Mistress By Blackmail(60)

His crushing mistrust hurt.

But how could she blame him when mere moments ago her mistrust had been blatant as well? Had she hurt him just as he’d hurt her? She studied him, tried to read behind the anger in his gaze. There was a flash of something. A wary need, a cautious want.

Someone had to be brave. Someone had to fight.

“I’m t-t-telling you the truth.” She met his glare, no longer hiding her emotions. “I love Matt like a brother. Not a lover.”

He must have caught something in her expression because he froze.

For a second, she thought she’d broken through and made him believe. Believe her. Believe in what they could have together.

Then he laughed his ugly laugh one more time. “Right.”

Clutching her hands to her chest she felt the tears, the useless, welling tears in her eyes. “Who did this to you?” she asked him once more, the cry coming straight from her soul, even though she knew it was useless.

Sipping his liquor, he didn’t meet her gaze.

A long, dead silence fell.

“I learned at an early age not to trust a woman.” His sudden harsh words startled her.

They pulled her away from contemplating her knotted hands. Yanked her away from her depressing thoughts of giving up on him, on them. Staring at him, she watched as he contemplated the golden liquid in his glass. “What happened?” she whispered, afraid to spook him.

“My dear momma wanted more,” he replied. “More than what my papa and I could give her.”

Holding her breath, she waited.

He sipped the liquor. Gave her a swift glance and then looked away. Yet this one glance told her more about the man than he’d ever shown her. Even when they’d made love. The glance held a wealth of pain and deep rage. Of a wound that had never healed.

“So she left.” His words were stiff as if he could barely push them out. “Left for the richer man, the better deal.”

She searched for a profusion of compassionate sayings and found only simplicity. “I’m sorry.”

His mouth curled in a grim attempt at a smile. “It is my father you should feel sorry for, not me. It killed him.”

“What?” She reached for him, even though he stood several feet apart from her.

His hand thrust out, a clear rejection. “Not directly. But he lost his will to live. I watched him die in front of me a few years later.”

“You stayed with him.”

“Certamente.” His eyes widened. “He needed me.”

“Your mother didn’t.”

“Needed?” His chuckle was raspy and rough. “Hardly. She didn’t want me. She made that clear.”

“I’m very sorry.” She wanted to move to him and touch him. Yet something about his stance told her she would meet only further rejection.

“As I said, there is no need.” He rolled back on his heels. “The experience taught me an invaluable lesson. All I have to do is remember my father’s face as my mother left him to remind myself that no woman can be trusted.”

“Every woman? Really?” The words burst out in an instant mixture of disbelief and frustration. “It isn’t that simple or easy.”

He stared at her, his look cool and clear and opaque.

He said nothing.

The silence lengthened as their wills fought a pivotal battle. Searching for some way to keep him talking, she latched onto the only thought crossing her mind. “How old were you?”

“Twelve.” He shrugged his shoulders as if trying to appear indifferent. But she saw the underlying tension. The small boy inside him who’d been hurt, terribly hurt.

“The same age as I was when pop gave me up.”

His gaze met hers. They were no longer blank. They were dark, almost black, with awful recollections. They both stood, staring at each other for a long moment. The connection hummed between them, not only sexual anymore.

Emotional. She was sure of it.

“It is of no consequence.” He glanced back down at his liquor. “It happened a long time ago.”

“That’s not true.” Her brain buzzed inside her head, trying to find the right words. Her heart bumped in her chest, hoping and praying she could reach him and convince him. Heal him. “You continue to carry around the baggage this left you. Examine your attitude towards women.”

He barked a cold laugh. “My conclusions about women did not come merely from what my momma did to my papa.”

“And you.”

He ignored her addition, an intense look of revulsion crossing his face. “I have had other salient experiences to teach me all I need to know about women.”

“What other experiences?” She didn’t want to know or think of him with other women. But this had to be brought out so she could understand him.