“Tell me you confronted her, Kim. Tell me you demanded to know why.”
“No. And I didn’t beg her to take me, too, if that’s what you want to hear.” Her throat felt as if pieces of glass were stuck in it. “I threatened to go to my father with the note if she went anywhere near Liv. I stayed awake by Liv’s side all night. And my mother...she...left sometime during the night. But you’re right. I am an unfeeling, selfish bitch.”
“You did nothing wrong.” His words were a frustrated growl.
“No? You see, I was determined to not let her rob the one person who loved me from my life. Except you know what...?”
His stomach churning with a vicious force, Diego watched Kim. She walked away from him, trembling from head to toe, her words vibrating with pain.
“Liv paid for it. With our mother gone, my father turned his corrosive, controlling attention to her.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that. You were a child.”
“He made her life miserable every single minute of every single day, Diego,” she said, her fists locked by her sides. “There—are you disgusted now?”
How could he hate her for surviving when he would have done the same? She’d lived her life with the cards she had been dealt and made no excuses for it.
She slipped from him before he could tell her how much he understood, how that kind of hurt never died down.
She could have hated Olivia after her mother left. But she had been strong for both of them, had tried to shield her from their father when she had been nothing more than a teenager herself. And she thought there was nothing in her that felt...
He tugged her closer and wrapped his hands around her. She didn’t relax immediately. He tightened his hold.
She smelled of the ocean and lemons and something undeniably her.
He stood holding her like that, running his fingers over her back. So many things rushed through him. Utter amazement at her strength robbed him of his ability to speak.
Walking away from her mother, from her father, from him—it was the only way she had survived.
A lump in his throat cut off his breath and he relaxed his hold on her.
Handling her was no different from handling a hurt teenager like Miguel, really. Miguel lashed out at the world in order to live through his pain, whereas Kim internalized everything to survive—pushed her own feelings and desires so deep inside she had pretty much cauterized herself against any hurt.
If his childhood had been hell, hers had been no better. Just a different kind of hell.
“You remind me of Miguel,” he whispered, breathing her scent deep into his lungs.
She looked up at him, reluctance filling her gaze. “I don’t know what to make of that.”
“Whenever I see him in pain I want to hunt down everyone that’s hurt him. It’s the same way I feel right now. Instead of protecting you, your mother used you and Olivia as shields against her husband. She was not fit to be a mother. And I will throttle you if you compare yourself to her again.”
Tears glazed her eyes.
He moved his palm to her stomach and felt his heart kick inside his chest. “Except I’ve never wanted to kiss Miguel, as I want to do you, every waking minute.”
Kim blinked back the tears that prickled behind her eyes. His tenderness was unraveling her and she was terrified she would never be whole again, never be strong again.
Day by day, word by word, he had slowly peeled away all her armor. Her emotions were spilling and overflowing. It was both terrifying and exciting.
She shivered and scrunched closer to him. His arms were steel bands around her, his body a furnace of need and want. And for the first time in her life she felt wanted. As if her wishes mattered, as if she mattered. And not for her brains, for her accomplishments, but for the person she was beneath all that—scared and hurt and frozen.
She moved in his embrace and pressed her mouth to his chest. He rumbled beneath her touch.
“Come with me,” he whispered.
Her smaller hand encompassed by his, she let him tug her whichever way he wanted.
They walked for about five minutes, the sand crunching under their feet.
She came to a sudden halt, dragging Diego to a stop along with her. Dusk was beginning to streak the sky orange above them and a custom-made cabana, its dark oak gleaming in the fading sunlight, stood about two feet from them, big enough to accommodate two people.
And narrow enough to squish them together.
Pristine white cotton sheets covered the opening, contrasting richly against the dark oak. Heat uncurled low in her belly, her legs threatening to collapse under her.
And that wasn’t all.
A small table was set up in front of the cabana, with candles and dinner for two. A pink cardboard box with a small bow also sat on it. The curly “A” on top of it looked very familiar...