“Why would you want to go in there?”
“Seems fitting.” I hold his gaze confidently.
“Okay.” He grips my hand more firmly as we change direction, heading for the other side of the garden. “It’s overgrown now. I can’t afford to pay for a groundskeeper.”
“Didn’t your grandmother leave an inheritance?”
“My parents shot that in their veins.”
“I still think about the day of the party. The last time I was here with my parents,” I say, wanting to change the subject.
“Me too,” he admits, stopping at the entrance to the maze. “I wanted to kiss you so bad that day.”
I tug on his hand, moving forward, taking a step into our past. Tall, unkempt shrubs tower over us, on all sides, as we walk, blocking out much of the light. The temp is cooler in here and I shiver.
“Over here,” he says, walking to the worn wooden bench off to the side. He sweeps some leaves and debris off it before sitting down, pulling me in close to his side. His arm goes around me. “Steal some of my body warmth.” He shoots me a lopsided grin. “Is this okay?”
I turn my head to face him, smiling softly. “Yes.” I examine his eyes. “I want to know everything, Galen. No matter how painful it might be to hear, I want to leave here with all the facts.”
He tucks a few stray strands of hair behind my ears. “I promise I will hold nothing back.”
I nod, seeing the truth in his eyes. “I wanted to kiss you too,” I admit, deciding to showcase my vulnerability first so he knows I’m in this with him. “But I was so broken, Galen. It was only a few months after the kidnapping, and I couldn’t bear even the slightest touch. Mom couldn’t kiss me good night and Dad couldn’t hold my hand without me freaking out.” Pressure settles on my chest as I remember how scared I was in the aftermath of my ordeal.
“I didn’t know.”
“How would you? You were a kid too, and I didn’t say shit to anyone.”
“Your rejection hurt,” he admits. “Because you’d been the only bright spot that entire day.” He smiles as he looks around. “I can still hear your giggles as I chased you through here.”
I smile back at him, snuggling in closer to his side, siphoning some of his warmth as I look up at him. “That was the first time in ages I’d laughed like that, and I remember feeling happy.”
“Until I had to go and ruin it.” He shoots me another lopsided grin.
I roll my eyes. “Like a typical boy.”
“Is it egotistical if I say I’m glad I was the one to make you laugh?”
“No.” I nudge him playfully in the ribs. “Typical guy sentiment.” I waggle my brows, and his smile returns, lighting up his whole face.
I know I’ve teased Galen about being pretty, but it’s no word of a lie.
Galen is a stunning man.
He could be a model with that mass of dark hair, piercing green eyes, thick, lush lips and high angular cheekbones I’d kill for.
“Keep looking at me like that, angel, and we won’t be doing much talking.” His husky voice penetrates skin, lodging bone deep, and a flurry of shivers skips through my veins.
I cup his face. “You’re beautiful, Galen. Hot as fuck, and I won’t deny I want you, but I’m not ready to take it there yet.”
He gulps, nodding. “It’s okay. I understand, and I can be patient.” His lips lift. “At least, I’ll try to be.” He brushes his thumbs across my cheeks as my hands drop to my lap. “And so there’s no confusion, I’m fucking hot for you, Lo, and I’m done pretending otherwise.”
“I’m glad we got that cleared up,” I joke, pressing a soft kiss to the underside of his jaw. “But now, you need to explain why you hated me so much.”
He tightens his hold on my arm. “It wasn’t so much you I hated as—”
“My father.” I finish for him.
He nods.
“Why? What did he do? Is this something to do with those pictures of your mom we found in his office?”
He grinds his teeth, and anger flashes in his eyes. “Yes.”
“Where did those boxes come from?”
“Your mom had them.”
“What? Why?”
“All I know is, she gave them to Sinner when he asked about your father’s paperwork. And we’re getting off point.”
I nod, urging him to continue with my eyes, parking that little nugget of information in the back of my mind to think about later.
I patiently wait for him to continue, and the longer he remains silent, battling an invisible enemy, the more anxious I become. “Galen, please. Just spit it out. I need to know.”
He looks at me, the hardness softening a smidgeon. “This is going to hurt you, Lo, and I promised I wouldn’t do that again.”
“Don’t hide behind that! This only works if we get it all out. I’m a big girl. I’ll handle it.”
“Your father had an affair with my mother, and it set off a whole fucked-up chain of events,” he blurts.
Okay, wait. What?
I shake my head. “No. No way. My father wouldn’t do that! He worshiped the ground my mother walked on!”
“I saw them myself!”
“What?” I whisper as pain slices across my chest.
“That same day. You’d run off on me after I tried to kiss you. I sulked out here for a while, and then, I went looking for you. I stumbled across your dad kissing my mom.”
Tears sting my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. “Are you sure it was him?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Maybe they were drunk, and it was only a onetime thing and—”
“He knocked her up,” Galen says, pursing his lips.
“What?” Tears pool in my eyes this time. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “No!”
He presses his forehead to mine. “I’m sorry, Lo, but it’s true.”
I pull back from him. “How do you know?”
“I heard my parents arguing about it.”
Shock splays across my face. “Your father knew?” What kind of new sick, twisted shit is this?
“It seems so. He was fucking furious until Mom told him your dad gave her fifty grand for an abortion and her silence.”
I shuck out of Galen’s arm, standing and clutching my stomach as I double over. “This isn’t happening.”
“He didn’t want your mom to know. I watched my parents sign NDAs after they stopped bickering.”
Tears spill down my cheeks. Did I know my father at all? Has absolutely everything been a lie?
Galen stands, reaching for me, but I swat his arms away. “You blamed me for this?” I wave my arms in the air as my voice elevates a few notches. “How the fuck was any of this my fault?”
“It wasn’t,” he says, tucking his hands in the pocket of his jeans. “But after my sister died, the anger inside me mushroomed and mushroomed until I hated your dad and you.”
“Not my mom?”
“She was the innocent party in all of it. Her and Mya.”
“I was a fucking innocent party too!” I yell before frowning. “What did your sister have to do with it?”