“So you’ve already said. Now if you’re done …”
“I’m not done. I haven’t finished telling you what I learned about your PA. Her father has Dissociative Identity Disorder, you know. That’s probably hereditary. If you had any children with her, they’d probably get it.”
A snicker popped out of me before I could stop it. Both Dane and Jen looked at me. He didn’t seem surprised to see me there, so I wondered if he’d already sensed my presence. Jen, however, looked shocked as all shit.
“Oh no, please, do continue,” I urged, smiling at her.
She licked her front teeth. “Dane didn’t tell me you were here.”
“I kind of live here now.”
Jen’s jaw dropped. She looked from me to him, her eyes wide. “You asked her to move in with you?”
Dane frowned. “Where else would I want my wife to be?”
I pushed away from the doorjamb and slowly crossed to her. “You sure do seem very interested in me, what with you doing all that ‘homework.’”
She jutted out her chin. “I’m just looking out for my brother-in-law, that’s all.”
“No, you were being judgy and intrusive and feeling he needed to justify himself to you. Which I just don’t get. I mean, do you shove your nose in Travis’s business? I doubt it. Yet, you think you should have some say in what Dane does. Maybe that makes sense in your head, but it doesn’t in mine.”
“Dane is my family.”
“And now I’m your family, too. How cool is that?” I took another step closer to her. “Here’s my problem, Jenny—”
“It’s Jen.”
“Families should support each other. Should be there for one another. Should want to see their loved ones happy. You, well, you’re not being supportive of Dane, are you? And that bugs me, because he deserves to have the support of his family. If you can’t give him that, if you can’t get off your high fucking horse and quite simply accept his choice of wife, there’ll only be one result: You won’t come between me and him. You’ll come between you and him.”
She shook her head. “That wouldn’t happen.”
“Don’t take my word for it. Ask him.”
Jen’s gaze sliced to him, blazing with indignation. “You’d choose her over me and your brothers?”
He looked her square in the eye. “In a fucking heartbeat.”
Jen sucked in a breath.
I smiled. “Well, now that that’s out of the way, I’m going to scrounge up some dinner. Anyone hungry?”
Without waiting for a response, I headed to the kitchen. It wasn’t a straightforward journey, since I didn’t yet know my way around, but I found the room eventually. I was looking through the dark cherry wooden cupboards when I heard footsteps behind me.
“She’s gone.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Dane, who stood near the kitchen island. “And here I was thinking she’d want to get to know me better. Is she always so judgmental?”
“No, not usually. But if she’s determined to dislike someone, she’ll find all sorts of reasons to disapprove of them.”
“Like that they grew up in foster care, as if it’s a major deal. Whatever. I’m done talking about her. She bores me. Your home, however? Far from boring. I had no idea it was this big. Isn’t it odd having all this empty space around you?”
“Where you see empty space, I see private space. Plus, I wanted somewhere that had lots of land, no nosy neighbors.”
“Where you could be the emperor of your domain.” He’d done what his uncle had done. He’d bought himself a huge home. But where Hugh had found himself hating that he lived alone, Dane wasn’t bothered by it. Or, at least, he wasn’t yet bothered by it. That might one day change, but I wouldn’t bet money on it. “Are there any rooms that are off-limits?”
“My office isn’t off-limits as such. But when I’m not there, it’s always locked. If I am in there, feel free to enter. My bedroom is out of bounds to anyone but me,” he added with such seriousness that I blinked.
“You have some kinky stuff in there or something?”
“No. It’s just off-limits.”
“A Dane-only zone.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t like anyone being in your private sanctum, huh?” I suspected it also had something to do with his aversion to sleeping around others. “Do you have a housekeeper?”
“I have two. They only come in when I’m working. They know I like to be alone. You’ll probably meet them at some point.” He leaned back against the kitchen island. “I’ve hired a moving crew to help you pack and transport your belongings. They’ll start tomorrow after the police are done with your apartment. We’ll get everything moved here on Sunday like we originally planned. You should stay with me until then.”
Considering it made sense to do so, I didn’t argue. “It’s fine if you don’t want to answer, but what did Jen mean when she said she knows what ‘drives’ you to spend your life alone? Is it something that, as your ‘wife,’ I should know?”
“Jen could never understand why I didn’t want to get married and have a family, so she felt the need to try to explain it. There is no ‘drive,’ there’s only my preference to be alone.”
I wasn’t sure if I believed that nothing drove him to live this way, but it did seem that he believed it.
“Did Simon really beat up your mother?”
Tension tightened my muscles. Fucking Jen just had to go and dig up that shit, didn’t she? “It was Deacon.”
“Why did he do it?”
“She … she hurt me, and he lost his temper. I know it’s wrong for a man to hit a woman—”
“It’s just as wrong for an adult—man or woman—to harm a child.” A muscle in Dane’s cheek ticked. “She was abusive toward you?”
“Sometimes,” I replied softly.
“What had she done that made Deacon lose his temper like that?”
I rubbed at my throat. “I didn’t want to go … somewhere with her, so she slapped me hard enough to split my lip. Simon walked in just as she was trying to drag me out of the apartment. He realized what was going on and, well, Deacon surfaced and lost it.”
Dane slowly crossed to me. “Where was she trying to take you?” he asked, pitching his voice low.
I swallowed. “To see her dealer. He never touched me, but he wanted to. He liked little kids. Mostly little girls. And so he found female addicts who had kids, and he suggested they pay for their drugs by letting him make use of their children. She told me that I was to do whatever he told me to do, even if it hurt.”
Dane’s jaw looked hard as granite. “Then she’s as twisted as he is.”
“Was, not is. He was killed in prison.”
“Good.”
Yeah, it was. “Not a lot of things scare me. But someone who could molest a child, who could find enjoyment in that? They terrify me. Because that’s a kind of darkness that should not exist in this world or any other.”
“Anyone who preys on those who are weaker than themselves aren’t frightening; they’re spineless. Worthless. Pathetic. Sick in the head. And they know it, which is why they never target anyone whose strength matches or surpasses their own.”