A Baby for the Billionaire(56)
“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.