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Park Avenue Prince(50)

By:Louise Bay


She stilled her fingers that were tracing patterns on the back of my palms. “What kind of question?” Before Grace did it to me, I didn’t realize how answering a question with a question was a form of self-defense.

I pulled her closer and kissed her on the head. “Why do you spend time on men who don’t deserve you?”

She shrugged, brushing me off, just as I had done her.

She needed me to share something first—I was asking for her to reveal her vulnerability without being prepared to do the same.

I took a deep breath. “My mother and father were killed by a drunk driver when I was twelve.”

I swallowed, looking straight ahead and not at Grace. I didn’t often say those words anymore, there was little need, but the rush of pain I braced myself for wasn’t as brutal as I remembered the last time I did. It would always hurt, but the fear of the hurt was as much an obstacle for me as the pain itself. “I had no other family, so I went into the system.”

She shifted in my arms so she was facing me. Cupping my face in her tiny hand, she brushed her thumb across my cheek.

Her touch gave me the strength to go on, to share more. “It was tough. I was old enough to understand what I’d lost. To have experienced a different life, a better life, and have it taken away.” Telling her was almost a release and I managed to glance at her as she blinked away tears.

“It was a long time ago. Things are better now.” I didn’t want her to feel sorry for me. I wanted to be closer to her, not feel her pity. I just wanted to give her more because that’s what I needed from her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

I exhaled and threaded my fingers through hers.

“I think you’re so special, Sam Shaw,” she said, dropping a kiss on our joined hands.

I smiled. “I think you’re special too.”

“So is that why you don’t buy furniture? Or have any relationships?”

What was she getting at? I had Angie, an apartment on Park Avenue. I just didn’t attach meaning to material possessions in a way most people did.

“Because you know how painful it is to have something and then lose it?” she asked. “You don’t want to have to experience that again.”

The ever-present pain in my gut I’d gotten so used to, sliced deeper. Was she right? Did I keep my life free from things and people so I couldn’t be disappointed again?

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push. It just makes sense,” she said.

I couldn’t argue with her. It did make sense. I’d just never seen the connection before.

“Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know.”

She leaned forward and kissed my stomach. “My mother cheats on my father. Always has. He knows, but for some reason he stays married to her,” she explained, revoking her earlier shrug in the same way I had. She was confessing, letting me in, giving me more.

“And you’re your father?” I asked. “Picking people who don’t deserve your love?”

“Maybe. Maybe I just don’t want to be my mother.”

Had both of us approached life and relationships based on our past experience? Maybe everyone did. But I still didn’t understand, why was I able to be caught up with her in a way I’d never let myself before? How had she gotten me wanting more when I’d spent my whole life determined to need nothing?

She circled her fingers over the place where she’d kissed my stomach, giving me a glimpse of the tattoo under her arm.#p#分页标题#e#

Ultimate Bliss.

I hadn’t had much time to think about what her tattoo should be when she asked me to pick, but those two words had been the first thing to come into my brain.

Did my subconscious know something I didn’t? The words of that well-read passage tumbled through my head.

There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live . . . the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.

Had she been what I’d been waiting for? What I’d been hoping for?

Was she my ultimate bliss?





Chapter Fourteen

Grace





Saturday night had been special. Something had shifted between us. I had plans to spend Sunday in Connecticut with Harper and Max, so Sam had left early. When he called me on Monday and I realized he didn’t have any specific reason to, I found myself grinning like a maniac into the phone. He’d just wanted to hear my voice. Talk to me.

It felt good. More than good.