He glanced back at her before wrapping a hand around her nape and pulling her forward for a searing kiss.
“We’re celebrating tonight,” he said against her lips.
“Hell yes we are. Let’s ask Emily to stay, and we’ll pop open a bottle of wine.”
“Now who’s brilliant?”
As she leaned into the kiss, she couldn’t help smiling. Everything was falling into place one step at a time.
…
He tumbled into bed, Clara in his arms.
“That was a fun evening,” she sighed, snuggling up to his side.
“Yes, it was.”
They’d opened the wine but shared it with Emily as they’d passed the baby around the table, taking turns entertaining Hunter.
The nanny had been as thrilled as they were to learn the baby was officially a Beckett. She’d whipped up a meal that clearly put his meager culinary skills to shame, but none of that mattered. His child was undisputedly his, and his best friend lay in his arms.
When had he gotten so lucky?
He rolled his head to watch her, only to find her looking at him.
“Hey,” he murmured.
“Hey,” she whispered, reminding him of their first time together.
He reached over to brush the hair from her eyes. Her expression was languid but open. Once again, her beauty made him pause. He’d heard her complain over the years that her eyes were a little too wide, her nose a touch too long, her lips too full for the professional persona she tried to project. Staring at her now, all he could think was the flaws she saw made her perfect to him. She was gorgeous in a way no one else would ever be able to match.
Still, he wanted more. More than just hearing about her secret flaws and complaints. He wanted her trust, completely and utterly. Wanted the answers to the riddle she posed.
Would she tell him now what she’d never given him before?
“Can you trust me?” he asked, his voice soft as he traced her features with a gentle fingertip.
“I trust you more than any other person on the planet,” she answered with a laugh.
“But you still have secrets.”
The smile dimmed before she pushed herself up into a seated position.
He followed suit more slowly, loath to leave behind the intimacy between them.
“You’re asking about my past,” she said.
“Yes.”
She grabbed a pillow and hugged it close to her chest.
To distance us? he wondered. Or for comfort?
He slid closer until their knees touched. “You don’t have to tell me. But I’m here if you want to.”
“It’s not a unique story,” she said, picking at the bedspread. “All it will do is make you pity me.”
Cupping her face, he lifted her eyes to his. “You are the strongest woman I’ve ever met,” he told her. “Pity is the last thing I’d ever feel for you.”
Indecision filled her eyes.
“Let me know you,” he whispered, kissing her softly.
She sighed against his lips. “I’ve avoided this story for ten years.”
Hearing the brittleness of her voice, he relented. “You can avoid it for another ten if it makes you feel better.”
She shook her head. “No. You’re right. We’re moving forward for the first time in too long. Couples should trust each other. Should share what matters.”
Couples. Because that’s what we are right now.
Usually the idea of being in a relationship gave him hives, but hearing the word he dreaded on Clara’s lips didn’t seem as bad as he’d thought.
What is she doing to me?
Clara pulled back from his touch, and he let his hands fall as he waited for her to start.
“I wasn’t a baby on a doorstep but I was close,” she finally said.
“What?”
A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “Except neither of my parents wanted me the way you want Hunter.” She ran a hand down her face. “I was an accident. One that forced two people who were clearly not meant to be together into a permanent bond. Until Dad found a way to make it not so everlasting, that is.”
“Divorce?”
“Yep. He jetted off to Europe with his new arm candy, and that was the last I ever heard from him.”
“At least you had your mother,” he tried, running a hand over her knee.
“That’s one way to look at it.”
Silence stretched and he wondered if he should prompt her for the rest. With her head bent, he couldn’t see her face the way he wanted.
He longed to tell her anyone who left her was an idiot. She was priceless, no matter what her parents thought. But he didn’t want to stop her story if she was finally ready to share it.
“I was ten when Mom remarried. Her new husband was the love of her life, and she was happy to be with him. There was just one problem.” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “Me.”
“A child isn’t a problem,” he said, mimicking the words she’d once said to him so long ago.
“Yeah, well my new stepdad wasn’t crazy about raising someone else’s kid, and Mom didn’t want to risk her new life. I became…an afterthought, really. The live-in maid ghosting around the house, staying out of the way when I wasn’t wanted. Which was most of the time.”
She drew a deep breath. “Then the first of my stepsiblings was born. My mom’s new husband wasn’t much for the child-rearing, so that fell to Mom. Then she got pregnant almost as soon as my sister was born, this time with twins. By the time I was twelve, I had three baby siblings I needed to help take care of and it didn’t end there. I have five stepsiblings in total. Ones I practically raised by myself when my mother saw I was doing a better job of it than she was and left the chore of settling the babies to me.”
“That’s child abuse,” he said, his voice hard.
She shrugged again. “It’s not like I had anyone to speak for me. Besides, I had a roof over my head and three meals a day. Many others were much worse off than I was.”
“But you were a just a kid with no one to love you.”
Her hands shook before she slid them under her legs out of sight. “I left when I was old enough to do it legally and moved across the country. Our college was the farthest one away I was accepted to.”
“Sweetheart…”
“You see, I’m proud of how you’ve taken in Hunter. He will never be a child who wonders if he’s wanted, and that’s a gift.” She gripped his hands in hers. “You’ll be everything he needs, even if his mother never appears. He’s lucky to have you.”
“He’s even luckier to have you,” he replied. “You improve any life you’re a part of, Clara. Just look at what you’ve done for me.”
She ducked her head again. “I was firmly in my shell when we met. You were the one who brought me back to life again. You never wanted anything from me other than my company. I’d never had anyone in my life I could rely on the way I could rely on you.”
“The feeling was mutual,” he told her. “You were my rock through all those years. I loved you for it.”
She sucked in a deep breath before lifting her eyes to his. “What a pair we were.”
He kissed the back of her fingers. “Are,” he corrected.
“Are,” she agreed in a whisper.
Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself to speak of the one thing he’d tried so hard to leave behind. “It wasn’t my father.”
“What?”
His lips twisted in a mockery of a smile, but after hearing her confessions, how could he withhold his own?
“The parent who left. It wasn’t my father. Most days I wish it had been.”
It was the most he’d ever said aloud about his past.
But this was Clara. If he couldn’t tell her, he’d never tell anyone.
Chapter Seventeen
Clara gazed up at him in the dark room.
Telling him about her past had been the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. Thinking about th
e way the people who were supposed to protect her had treated her made her skin crawl. She’d never been able to completely leave the mix of shame and anger behind. Logically, she knew her parents, and stepdad, had been monsters to raise her as they had. But that didn’t silence the little inner voice that whispered if she’d been a better child, cuter or more talented, someone would have loved her. Someone would have wanted her.
The way Walker did.
Now here he was, ripping off a Band-Aid of his own. And though she heard the pain in his voice, not a single cell within her pitied him. No, all she wanted to do was give him a safe space the way he had her. She’d listen to everything he had to say and when it was over, she’d love him just the same.
“The first few years of my life were wonderful,” he said. “I had parents who loved me and each other. Or so I thought. I was five when my mother kissed my forehead and told me to be a good boy. I watched her walk out the front door and waited for her to walk back through it. Except she never did.”
“Oh, Walker,” she breathed.
“She left us and it broke a piece of my father. The smiling, happy man I can only vaguely remember disappeared. In his place rose a second man. One who liked to drink and hated to be reminded of anything that brought back memories of her. It didn’t help that I have her eyes, or so he’d tell me over and over again.”
“Did he hurt you?” she asked, holding her breath for his answer.
He shook his head. “He stopped just shy of being an abusive bastard. Physically, anyway. But my childhood was a minefield of avoiding my father. When he was drunk, he’d recount every way he blamed me for her leaving. If I’d been a regular child instead of being so inquisitive. If I’d played with the other kids instead of dismantling all our electronics. If I’d just been…normal maybe she would have stayed.”
“No,” she said. “No, it wasn’t your fault.”
“I know that now. But try explaining it to a child who can’t understand why his only remaining parent hated him.”
Her throat closed up at the words. “What did you do?”
He shrugged, as if his past was no big deal, but there was no life in his expression. “I lived in libraries mostly. Hung out late after school, hid in playgrounds, avoided going home whenever I could. It didn’t help that I couldn’t keep any friends around for long. As soon as they realized the craziness of my home life or saw me drift off into my world of numbers, they’d leave and never look back. I got used to being left behind so often, eventually I stopped trying to make them stay.”
“I stayed,” she whispered.
A smile curved his lips, banishing the blankness from his gaze. “Yes,” he said. “Only you.”
The smile was fleeting, though, as he returned to his story. “I got lucky with a computer teacher in high school who took me under her wing and loaded me up with books and programs to learn about. I ate up everything I could find. Coding was a way of escaping my reality, and I was determined to become the best.”
“Mission accomplished, I’d say.”
He let out a dry laugh. “She sent me a card the day I took the company public. The one person from my past I ever stayed in touch with.”
“Not your father?”
He drew back. “I send him a check every few months. It keeps him away.”
“What?”
“I left his house at seventeen, and he didn’t do a damn thing to find me. Once he read about me in a magazine, though, he came knocking on my door for handouts. It’s easier to toss him some money than deal with the chaos he’d unleash on my life. Let him drink himself into a grave for all I care.”
“Walker…”
He shook his head. “It’s fine. I made my peace with my parents years ago. They’re out of the picture as far as I’m concerned. I didn’t need them then, and I don’t need them now.”
“How did you survive all alone?”
“Odd jobs,” he replied. “I sold some really basic software that allowed me to go to college. Or at least, paid that first semester. After that I waited tables, cleaned dorms, did anything that would earn me a buck or two.”
“You always seemed exhausted, but I never knew how hard you were working to stay in school.”
“After my second year, it just didn’t seem worth it. There were so many ideas in my head, and I needed the time to develop them. Something had to give.”
“That’s when you left the program.”
He took her hand. “It was a simple decision to walk away from school. You were the only part I regretted leaving.”
She remembered the day he’d told her he was dropping out. She’d done everything in her power to try to convince him to stay. Not because it was best for him, she realized now, but because she was afraid to stay without him. Worse, she’d been afraid her one rock would go somewhere she couldn’t follow.
But he never had.
“That’s my story,” he said. “Abandoned by my mother, practically disowned by my father. I didn’t fit anywhere.”
“I didn’t either,” she replied. “Not until we found a way to fit together.”
“Meeting you changed my life. Even if it did cost me my favorite sweater.”
“I told you to soak it in soda water. Did you? No. Not my fault you can’t follow directions.”
His chuckle was low and deep. “You felt so guilty you took me out to lunch the next day. That was well worth the cost of a sweater.”
She smiled at the memory. So much more about him made sense now. The loneliness that had drawn two misfits together. The drive that had spurred him on to the incredible heights he’d achieved. The commitment to take Hunter in without ever knowing he existed.
Even his refusal to ever enter a permanent relationship. Having witnessed what dashed love could do to a person firsthand, it made sense that a man as logical as Walker would do everything in his power to avoid that fate.
But we are more than his parents.
Maybe someday he’d believe her.
“I’m proud of you,” she said, framing his face with her hands. “Proud of who you were able to become.”
His hand rose to hers. “I’ve never told anyone about my childhood.”
“Me, neither. I wanted to forget I was ever that helpless person begging for crumbs of affection.”
“Easier said than done.”
“Yeah.” Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “But maybe we can help each other forget.”
“I’m all for trying that out,” he said, leaning closer.
Examining her own recollections, she realized he was right. If her mother hadn’t used her as cheap labor, she would never have known how to handle babies. Which meant she would have been useless to help Hunter. The experiences she’d tried to bury had helped shape the woman she was today.
“If my past helped me find you,” she whispered, “how can I regret it?”
When his lips touched hers, she let her eyes flutter shut. Twining her arms around him, she let the worry go. All the pain from the past, the hold it had always had on her future, none of it was as important as the man next to her. When they touched, the world became so much simpler. Nothing mattered beyond the next few moments with him.
When he tumbled her backward onto the pillows she made no protest. After all the nights they’d shared, his body was becoming more known to her. Running her fingers through his hair, she teased the nape of his neck in the way that made his eyes burn for her. It wasn’t the only trick she’d learned. She loved to lightly rake her nails along his abdomen and feel the muscles tighten beneath her fingers. Or to run her lips down his spine, tasting the bronzed skin beneath her mouth.
Rolling him over to reverse their positions, she straddled his hips. Deft fingers raced down the buttons of his shirt, which she parted with a satisfied sigh.
“When will I get enough of you?” she asked, sliding her hand over his bare chest.
“If you figure it out, clue me in,” he said. Lust filled his gaze as he watched her play. “Yo
u’re too addicting for you own good.”
“Only to you,” she said, leaning down to lap a tongue over one nipple.
“Other men are morons,” he said, fisting his hands in the sheets.
“Maybe I should teach them the error of their ways,” she teased.
A hand tangled in her hair, pulling her head back sharply enough to send a thrill through her without any real pain.
“Don’t you dare,” he ordered with heated eyes. “You’re all mine.”
Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. “That’s a two-way street, lover. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Deal.”
She rewarded him with a light kiss before he spun her under him.
“Off,” he said, pushing her T-shirt over her head. Her bra followed moments later.
“I don’t know why I even bother with underwear around you.” She sighed.
“Feel free to throw it all out,” he replied with a lecherous grin. “I’m totally fine with easy access.”
To prove his point, he reached under her skirt to strip off her panties. When she tried to wiggle out of the last piece of clothing, he stopped her.
“Leave the skirt on,” he said, his voice husky.
She glanced at the plaid print and arched a brow. “Have a schoolgirl fetish, do you?”
“Not yet. Ask me in the morning.”
Rising over her, he shrugged out of his own shirt and she forgot her complaints. Would she ever get used to the way her mouth went dry at the sight of him? Walker might call her addicting, but he had it all wrong. It was she who lost the power of thought when his clothes came off.
He bent to take one peaked nipple in his mouth and she bit her lip. Pleasure shot through her, pooling between her legs. Not that this feeling was anything new. All he had to do was walk into a room and she wanted to pull him toward the nearest bed. Or couch. Hell, the kitchen island held possibilities, too.
Anyway she could have him, she wanted. Over and over until she lost count of the ways they could explore each other.
“So beautiful,” he murmured as he turned his attention to her other breast. “So mine.”
“Yes,” she sighed. “Yours.”
For as long as they had together.
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