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Still I don’t look at him I can’t look at him “I told you I don’t want to—”

“Did you love him?”

I prop myself up on an elbow to face him “No No, I did not love Kent That was the proble, which evolved into ether Then I was just with him, and for a while it was comfortable”

“If all you as comfortable, he wouldn’t have elicited the kind of emotion I saw in you today I saw the hurt in your eyes I feel that hurt in you now just talking about him”

My chest tightens painfully “He proposed and I declined He was angry He lashed out”

Daainst him “Did he touch you? Did he physically hurt you? Because if he did—”

I press ers “No, he didn’t touch me, but I think that would have hurt less” I look down, staring at our legs pressed together We are both stripped of our clothes, but I am naked clear to my soul

His finger slides under aze to his “If you don’t want to tell me—”

My hand goes to his “It’s not that I do I want to tell you” After what he did for me today, after how he jeopardized his job, I owe him the truth “But it’s hard to talk about” I lean away from him and curl my knees toand never stopped He also married an attorney he’d hired in the office, a thirty-year-old Pamela Anderson lookalike, as after his successful business and his money”

“How soon after your mother died?”

“A year, but I lost my father the day my mother died It was like the bottle tipped He became a complete prick, and my stepmother doesn’t help She hates me, of course, because I inherit the money she wants Or I did I’m disinherited She and Kent made sure of that”

Das and pulls me closer “How? What did they do?”

“He set me up They set me up He says they didn’t, but I know better We had dinner planned and I washim at work It was after hours, so, as I norht to his office, which is where I found him buried inside my stepmother”

Damion jerks back, his expression as shocked as ether “What? I knew I should have beaten that little prick’s ass Tell me your stepmother is now your ex-stepmother”

“She’s not I was sure she would be, though I went towe’d both share in the horror—but, no, that’s not what happened He blamed me, not her or Kent No protective papa for me I was furious and hurt by his reaction, and I lashed out In short, I told him she hite trash and he was a drunk He disinherited me and noe don’t speak And that’s how Kent shredded me Kent kne much I craved my father’s love and so he took it from me, the way he felt I had taken mine from him”