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Reynaldo murmured. “Her caregiver.”
“My mother, yeah, I had one. She might still be alive. I have no idea.” She shrugged.
Syar looked at her with concern. “Can you get them fixed?”
“Sure. With the extent of the damage, it would have been over a hundred thousand dollars twenty years ago. I keep hearing that it doesn’t matter. It does. For some reason, I welcomed the pigment change. It covers a lot of the mess.”
“What is the treatment for it?”
“Dermabrasion and time in that order. Even that won’t get them all.”
“Why haven’t you done it?”
“When I had the time, I didn’t have the money, and now that I have the money, I don’t have the time.” She shrugged.
Syar lifted the shirt and looked at her skin. “It looks smooth, but I can feel the marks.” His fingers glided toward her hip. “Wait. These are different. What are these?”
“Stretch marks.” She tensed. This question she had been dreading but braced for.
“You have a child?” Reynaldo leaned forward. It was a weird response.
“No. I lost her at five months.” She looked at Syar. “Are you sure you want to know this stuff?”
“Yeah. I am pretty sure I do.”
Reynaldo grunted.
“Short version is I met a boy in high school. He was a feline alpha. We went out for years and were twenty-two when he was offered what every alpha wants. An omega. His family offered him an omega, and he jumped at the chance. He rejected our bond and left without telling me. I was pregnant. The pregnancy was rough, but I did all I could. My family kept me going, but when we got to five months, she died, and I was badly torn up. I buried her when I got out of hospital three weeks later.” She looked at Reynaldo. “They scrubbed my mark while I was in hospital.”
He exhaled. “That would explain your dislike of alphas.”
“Oh, that just explains my dislike ofthatalpha. It isn’t that I don’t like them; I don’t trust them. Too many folks just trust blindly. That particular situation isn’t one that I let myself get into anymore.”
Syar looked at her. “But you’re here.”
“Yes, and I looked into you. I didn’t look into where, but I looked into who. You are both trustworthy.”
Reynaldo scowled. “But you don’t want another alpha.”
“Dude, your distaste for me has been blazing like a flag since I met you both. I will stay out of your way.”
He frowned. “I...”
Syar nodded. “He thinks you’re a gold digger and that you will break my heart.”
“Oh. Well, I am here with the goal of making you stronger, not weaker. If you start to feel anything for me, just fire me.”
Syar looked at her. “What if you start to feel something?”
“I have learned in my life that a broken heart heals.” She smiled. “And no one can feel the breaks.”
He slid both hands under her shirt and hugged her. “So, you saw me.”
“Yeah. I saw you.”
He held her tight, and she ran her fingers through his hair and kissed his forehead.
He looked up at her. “There is more I should know.”
