He shook his head. “I don’t have many of those anymore. When I started dancing, I left my old friends behind. I now have circles of people eager to party with me, but none I can be real with.”
I almost reached for him but kept my hands on the towel beside me. “You can be real with me.” When his eyes sought mine there was such torment in them that I scooted closer to him and wrapped my arms around him. His earlier words came back to me, and I modified them to what I hoped he needed to hear. “You’ll feel a lot better when you free yourself from the belief that you’re supposed to have all the answers. No one does. We’re all just doing our best to figure this whole life thing out.”
He put his arm around me and kissed my temple. “You’re a good person, Jade.”
“And you’re not?”
He sighed. “I’ve tried to be. What would you say if I told you rather than being grateful to the person who paid off my mother’s medical bills, I’m angry with him? And worse? That same person paid off the tour company, allowing me to get out my contract and cancel the tour. I could have refused the gift, but apparently I wanted to be free more than I wanted to respect myself.”
“We all want to be free, Kal. I understand that more now than I ever did before.” My heart broke for him even as I tried not to guess wildly at what sort of person would throw money around like that and what their motivation could be.
“I sold my soul to the devil. Literally. There’s a town in Italy that actually calls him that. I wasn’t surprised when I read that in an article.”
“Who is this man?”
“My half brother. Our father was the man who shattered the vertebrae in my mother’s back. He’s the reason she’s suffered for so long.”
“Your brother?”
“No, our bio-father.”
“Which one does the Italian town call the devil?”
“My brother. It was an old article. I don’t know what they call him now. For all I know it might be something worse.”
I took a moment to digest what he was saying. “So, out of the blue your brother paid off your mother’s medical bills and your contract?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
I cuddled closer to his side. “I’m right here. Tell me.”
He met my gaze. “I grew up in Lockton, Mass, with my mother and sister. We never had much, but the only hard part was watching my mother struggle with pain. I don’t have much money saved because I poured everything I made into her bills.” He took a breath. “That’s not a complaint, just a reality.”
“And a loving thing to do.”
He took another deep breath. “If I’m so loving, why can’t I be happy that my mother can finally have that surgery we’ve been working toward? We didn’t know about my brother until recently and when we found out about him, my mother was terrified he’d make our family suffer the way our father did.”
“And you wanted to protect her.”
“I did, but I couldn’t. Riley, that’s my twin sister, has such a big heart. As soon as she heard we had family we didn’t know, she couldn’t stay away from them. Now she’s dating some rich guy and my mother is with his father. Don’t ask. I still can’t picture it. My mother. I’ve never seen her show any interest in dating. Everything is changing so fast, and I don’t know if I should nod and go along with it or fight to save them.” His expression tightened. “As if I could win that fight. How do you fight someone with so much money that even I couldn’t resist the lure of saying yes to him?”
None of this was what I expected him to say he was dealing with, but I didn’t doubt the truth of it. “What is your brother like?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to him directly yet.” He brought a hand up to rub his forehead. “I told myself it was time to, but I came here instead.”
Tears welled in my eyes. “Because you needed a friend.”
He sniffed and looked away. “Not quite living up to the Invio vibe, am I?”
I hugged him tighter. “I wouldn’t take Invio home with me, but Kal is welcome anytime.”
He pulled me onto his lap and encircled me with those muscular arms of his, but I understood it was my strength he needed—just as I’d needed his that night in Vegas. “I have to go back and face this. And I need to do it in a way that keeps my family safe while allowing them to make their own happiness. I don’t know what that looks like.” After burying his face in my hair, he said, “I told you I was fucked up.”
That wasn’t how I saw him at all. I laid my head on his chest and said, “Life is easy for assholes. They don’t give a shit about anyone else. Being a good person is hard. You’re not fucked up, the situation you’re in is. I don’t know what I’d do in your place.”
He looked into my eyes. “Thank you for letting me talk this out.”
I traced his strong jaw. “Thank you for making sure I made it home safely in Vegas. I needed a friend that night and you were one. Your encouragement was what I needed to believe in myself and break free. Regardless of how you got here, you’re free now too. And I believe in you. You’re going to figure this out, and when you do . . . you’ll understand why I’m so grateful to you.”
A spark of something lit in his eyes and he asked, “For more than the orgasms?”
I shrugged. “Oh, those . . . I can do that for myself.”
His eyebrows rose then he started to laugh, and I joined in. When we settled again, he said, “I have an idea, what do you think of going back to your place and having sex until we both forget how you almost had me bawling on this beach, because neither Invio nor Kal are into that.”
I chuckled. “How much sex would that require?”
He helped me to my feet and tossed the towel over his shoulder. “Hours probably.”
“Hours,” I repeated as my body began to hum for his again. “I have a really good memory. It might take days.”
“I can do that too.” He spun me into his arms and kissed me soundly. I didn’t tell him that that was enough to wipe everything else from my mind. I’d never felt as connected to a man or as uninhibited. I knew he needed to leave, but I wasn’t about to say or do anything to rush that along. Thank God for weekends.
CHAPTER TEN
Kal
The next morning, sated from several sessions of lovemaking, I didn’t want to leave Jade’s bed. Partly due to how good her naked body felt curled against mine, but there was so much more. I liked being with her—really liked it.
She was flipping through photos she’d taken since moving to Florida, telling me the details behind each. I loved there were so many where she wasn’t alone. She went to the beach and went diving with people from work. She’d volunteered with groups all over Florida and there were photos of her out on their boats or at their work sites.
She was in a good place, building the life she wanted, just as she’d said. Knowing that she was okay felt almost as good as sex with her had. Should I have stayed away until I got my head straight?
As if she could sense the change in my mood, she turned in my arms so she could see my face. “What are you thinking?”