Page 68 of Unravel Me

My pulse spikes as I start to speak, "Mauro… you don’t know who I am."

His dark hazel eyes lift to mine. His face remains calm but attentive.

Slowly, I sit up and fold my legs beneath me.

"I need to tell you the truth about what happened in my past… and during the last few days before we move even an inch further. Yes, there is this… pull between us, but I can’t rely only on the sexual attraction."

His handsome face doesn't change, but he pulls his phone out and types one line into it. The app reads it aloud.

"So you feel it too? The pull?"

"I do, but I’m not sure what to do about it. I honestly don't know what tomorrow will bring for us, but no matter what, I'd rather you know before I accept this nesting kit."

I can see him starting to type, so I quickly continue, "I just want you to know some facts about me. They may change the way you see me, and I hate lies and secrets."

Talking about all of this will be painful, but I have to get it out.

"I highly doubt it," he types.

"Well. In any case, I want you to be able to make an informed decision, especially because… I didn’t spend this heat alone, and this may change a few things for you."

As I say it, I study him closely, but Mauro keeps his face perfectly calm. His energy, however, tells a different story. Deep in him, I can sense tension, some kind of turbulence. But on the outside, he hasn't shown any clear reaction to my mention of someone else sharing my heat. He’s obviously waiting for the follow-up.

"But to get to the heat part, I need to start way before, deep into my past, because I want everything properly explained from the start."

Mauro starts typing again, and I can see the letters appearing: "You don't owe me any expla…"

But I place my finger on the edge of the screen and shake my head gently, stopping him.

"I know, but this is something I need to tell you, it’s important."

Mauro slowly nods.

I draw in a deep inhale and say, "When I was fifteen, a boy I knew lured me to his house and assaulted me along with his two brothers. It broke something inside me. It changed me forever."

Again, Mauro's face seemingly remains still, yet I notice the subtle tension that was only inside before, now edging into his features. The hand resting flat on the nesting kit slowly curls into a fist.

"Before all of this happened, I was an innocent kid whose passion was collecting dried flowers for my botanical herbarium, and I made a little extra money babysitting my middle-school friends’ younger siblings. My only problem was my bitter, mean granddad, who was terribly unhappy that my upbringing had been left in his hands."

I rub my temples because a slight throbbing starts in my head, as if my blood pressure is rising.

"But what they did… it catapulted me into this dark path. Anger started growing inside me, along with a need to punish myself for being so stupid and going to their house. I lived in a constant state of rage. I probably would’ve completely spiraled after I ran from my granddad’s house, but my cousin Alex, who was just three years older than me, took me into his home, and he spent the next three years doing everything humanly possible to keep me afloat, to repair me… He insisted I finish high school, even though I was a bad student and a difficult teenager: ungrateful, mouthy, and constantly miserable."

I let out a strained sigh. I know what a pain in the ass I was for poor Alex, and I feel ashamed of it, since he always wanted nothing more than to protect me, even from myself.

"In my sophomore year of high school I got this boyfriend… He wanted to date me because of how I looked, and he wanted to be seen walking the school hallways with me."

The weight pressing on my chest grows heavier, constricting my throat, because now I’m closing in on the worst part.

"He kept telling me I should become a model, so I started doing semi-professional photo shoots and posting them on Instagram. My following grew quickly, and before long I started dreaming about making a real career out of it. I was never particularly interested in studying, and I convinced myself modeling would be an easy shortcut to serious money. That was a grave mistake."

I have to stop for a moment and take several slow breaths. Telling this story drains every bit of energy from me.

"His older brother was a manager at a major clothing company, and he got me a few modeling gigs there. It made me hungry for more because, for the first time, real money started coming in. And so for the last two years of high school, I made money from small modeling jobs, but I kept running into an invisible wall. No matter how many portfolios I sent out, some contracts with major agencies seemed almost… reserved for certain models, with no access for anyone outside that circle. When I complained about it, my boyfriend's brother mentioned, almost offhandedly, something people unofficially called the Ring. It recruited young omegas who wanted successful careers in exchange for…" I swallow hard. "…access to their bodies. He gave me the contact information for one of their recruiters, but at first I laughed it off and refused."

Mauro remains silent, watching me. I still have that inexplicably precise read on his energy from within, and I know that to a large extent, it reflects my own emotional turmoil, despite the apparent calm on the surface.

"In the meantime, I was barely making it through high school. I had no prospects, no money, and Alex was struggling financially himself. Not long after that, I broke up with my boyfriend, which meant I lost even the small modeling jobs his brother kept arranging for me."