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‘Yes.’
‘My father married very soon after. That was hard too. That was kind of how the bullying came about. I just didn’t care any more about all the things girls that age are supposed to care about. I mouthed off to some of the cool girls and the result was they made my life hell.’ Her lips tried to form what Ben suspected was meant to be a wry smile. ‘Too bad they were a little late. It already was hell.’
Ben felt an aching pressure in his chest as he thought of twelve-year-old Olivia Harrington, a beauty in the making but still a little gawky and coltish, hurting so much for the mother she’d lost and the father who had found comfort elsewhere. ‘I’m so sorry, Olivia,’ he said quietly.
‘Thanks.’ She sniffed and shook her head. ‘My dad died last year of a heart attack, so this is really old news.’ She let out another shaky laugh. ‘Honestly, I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You don’t need to hear my sob story.’
‘Maybe you need to tell it.’ She stared at him, her eyes widening in surprise, and Ben shrugged. Hell if he knew where all this was coming from. ‘You don’t seem like you talk about it to anyone.’
‘How would you know?’
Because they were the same. He didn’t talk about all his baggage either. And even though part of him now actually almost wanted to, he knew he wouldn’t. ‘Because you’re telling me, and you seem surprised to be talking about it at all. Just like I would be, if I were talking about...’ He stopped, and she cocked her head, her gaze both speculative and knowing.
‘Your mom?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened with her?’
He shook his head. He was not going to spill his guts, not here, not ever. He couldn’t go there, couldn’t get that emotional. It didn’t lead to good places. Yet he also knew Olivia deserved a little honesty from him, since she’d spilled some of her secrets. ‘My parents weren’t all that happy together. My mother worked hard to make us look like a perfect family.’ He felt his insides tighten and he took a few deep, even breaths. ‘The birthday dinners in the hotel, just like you said.’
‘For my tenth birthday I asked to go out for pizza,’ Olivia told him with an answering smile. ‘My mom agreed.’
‘Sounds like she was a smart woman.’
‘She was. But we were talking about your mom.’
And he didn’t want to, yet somehow the words still spilled out of him. ‘I wanted us to be the big happy family everyone thought we were. So I tried hard to make everyone get along, paper over the cracks, as it were. But it didn’t work, and I learned it would have never worked because my mother was having an affair for most of my childhood. The whole happy-families thing was a complete lie.’ He heard how his voice had risen, felt how his hands had started to clench. Damn it. He seriously needed to get a grip. ‘My father had affairs too,’ he continued tonelessly, ‘and so I know I should be as angry at him as I’ve been with my mother.’ Whoa, why had he mentioned the anger? ‘I mean, I was angry. Past tense.’
‘Uh-huh.’ She gave him a smile so full of sympathy and understanding that the anger he was still trying to deny flared higher.
‘Anyway,’ he finished, his tone turning terse, ‘I was a lot closer to my mother than I was to my father, and so I guess the betrayal hurt more, but I’m aware it’s a bit of a double standard.’
‘You can’t help your feelings.’
‘Sometimes, though, you should.’ He slid off the bar stool and picked up their plates before taking them over to the sink. He’d spent fourteen years trying to suppress his feelings. Trying to control the rage that spurted out of him like water from a deep, boiling geyser. Yes, sometimes you definitely needed to deny your feelings.
Olivia propped her elbows on the counter, watching him. ‘So this discovery,’ she said, ‘it happened when you were eighteen?’
He turned around, too surprised by her perception to dissemble. ‘Yes...’
‘And that’s why you left home.’
‘Nice going, Sherlock.’
‘I’m quick that way.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He leaned against the sink and folded his arms, felt the tension spin out between them as he remembered just how she’d tasted and felt. So, so soft and silky and warm. When she’d shown up at his bedroom every thought had flown out of his head but one: how much he wanted her. And when he’d kissed her...the lid had blown off his desire. Even now he tensed to remember how desperately he’d reached for her. How mindless his need for her had been, overriding both sense and self-control. And she’d been the one to pull back. Had he been too urgent? Too rough?
