Make Me (Sterling Shore Series #10)(22)

His expression sobers as he blows out a breath.

"My father and my mother have been happily married for over thirty years."

My brow knits together, confused.

"Okay … "

He shrugs again. "It was after my accident that they finally started acting like they were in love."

I'm so confused.

He taps his leg-the prosthetic one. I lean closer, running my hand down that leg until my fingers meet the top of the prosthetic that is attached to his knee.

He tenses for a second, as though he expects me to react. I've always known about this since fifth grade when he came back to school after missing for a year.

Obviously it doesn't bother me in the least.

"How did it happen?" I ask, running my fingers lower, wondering what type of prosthetic he's wearing.

He blows out a breath, relaxing. "Small cut on my leg turned into a big problem when we were in Africa that summer before fourth grade. My father was doing a lot of work to help with mouth disfigurations. I went swimming with that cut on my leg and got an infection that started eating away at the flesh. It was already in the danger zone by the time they noticed it, and the infection was spreading rapidly. If it had gotten into my bloodstream, it might have killed me. There was only one safe option, and it cost me my leg."



       
         
       
        

He frowns, staring to the side as if he's recalling an old thought or memory.

"My parents blamed themselves. I acted like it didn't hurt as much as it did in an effort to alleviate their guilt."

"And this made them start acting like they loved each other?" I ask, confused.

He grins. "They leaned on each other a lot during that time. Mom had always been in love with Dad, but mostly they were just friends. Best friends. There was attraction, but never passion."

I inch closer, and he tugs me at the waist with an intimate familiarity that betrays the short period of time we've been doing this.

"Dad realized how much he actually loved her when she held us all together. She was fierce in helping with my rehabilitation. She was adamant in keeping me out of the pity bed. And she was strong when he was weak. His adoration quickly turned into the passion they'd been lacking. And from there, they actually started acting like they were in love. Dad said he felt sucker-punched when it all finally hit him one day."

I'm curious as to why he's shared this, when he finally continues.

"Fiona and I were friends. She didn't care about the other Sterlings. Didn't care about my leg. She was cool. But I didn't love her. At least, not the sucker-punch kind of love."

"But you still asked her to marry you?" I go on.

"No passion didn't mean no chance of being happy. I thought we'd be like my parents eventually. But one thing my parents always had even in the absence of passion was loyalty. Fiona should have just ended things if it wasn't enough for her. Searching out passion while still engaged to me was a betrayal I couldn't ever move past. And she knew it. I think she was actually relieved when I broke it off."

Fiona is still wiggling in the back of my mind like a worrisome thorn. They were engaged, and-

"You're thinking about her and the fact I might have lingering feelings, even though I just told you the problem was always the absence of feelings," Dale says, and my mouth opens and shuts.

He grins. "Told you that you have expressive eyes. And I'm very observant."

I roll those damn expressive eyes, and glare at him. "Any woman always worries about the women who came before her."

His cheeky, responding grin has me fighting back my own smile.

"So in other words, you want more than sex with me?"

I frown again. "Of course I do."

He nods. "Glad we got that out of the way. Now I have one question, and I need you to be completely honest with me."

I nod, shrugging. It's not like I have anything to hide.

"Tell me if you hired Vivica Drivel to seek some petty revenge on me about prom night." 

Except that.





Chapter 21



DALE



Her eyes widen, and I have my answer without words. "Yes," she groans, surprising me by being honest.

I lean forward, even though there's a hint of anger rising up inside me.

"How'd you know?" she asks, her brow furrowing, waiting on an answer like she deserves it.

"When she refused your job offer, did you decide you were going to seduce me and destroy me on your own?"

Her lips part, more surprise there, and again I have my answer.

An answer I really fucking hate.

Her eyes narrow, a fight emerging within their depths that I wasn't expecting. "Yes, I did. Then immediately decided against it-obviously-after spending two seconds with you. If my eyes are so damn expressive, then I shouldn't have to defend that."

I open my mouth to say something else, but Harley isn't blushing and shy right now. No. This is the Harley I've only read about, because she's on a mission to tear me down.

"And you know what?" she demands, not giving me time to respond. "Fuck you. You left me high and dry without an explanation of any kind. And then I was shattered. Destroyed. So positively head-over-heels for you that it devastated me. I was fragile back then. I'm not anymore."

Again, I try to get a word in, but she's still not finished.

"For two solid weeks, I was terrorized by half the school," she goes on, and the fight inside me dies with that reminder.

"Harley, I-"

"You didn't know," she says bitterly. "I know that now. I didn't know it then. I believed you the second you said the words, Dale. But I'm glad I didn't know back then. That anger carried me into the world that I've built on the back of revenge and pain."

She cracks her neck to the side, and I don't even try to speak as she finally takes a small break.

"Just because they needed someone to hate, I was punished. For two weeks after prom. First it was small things: knocking my books out of my hands, knocking my lunch plate into my lap, or hiding my clothes after showering in gym class."

Her words get choked, and she clears her throat, refusing to get emotional.

"Then they got progressively worse very quickly. They took pictures of me in my towel and turned it into a glorious little video with a mooing sound to accompany it. Then, you're already aware of the notorious flagpole incident. Five girls stripped me while I screamed and pleaded with them to stop. Their answering laughs were torture. But not as much torture as being tied to that pole in just my panties and bra."

She eyes me hard, taking a deep breath.

"You want honesty? I peed on myself, Dale. Because I was so humiliated and terrified, I lost control of my bladder. I was just a kid. It was a new level of brutal to me."

It actually hurts to hear this story straight from the victim's mouth.

Tears glisten in her eyes and she backs away before her voice grows quieter. "I was tied up for an hour, even as classes went on. They'd drawn those damn cow udders on my stomach. They'd left me out there with urine running down my legs. People in class could see me through the windows. A teacher finally saw me and ran out to free me, but the girls involved got no reprimand of any sort."

She laughs humorlessly.

"The principal told me there was nothing but my word against theirs. In other words, no one prominent was going to bat for me. And there were plenty of prominent batters waiting for the other girls."

"That's bullshit," I mutter lamely.



       
         
       
        

She nods and rolls her eyes. "Chloe Macintosh," she says, and my eyes snap up as anger simmers close to the surface. "Jessie Hughes. Rebecca Wilson. Tasha Landcaster. And Johnna Flemmings."

"Is that why you left?" I ask her.

"I already told you it wasn't," she mumbles under her breath, then sighs dramatically. "My father was going to send me to a different school because Jessie and I got into a physical fight at home. Not prom related. Money related. Her Mom told him it was get rid of me or lose her. He chose her. I went ahead and tested out, managed to graduate a month early, and went on to college on an academic scholarship. What little I had saved up and squirreled away from my part-time jobs gave me enough to get a small apartment."

She sighs again, and I try to understand something.

"You and Jessie got into a fight at your house?" I ask.

"My father thought only with his dick when he married the back-then recently divorced Cynthia Hughes-Jessie's mother."

She smiles grimly, and I listen more carefully. How did I not know Jessie was her stepsister?

"Hence the reason the flagpole incident was easy to brush under the rug. My own father told the principal that I was always dramatic."

She darts her eyes around, like she's taking a moment. I wait for her to continue.

"We were so rich when they married. But she quickly turned his money into her money. Jessie's father was already sickeningly wealthy, and my father felt as though he had to compete. So he signed over fifty-one percent of his business."

"Then she left him?" I guess.

"No," she says, smiling bitterly. "I wish. But no. He still follows her around like a lost puppy. Though my family had money, I was cut out. Dad didn't even pay my tuition. I had to stay in school on scholarship, or else he would have put me in a less prestigious school. In hindsight, I wish I had just let him."