"Ridge! You didn't owe that awful woman a thing. She didn't deserve a penny."
"I decided to take the high road."
"Or," Kaia pointed out, not unkindly, "you were trying to buy her love."
He barked an attempt at laughter that crashed and burned. "I'm not that pathetic."
"Everyone wants to be loved, and needs to belong somewhere. Nothing pathetic about that."
"Yeah, well, some of us need it more than others."
She wasn't sure what he meant by that. "What about your mother's father? Did you try to find him?"
"Another blue ribbon winner," Ridge muttered. "Under the three strikes rule, dear old granddad is serving a life sentence in Huntsville for armed robbery. Under the circumstances, I decided to skip the family reunion . "
"Oh my." Her heart broke to pieces for him. She was so lucky to have such a supportive, loving extended family.
He spread his arms wide. "So there you have it, the rundown of my rotten DNA. Are you sorry you asked?"
"No. Not at all." She breathed. "But wow. Just wow."
"Wow?" He arched a dubious eyebrow.
"I always had a lot of respect for you before, but now, after learning all this?" Kaia looked at him with admiration and sadness. She didn't feel sorry for him. She knew how it felt when people pitied you, and the last thing Ridge engendered was anyone's pity. He was a self-made man, someone to admire and look up to. But she did hate that he'd had a crappy family. "You're something special, Ridge Lockhart. Do you know that?"
He shifted in the water, dropped his gaze. "Do we have any of that chicken left?"
"Look how far you've come." She feared her praise was making him uncomfortable, but he had to know how truly miraculous he was to have successfully pulled out of the toxic emotional environments he'd been planted in.
"Lots of people have it worse. I'm the son of a multimillionaire-granted, an illegitimate son-but Duke put a roof over my head, food in my belly, and paid for my education."
"And he slept with your girlfriend."
"Nobody's perfect," he grinned, making light.
She liked that about him. How he refused to play the victim.
"I've lived a good life," he said. "I've done what I had to do to take care of myself, and I have no regrets."
"But now, by working so hard you keep people from getting close. Some might argue that's running away from your problems, not taking care of yourself."
"Hey," he said. "I'm not the one who is hiding out from the world in Cupid."
That hurt her feelings, because he was right. She had been dragging her feet about returning to A&M, even though finishing her degree was the most important thing in her life. "Staying with the people who love you and have your best interest at heart is not hiding."
"No?"
"You stay busy as a way of keeping people at arm's length. You don't live life, Ridge, you attack it."
"There was chicken left," he said, getting out of the water and heading for the beach towels she'd left at the side of the springs. "I could have sworn I saw a leftover drumstick."
She followed him, watching him track watery footsteps over the cement. It was so arid in the desert, the footprints dried up almost as soon as he made them. "You're so preoccupied with one-upping your father and outdoing your DNA that you don't even know who you are outside the context of your history."
"I thought you were getting your degree in veterinarian medicine," he said tartly. "Not psychology."
"Ridge."
"What?" he asked, busily toweling water from his hair.
"Why did you come home?"
"Archer was getting married."
"You could have turned him down. Why didn't you just turn him down?"
He shot her a peeved expression. "Christ, Kaia, stop badgering."
"I'm not badgering. I-"
He looked so fierce it drew her up short. Was she badgering?
"What do you want from me?" he growled.
What did she want from him?
Why, to be hers forever soul mate. That realization was a leaden weight in the pit of her stomach. He had no idea that she'd heard the humming when he kissed her, when they made love. No clue to her deepening feelings for him.
But how could she be with him when he was unable to get beyond his upbringing and make peace with his father? There was a whole lot of emotional baggage he needed to unpack before he would be ready for a serious relationship.