For a few minutes I sat waiting for her to talk, staring at her back. Her stance was stiff, and I felt her pain. My gut feeling told me to stay quiet and seated. I felt nothing I had to say would have carried much weight in comforting her, anyway. Being there and allowing her to confess what had torn her apart was a privilege, but I felt the next move had to be hers.
After a while she drew in a breath and held it. I knew it was a significant moment from the way she steeled her body to attention, legs straight and fists clenched.
Without turning around, she said, “So you see, that’s why this won’t work. I had that baby, and I gave her away.” She broke down again and my heart cracked in two because it dawned on me, she pushed people away because that’s how she’d coped with the open-ended trauma she had carried for thirty years.
Standing up I moved close behind her, encircling my arms around her waist. I pulled her tight to me and kissed her hair. “It’s okay, Tricia,” I whispered, but I wasn’t sure what else to say, if anything. I wouldn’t have been as insensitive as to tell her everything was going to be fine because it clearly hadn’t been up until then.
Trust didn’t come easy for either of us, yet she had trusted me enough to tell me her horrible story. I had already guessed she was ashamed of something, but I had suspected she had been subjected to a serious sexual assault. However, the truth was equally as devastating and it was overwhelming her. Tricia had post traumatic stress; a mental torture which had played on her mind for decades.
Before I thought further, her legs buckled and I barely took her weight. As she faced away from me, it took me a moment to realize she had passed out.
“Fuck,” I shouted and eased her gently down. Lifting her from the floor, I laid her on the couch. “Baby, are you with me?” I asked, tapping her face gently. After checking her pulse and breathing, I knew she was likely okay. I’d seen plenty of guys knocked out during my kickboxing days, and I figured she’d fainted from shock. Turning her from her back to her side, I stroked her hair and sat stunned by all that I’d learned, and waited for her to come around.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When Tricia woke up, she was naturally disoriented but when she remembered what she’d told me, I saw horror etch her face. Sensing she may vomit, I ran to the kitchen and grabbed the first vessel I could find, which turned out to be a large glass Pyrex dish. By the time I ran back she was heaving. I lurched forward and caught the spew before it went everywhere.
“You’re okay, take it easy,” I said calmly, as she met my eyes with a pained look that crushed my heart. “It’s okay, baby, you fainted, but everything’s going to be okay,” I told her softly, as I gathered up her hair after handing her the dish. Once she had stopped throwing up, she cast me a sideward look that asked ‘are you still here?’
“Yep and I’m not leaving,” I confirmed, removing the bowl from her hands and setting it down away from her on the floor. Tears rolled down her face unchecked, and my heart went out to her. I immediately knelt in front of her. “I got you, baby,” I soothed, kissing her head, and cradling her to my chest. “I got you.” I hugged her tight and rubbed her back. “You need to keep talking about this now you have started, but for now, cry, let it out. It’s okay, you’re safe, cry. Tricia, you’re so brave. You’ve told me what happened to you and the sky hasn’t fallen, we can try to deal with this now.”
My reassurance was to let Tricia know what she’d told me had made no difference to how I felt about her. I could never have turned my back on her because of difficult circumstances in her past, my love was unconditional. What I felt more than anything was rage, for all that she’d been through, and had obviously dealt with all of that in silence. Tricia had been through a traumatic ordeal and it had scarred her for life.
Holding her firmly in my arms, my heart ached as she cried quietly into my chest, her fist twisting my T-shirt.
“Let it all out, baby. I got you,” I told her, holding her tight to me, rubbing her back.
After a few minutes, her sobs subsided and she gently pulled away, looking up at me with red-rimmed puffy eyes, and my heart felt like it had cracked down the middle. I hated seeing how devastated she was. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, rubbing away her tears with the heels of her hands.
“You don’t get to say sorry to me. You don’t owe me an apology. I love you, Tricia. Whatever happened before we met—”
“But you can’t—”
“So we don’t have kids. Let me be happy and concentrate on what I do have… you.”
Standing, I gave myself a minute to keep my frustration in check by picking up the bowl from the floor, striding through to the bathroom, and disposing of its contents down the toilet. After rinsing it in the sink, I took it back to the kitchen and put it in the dishwasher. I went into her bathroom and began filling the tub.
“You need to relax after the shock you’ve had. I’ve turned the faucet on in the tub and you’re going to be kind to yourself. We’ll talk more when you feel stronger.”
“I’ve never told anyone before,” she remarked quietly.
“You mean in a relationship?”
“I mean anyone. Since the day I walked out of that hospital, I’ve never spoken about it since.”
“Fuck.” I let her statement sink in for a minute and my temper grew even hotter.
“Didn’t you talk to your mom? You were sixteen. Didn’t she take you to counseling or something?”
She shrugged. “I was told it was done and she never wanted to hear about it again. I’d brought shame on my family.”
“What did your sister say, surely she was supportive at least?”
Tricia hugged herself again, her teeth biting down on her bottom lip. Taking a deep breath, she held out a hand and waved it apathetically. “She has no idea.”
“Huh? How can she not? She’s only what… a few years older than you?”
“Marnie was on deployment at the time, left right before I started showing and came home a month after it was all over.”
“Except it wasn’t over… it has never been over for you, never will, unless we try to help you find some peace with it,” I stated quietly.
“Never a truer word has been spoken,” she said, nodding and staring at the floor.
“Come with me. Let me try to take care of you. I can’t take your pain away, but I can at the very least support you by showing you I care and what happened makes no difference to how I feel about you,” I replied in a serious tone, before tugging her into my chest and leading toward her bathroom.
Turning her away from the mirror I carefully undressed her, kissing each swollen eye on the way, and guiding her into the bathtub.
“Why are you being so nice to me? That was a heinous thing I did. I can never forgive myself, so why should you be okay with it?”
Kneeling beside her, I pushed her gently backward, her head landed on her bath pillow and I lifted a sponge. I began soaping her torso while I spoke. “I’m not so old that I don’t remember being sixteen, Tricia. Had I gotten someone pregnant at that age, I’d have been devastated… and I’m a guy. The thought of living my life knowing I had a child out there somewhere I guess I’d feel… no, I can’t guess about that because I can’t imagine the anguish and distress it’s caused you. You’ve carried a massive burden for what, thirty years?”
“Thirty this past Easter, she was born a few weeks before my seventeenth birthday,” she stated, frowning as she mechanically sifted water through her fingers with her eyes transfixed on her hand.
“Look at me,” I commanded, cupping her chin, I turned her face to look at me.
“Who knows?” I asked, “Billie?”
Tricia shook her head. “My mom… you.” She shrugged helplessly and swallowed hard when fresh tears brimmed in her eyes.
“Not even your father? Any friends?” She shook her head again and I realized the significance of her telling me. It was an ultimate test of trust, but also an honest attempt to free me.
�
��Is this why you never married? Never had kids?” Watching her as she thought, her eyes ticking back and forth over my features, she swallowed roughly again.
“I have only trusted a couple of men in my life. My father, Bradley, and you. These,” she said, directing me to the small scars on her abdomen, “I lied about these when I had an opportunity to tell you the truth. These aren’t piercings… well; they are of a sort. They’re laparoscopic surgery site scars. After my mom made me give my baby away, I found a sympathetic surgeon abroad and chose to be sterilized when I turned thirty. It would appear money can buy most things,” she disclosed, poking her fingers over the scars.
My head reeled from her admissions and I fought the urge to scream in desperation from her plight. She had never trusted any man enough with her secret, and it struck me instantly this was her way of showing her unconditional love for me in return. Tricia would rather me be with someone else and have a child, than deny me that choice.
“First thing we’re going to do is get you some help, baby. You should have had it decades ago. What the fuck was your mother thinking?”
“Of the neighbors, of my father, he idolized me, she thought if he knew it would kill him. She figured I still had my life once the baby had been adopted. Sometimes it feels like what happened was some horrible dream. But it wasn’t. I was a minor and my mom had parental responsibility.”
“Why did you never tell Marnie?”
“I don’t know … maybe I didn’t want to disappoint her? Or maybe it was because she was an honorable soldier, my father’s pride and joy, with everyone thanking her for her service. If what had happened to me had gotten out it would have disgraced her.” My heart crushed inside my chest that despite what she’d been through at that tender age, she had still chosen to protect others before herself. “James, please… don’t feel you have to stay with me, I couldn’t bear it if you did out of pity.”
“It’s not pity I feel, I’m fuming that you’ve carried this all on your own.” I stroked her hair with my wet hand. “And you’re not getting rid of me either. I’m staying… if you’ll have me. Kids or not, I’m already yours.” Tears streamed down her face and I wiped them away, kissing her on the forehead and nose. “When Bradley told me that tale in Denver, I was angry with a guy I had never even met. Now I know your history, I’m fucking glad he’s dead because it’s saved me from going to prison. I would have hunted that fucker down. To be honest, I’m livid he’s dead and I don’t have that option.”
Covering her face with her hands, Tricia slid down under the water. When she stayed there, I wrapped my hand around her wrist and pulled her back up to the surface.
“Come on, get out, you need something to eat after the shock you’ve had.” Helping her to her feet, I grabbed a large bath sheet and cocooned her in it as she stepped out. “Do you want me to dry you or get started in the kitchen?” What I’d learned about Tricia was I could only do so much before she felt stifled, and the last thing I had wanted to do in that situation was suffocate her.
“Eggs would be good, I suppose,” she mumbled, securing the towel under her arm.
“Okay, if the lady wants eggs,” I whispered with a soft kiss next to her ear before planting another on her shoulder. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” I told her. She looked vulnerable and lost in front of the mirror as I left the bathroom, but I knew I had to give her space to breathe. My heart crushed in my chest when I thought how her ordeal had tortured her to her core, but I figured since she had broken the ice by telling me, she’d felt ready to face what had unfairly shaped her past.
Chapter Twenty-Three
During the following three weeks we talked and talked until I convinced Tricia I couldn’t care less if I didn’t have a child. It was an unfortunate by-product of loving her, but not something I’d ever envisioned losing sleep over. When she accepted I was telling the truth, she appeared relieved she had shared her secret with me.
Knowing what had happened certainly explained a lot about her behavior and had gone some way to explain why I’d observed her giving a lot of time to Remy, but very little to Brynn.
“Little girls make me feel the pain,” she explained one night, when I asked her directly why she became impatient with Brynn. “As soon as I hug her my heart breaks. How do I show affection to someone else’s daughter when I deprived my own of the same?”
She went on to tell me the baby had dark blonde hair and hazel eyes, and when she looked at Brynn, she always imagined how her daughter might have looked at the same age.
“Every time I hug her, I feel like I’m going to cry, and if I do people will want to know why.”
Her answer felt a little irrational to me, but I wasn’t inside her head and only Tricia had walked her walk, so I never tried to reason it out. It was a hang-up borne from a terrible event that had taken place when she’d been a kid herself. I got that, and the more she disclosed the less willing I felt about leaving her at home alone.
The result of this was that from the time she told me about her ordeal I’d elected to stay at her place, leaving early and commuting home to dress for work, doing my job, before heading back to New Jersey each night.
However, there were times when I simply couldn’t make it to New Jersey when deadlines had to be met and emergency breakfast meetings where scheduled for the weekend. That had been the reason I had sold my house in New Jersey in the first place.
After our first three consecutive nights apart where I’d stayed in the city, Tricia visited me in my office. Fortunately, it was during lunchtime, so I told my personal assistant to hold my calls and locked my office door for privacy. We had learned not to take our moments alone for granted.
“I thought I may stay here Monday through Wednesday, skip down to New Jersey Thursdays to sign contracts, and you could come down Fridays. This way we spend part of the week in each place, but almost all week together. What do you think?” she asked.
“I think I’m delighted. What’s brought this on?”
“Three nights away in one week. That, and I hate sleeping alone now I have you in my bed.”
Tilting my head from side to side, I pretended to consider her proposal when she stood, unzipped her dress at the side, and let it slide to the floor.
“Do you want me to beg?” she teased, dipping her chin to her chest and eyeing me through her lashes. Although she was kidding, it was such a seductive move I was hard in an instant.
“Hmm, let me see,” I replied, wandering closer to her until we were toe-to-toe. I drew the back of my fingers delicately down her breastbone and over the center of her torso. Her breath immediately hitched, and her body trembled slightly under my touch. Leaning forward I blew on her breasts and her nipples immediately pebbled.
“Beg, you say? Begging’s always a solid opener in negotiations,” I whispered, cradling my free hand behind her head. “Why don’t we just cut all that toing and froing shit out, and you come live with me? We could rent your place out until we can decide where to live.”
Tricia’s bright eyes rose to her hairline in thought. “Move in?” she asked and stepped away, picking up her dress. Panic began to rise in my chest until I saw her smile, pull on the dress, and wander back into my space. “I think if you want me to answer that you should be the one to strip.” I began to chuckle until her hand slid over my belt buckle. “Am I amusing you, Mr. Wild?” she asked, undoing my pants and letting them fall to the floor. “Or weren’t you serious about asking me to live with you?”
“As serious as gonorrhoea,” I muttered, leaning forward to kiss her. Tricia’s head whipped back, and she stared pointedly into my eyes, her nose scrunched up in distaste.
“Maybe you could find a more attractive simile?” she replied, straight-faced, but a smirk quirked at her lips.
“Hm, you think?” I teased, as I dipped my knees and drew my fingers lightly up her bare leg. She shuddered and I grinned. “Baby, you’re so responsive. You’re coming to live with me in New York,” I confirmed. “You
can either agree now or after I’ve been balls deep in that little deliciously wet pussy I know I’ll find if my hands slip under the lace of these panties,” I whispered, peppering her neck with small kisses and smiling when her flesh broke out in goosebumps.
“I’m waiting,” she muttered, but her shaky breathing and how her voice trembled gave away her true feelings.
“For?” I whispered again, my hand trailing between her upper thighs until my fingers teased her clit through the thin material.
“Oh,” she gasped breathily, her shoulders lurching forward and resting on mine.
“So that’s a yes?” I asked, pretending to clarify our living arrangements.
“We’re nearly there, this feels better than your gonorrhoea opening bid,” she mumbled, sounding slightly distracted by my hand between her legs.
“Do we have an agreement?” I teased, leaned in and kissed her soft lips.
“God, man, I love what you do to me,” she whispered, her hand sliding under my belt. Her fingers brushed my cock, which had escaped from the top of my boxers, and she broke the kiss, widened her eyes at me, and grinned.
“I’d do a hell of a lot more, but you haven’t answered me,” I reminded her, teasing her clit half-heartedly again to keep her focus on our conversation.
“Where do I sign?” she asked, chuckling as she freed her hand, slapped them both on my chest, and pushed me back toward my office couch.
It was another new level of trust in our relationship. We were both survivors of the mistakes we’d made and the subsequent interference of others. But together we’d found those missing parts of us in each other, that had helped make us whole.
Another thing that emerged from our conversation was how Tricia’s trust in me grew, and the more secure she became, the more I learned about her trauma from her adolescence. Whenever she talked about it, she cried, and afterward I’d take her to bed, hold her protectively with my chest to her back, and do what I could to console her.
Resist You (Unchained Attraction Book 3) Page 19