were raging. And she seemed to like me. I’d bonded by then with Dominic and Cassian, but what Melanie offered was something I hadn’t even realized I’d been missing.”
I don’t say the word out loud, can’t say it. Just thinking the word makes me feel weak. Stupid.
“She was my first. I mistook lust and infatuation for something more. Every time I gave her money, swiped food from a street vendor, I felt like I was taking care of her. Protecting her. Doing what I couldn’t for my mom. There were signs there was someone else. Dominic told me she was cheating, but I wanted to believe he was just jealous. I started thinking if I could just save up enough, I could get us off the streets and we could have a life together.”
So naive. So stupid. Even on the nights she stayed with me in my little tent at the end of the alley, a part of me knew she was using me. But I wanted so badly to have someone, to feel something other than the numbness I had sunk into to survive on the streets, that I clung to an impossible dream.
I shove my hands into my pockets and look at Seraphina. Grief and compassion are written across her face.
“Six months after I met her, we were hanging out under a bridge during a storm with a few other kids, including an older guy who kept looking at Melanie like he owned her.”
I can still feel the ugly snap of jealousy in my chest as I watched him leer at her, saw the glances she cast him when she thought I wasn’t looking.
“He started a fight with a younger kid. Said Henry had disrespected him. It turned into a brawl. A passerby called the cops and they hauled all of us in.”
Twenty years. It’s been twenty years since I sat on that plastic bench with the cold metal of the handcuffs biting into my wrists. As I listened to the police officer tell me that one of the other kids identified me as the instigator and that I could be charged as an adult because some of the other kids ended up in the hospital.
“Melanie told the police I started it. I didn’t believe Dominic when he told me, but when she walked by me at the station and I asked her if it was true, she didn’t even look at me. She lied to cover for the older guy, who was her boyfriend. I had just been a passing amusement, but when it came down to it, she didn’t hesitate to throw me under the bus to save her boyfriend’s skin. She came back two months later. The police had arrested her boyfriend and he got a lengthy prison sentence since he was an adult. She cried, said it was all a misunderstanding, that she loved me.”
Anger flashes in Seraphina’s eyes. Oddly enough it soothes me, knowing she’s angry on my behalf.
“I told her that once she walked away, I would never think of her again. When she realized I was done, she lashed out, told me how she only came around because I gave her money and was a decent screw when her boyfriend cheated on her. Said I’d amount to nothing.”
She hadn’t looked beautiful then. She’d looked possessed, eyes wild and red as she’d screeched at me. I’d simply stood there with Dominic and Cassian at my back and smiled as I’d told her to watch me.
I walk to Seraphina, but this time I stop with at least a foot between us.
“Whatever capacity I had to love that day died. My father abused me. My mother died. And the first and only girl I thought I loved betrayed me.”
I reach up, the knot in my chest loosening when Seraphina doesn’t pull back as I run my fingers through a strand of her hair. I understand now her fear of having a man turn away after hearing her past. I wasn’t sure if she’d still accept my touch.
“I care about you, Seraphina. I know love and marriage work for some. But I don’t do emotional commitments. Not anymore. I don’t like to depend on others. I don’t like to share how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking. I would make a horrible husband and an even worse father.”
She reaches up and lays her hand over mine. “I understand, Aiden.”
I lower my head, touch my forehead to hers. “I know neither of us was counting on aspects of this arrangement becoming real. I want to enjoy what we have while we can. But if you’re no longer comfortable, I won’t touch you anymore in private.”
Even if the thought of it hollows out my chest and leaves a giant, gaping ache.
Seraphina lays her other hand on the side of my face.
“I want this, too.”
The words are barely out of her mouth before I kiss her. Tasting her has become an addiction, one I want to indulge in as much as possible. Relief pumps through me when she wraps her arms around my neck. Accepting me, my past, what I can and can’t offer.
I raise my head. “I have a little more work to do. How about I meet you down here in an hour and we have a picnic on the beach?”
She smiles up at me. “I’d like that.”
I kiss her one more time before heading back up to the villa. But as I near the top of the stairs, I glance back. Seraphina is standing at the water’s edge, the wind pulling at her hair as she stares out over the sea.
