“Patrick Buchanan broke vows like they were made of glass, left bloody shards all over the place.” He’d destroyed his wife, scarred Molly so deeply that Thea’s sister carried the shadows of those scars to this day. “I couldn’t bear to think I was like him in any way. I was not going to walk away just because things were hard.”
“Ah, baby.” David rubbed his chin over her hair. “I didn’t know that about your biological father.”
Fox, Thea guessed, had kept Molly’s confidence. It was nothing less than she’d expected. “My mother,” she began, “was a maid in the Buchanan household.” And then, for the first time in her life, she told someone the entire, sordid story.
Eric had known only the bare bones of it—that she’d discovered a half sister, wanted to build a relationship with her. She didn’t know why she hadn’t told him everything. After all, they’d been happy at the time. Maybe because it had felt disloyal to her mother, given the fact Eric hadn’t seemed to connect with Thea’s family.
Or perhaps her subconscious had seen the fractures in their relationship she couldn’t. Not then.
Because David hadn’t even met her parents and siblings, and yet it didn’t feel wrong to tell him. She’d seen how he treated his own mom, knew he’d treat hers with the same affection and respect, regardless of anything. And even if they went down in flames, their relationship unable to survive the pressure cooker of a rock star’s life, David would never use her secrets against her.
“I’m glad the piece of scum is dead,” David said after she completed the painful story, his voice low and taut. “Otherwise, I’d be tempted to kill him myself.”
She spread her hand over the strong, steady beat of his heart. “I did find Molly, so it was worth it in the end.” Thea and Molly had liked one another from the first despite being two very different women. “It was like a first date when we met for coffee after I flew to New Zealand.” She smiled at the memory. “I had to pretend I was in the country to set up a satellite office, just to take the pressure off.”
“Family’s important, isn’t it, Thea?”
She nodded. “It can screw us up too.” A raw confession. “Having learned exactly how worthless Patrick Buchanan had been at keeping his promises, I couldn’t just walk away from Eric when the cracks began to appear.”
“I get it.” Shifting so that he was braced over her, David stroked her hair off her face. “You don’t still think that way, do you? You’re nothing like Patrick Buchanan. You never break your word about anything. You stick.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I do.” It had taken her time to get her head screwed on straight and it had been her sister who’d helped her see the truth. “Molly eventually guessed what was going on inside me, reminded me that where Patrick had thrown both of us away, I’d done the opposite.”
You came looking to nurture a relationship with me, to build something new, when Patrick only destroyed.
Thea had needed to hear those fierce words, could believe them when they came from a woman who had grown up with Patrick’s selfishness.
He seriously messed me up, Thea, her sister had added. Don’t you dare let him do the same to you.
Every cell in Thea’s body wanted and hoped for Molly and Fox to make it, for her sister to slam the lid on the ghost of Patrick Buchanan once and for all. “The irony of it all,” she told David on the heels of that passionate thought, “is that the day I found Eric in bed with his floozy, I’d gone over there to break it off with him.”
Thea hadn’t meant to confess the rest, but held so safe and protected in the cage of David’s body, it spilled out. “He called me a ball-busting bitch who should’ve been born with a penis.” The words had always hurt more than the fact Eric had clearly been cheating for weeks before she discovered his duplicity. “Said he’d needed a real woman to fuck.”
A growl of sound from David’s throat. “I swear to God I’m going to break his goddamn face if he shows it anywhere near my vicinity.” Kissing her on that harsh promise, he said, “Wimp has no idea about real women—he wants a pretty doll.”
Another kiss, his cock growing hard against her. “Me, I like my woman so tough grown men whimper and hide when they see her coming their way.”
David’s vow made the scary emotions inside Thea grow even bigger. Because where Eric would’ve made the words a sly insult, there was nothing but possessive pride in David’s voice.