Page 22 of Recovering Ivy

“It’s not a long line. After my dad abandoned me, not that it was a bad thing, and what my mom did to me, I learned. If the two people who were supposed to love me the most in the world could do what they’d done to me… well… I learned.”

“What’d you learn, baby?”

“Anyone will.”

“Will what?” He kept at me, not letting the conversation die.

“Will screw me over and toss me aside. Abandon me. Not ever do something without expecting payment. I learned. I learned quick and I learned deep. That shit is so ingrained in me, I never let anyone close to test the theory. So, no, there hasn’t been a long line. Just two. The two that were supposed to matter.”

Zane stood a few feet away, his chest heaving, his nostrils flaring. I was surprised he wasn’t breathing fire. A dragon. That’s what he looked like - a scary, beautiful, fire-breathing dragon. I don’t know why I’d told Zane what I had. I’d never shared my past with anyone. I just kept my distance so the topic never came up. I’d had relationships in the past, but they were never deep, not on my end. And I always left them before they could leave me. The moment I’d sensed my bullshit issues were getting too much for them, I’d split. It didn’t take a psychologist to figure out why I did it.

Relationships were like everything else in my life, disposable.

I always left.

9

Zane

Ivy had done what no man or woman had ever done - rendered me speechless.

My heart throbbed in my chest.

My gut was tight.

What the fuck had happened to this woman?

I had serious issues with commitment and trust, mine came from the obvious. It was no secret what my time in the field had done to me. I wasn’t under the illusion I hid it from my team. Others? I could put on my mask of indifference and no one was the wiser. I preferred it that way; it kept people at bay. I was a dick and didn’t try to hide that either.

Life was too fucking short to put on a front and pretend I was someone I wasn’t.

I was paid to kill.

And there was never a shortage of work.

But this woman standing in front of me should’ve had a beautiful life. Instead, she’d been fucked every which way but Sunday. She stood tall and proud with her chin stubbornly uplifted.

Strength.

She had it in spades. However, there was a need that simmered just below the surface. The need for a hero. Someone to protect her even if it was from herself. I wasn’t that man. The one thing I was not, was anyone’s hero. I couldn’t even save Eric; he’d died under my watch. Hell, too many good men had. No, I was no one’s hero; I was a failure. I couldn’t begin to show anyone how to heal from their past when I held on to mine like a blanket. The guilt acted as a daily reminder of everything I wasn’t.

I remembered her original question about sleeping arrangements and answered, “You’ll take my bed and I’ll take the spare.”

“I can’t take your room.”

“You can and you will.”

I didn’t try to understand why it was important to me nor did I want to put a name to the emotion that stirred deep at the thought of her in my bed.

“But…”

“But nothing. Besides, the master has its own bathroom. It’s easier all the way around.”

She followed me back to my bedroom and stood silently in the doorway. What the fuck? Was she afraid I was going to throw her on the bed and fuck her again? Not that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind a time or a hundred, but after what she’d told me, she was off limits. I wouldn’t be the one to prove her right. I’d offered her help because… shit… I wasn’t exactly sure why I felt the need to wade in and nail Forester. But I’d offered, and it wasn’t because I wanted her in my bed again or that for some unknown crazy reason I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Then there was the nagging reminder I never double dip.

Instead of addressing the huge elephant in the room and questioning why she was still standing in the doorway, which pissed me right the fuck off, I went about grabbing her a tee out of my dresser for her to sleep in. I debated grabbing her a pair of sweats, but it would’ve been useless. Even rolled up, they would’ve fallen off of her slender frame.