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He’d never been this nervous in his life. Not when he’d stood up to his father and his angry fists for the first time. Not when he’d skipped town with a few bucks in his pocket and a stolen car. Not when he’d first walked into The Kitchen Sink hungry, exhausted, and lost to ask Ruby Sue for a job—any job. None of those snapshots in time mattered as much as this.
He paused just outside the reference room and spied her from the doorway.
Natalie stood with her back to him, reading through his notes for the sweet–and–sour stout that would win the Southern Brewers Invitational. Hair pulled back into a ponytail and wearing her signature cardigan–and–skirt combo, she looked so much like she had the first day he’d seen her. That day he’d pegged her as an uptight micromanager with a phenomenal ass and then proceeded to spend the first few weeks ignoring her completely.
What a fucking idiot.
“Natalie.”
She whipped around, her fingers clutching her pearl necklace. As soon as she saw him, the surprise faded from her blue eyes, replaced by a much cooler emotion. “What are you doing here?”
Walking in with his hands up, he stopped a few feet away from her. “We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t.” She pushed her glasses up her nose and inhaled a shaky breath.
“I owe you an explanation.” He tried to think of a decent counterargument for when she told him to shove off.
She considered him for a moment, her jaw tight as she rubbed her upper arms. “If that’s what it takes to get you to leave, let’s hear it.”
Surprised, his mind went blank. Shit. What did he do now?
While he fumbled for words, for where to begin, she stared, not giving him an inch. He took a deep breath. As Julie Andrews said, the beginning is a very good place to start.
“My dad was a frustrated actor who’d never gotten his big break, so he was determined to make his son a success. I started going on auditions as soon as I could sit up on my own. Commercials led to television shows, which led to movies.”
“Don’t forget the Oscar.” A hurt bitterness twisted her tone.
Damn, he had fucked this up so bad. He hated that he’d done that to her. “Yeah, and an Oscar. Rupert got parts of the story right. I was wild. I did things I shouldn’t have and took advantage of people whose only goal was to be with someone famous.”
Those days were hazy, but the ugly loneliness came through in crisp detail. It still had the power to rake its claws through his flesh and leave a gaping wound that never seemed to heal.
“But it caught up to you,” Natalie prompted.
If only it had been that easy. “No.” Sean shook his head. “My father caught up to me. He had a wicked backhand but when I was younger he’d usually made sure to land the real nasty blows on places that the camera wouldn’t pick up. Forgotten lines might mean a swift smack the first time. The second time resulted in the whistle of his belt. If I fucked–up a third time, I’d spend the night in the closet. Being a child actor wasn’t fun and games for me. It was a way of keeping my dad appeased. He controlled everything I did and every hour of my day.”
Her hand covered her mouth in horror. “My God, how long did it go on?”
“Until I got big enough to fight back.” He shrugged. “Those are the days when I’d report to the set early so the makeup artists would have time to cover the bruises. They figured I was just another head case with too much money and fame, running wild. I never bothered to correct them.”
Natalie crossed the room. Her gentle fingers brushed the scar above his eye from when his father had launched a coffee cup at him. “I’m so sorry, Sean.” She rose up on her tiptoes, kissed the scar, and stepped back.
He hated losing her touch, but he had to finish. It couldn’t be only about pity for him. “That wasn’t the worst of what my father had done. My mom had taken off shortly after I was born. So it had been just my dad and I. When I was eighteen, my grandmother moved to California. She lived nearby, but not close enough to see what was going on. Ruby Sue reminds me of her—a deadly combination of brass–knuckle tough love served with a side of cookies. At that time, I wanted nothing more than to retire from acting, but my dad was dead set against it. Once I’d gotten too big to beat, he had to learn other ways to keep me in line and acting.”
She took his hand in hers and squeezed. “What happened?”
“My grandmother got sick.” His voice broke. He closed his eyes and saw her frail and helpless in the hospital, too weak to complain but too strong to let go. “Really sick. And my bastard of a father, her own son, used her care as a bargaining chip. He’d found a script and thought I’d be perfect for it. If I didn’t agree to take the part, my grandmother would go from her expensive but exceptional nursing facility to a state–run place. He was her legal guardian at that point and had total control over where she lived.”
It wasn’t until the bastard had offered that ultimatum that Sean really learned how deep his hate could go. “I took the part. She stayed where she was, but she didn’t get better. She died a week before the Academy Awards.”
Natalie brought his hand to her soft lips and kissed him. The gentle reminder of her presence saving him from falling down the rabbit hole of painful memories.
“I don’t remember a damn thing about the awards ceremony until I was up on that stage. I stared down at my father with so much hatred in my heart that I wanted to kill the bastard right there on national television. Instead, as soon as I got offstage, I gave him the statue and snuck out the back. I stole a car and started running. I didn’t stop until I got to Salvation. Everything about me here started out as a lie, but I swear to God that lie helped me find the truth. It helped me find you.” The gossipy little town had saved him and falling in love with Natalie had set him free. “So that’s it. Now you know everything.”
“Do you ever miss acting?” she asked, her eyes swimming with emotion.
He almost told her no, just so to make those unshed tears disappear. But he was done lying to Natalie. “Only when I remember that feeling of being totally free and losing myself in a role. Sure, it was just glorified pretending, but I was good at it and a part of me still loved it despite my father.”
“Sean—” A blaring alarm went off in the brewery. Red lights flashed and the emergency lighting flipped on. “What the hell?”
