I turned sharply to face him. “Tell me. It will make me feel better.”
“It’s a long shitty story. I’m not ready for that.” His eyes wore a hint of fragility.
“You live such a privileged life. How the hell could I admit to coming from that slum?” I looked down at my feet.
“Don’t judge a billionaire by his cover. Behind many a success story, there’s a junkyard of seedy transactions and hidden scandals.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
“Not as such.” He opened his hands. “I meant that most people are ashamed of something. And the richer the person is, unless they’ve been under a rock, the more likely that they have a parent who’s addicted to drugs and alcohol, has affairs, or conducts shady deals.” He cast me an earnest half grin. “I would never judge you based on your family. I don’t subscribe to that form of snobbery.” He fixed his gaze on me. “I’m with you because of you, Penelope.”
I took a deep breath. “My mom’s a junkie. She’s been shooting up heroin all my life.” I couldn’t look at him. His pity would have killed me.
Painful silence created distance between us. He lifted my face to meet his. It wasn’t sympathy in his eyes but something more profound— recognition and understanding, as though he’d been there himself.
“That’s not your fault. You don’t have to wear the shame of your mother’s habit.”
A lump had settled in my throat. I couldn’t talk.
“Will you accept my offer of rehab for your mother? Or I should ask, would she accept it?”
I shook my head in disbelief. “We’ve been seeing each other barely a month, and you buy me a house. And now you’re offering to pay for my mom’s rehab. Blake…”
His lips drew a tight line. “This is small change.” He pointed to the walls. “As is paying for your mother’s rehab.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I crumbled with emotion. Tears streamed down my face.
By radiating a calm, nonjudgmental manner, Blake managed to soothe me.
“You’ll have to tell me about your life growing up, Blake. It seems hardly fair that you know all about mine.”
“I don’t know about your father.”
“Nor do I.” My dryness reflected my lack of emotion on that subject.
He studied me. A line deepened between his dark eyebrows. “I take it you don’t know who your father was?”
I shook my head.
“Sometimes that’s not a bad thing,” he murmured as if to himself.
“Why would you say that?”
“This is a big topic. The father topic. Let’s leave that for some other time. And I have a therapy session starting.” He glanced down at his gold watch. “I need to go. You can stay, if you like, and think of how you’d like to furnish it.”
“No. I’ll catch a ride with you. I’m meeting Lilly. We have some shopping to do. Our rich boyfriends have invited us to a ball.” I smiled brightly for the first time since stepping into that house, which I’d accepted with open arms, having fallen in love with it.
He placed his arm around my shoulders and drew me in tight. “Something red and not too low in the cleavage area.”
“Huh?” I turned to look at him with a glint of mischief. “I thought I might go for the whole slut look. You know, high split, low neckline, no panties.” I lifted my eyebrow.
He pinned me gently against the wall and kissed me. His hand went under my skirt, and his fingers traveled up to my panties. “That makes me want to fuck you.”
“So, you approve of that kind of dress?”
“No. Only for me. In the bedroom. A slut. Out in the world, you’re the pinnacle of modesty and taste.”
I unclasped myself from his arms and cast him a challenging smirk. “You’re bossy.”
“Mm… and you feel hot.” His hands squeezed my ass. “I have to go.” He looked at me with those bedroom eyes. “I could cancel.”
Shaking my head, I said, “No. This is good. I want to sleep with you in my arms. I need that.”
He removed a stray strand of hair from my face and kissed me tenderly. “I’d like that, too.”
Following a session of indecent fondling in the back of his limousine, leaving me hot and swollen, Blake dropped me off to meet Lilly.
A mixture of excitement at the prospect of shopping for gowns and something deeper pushed me along. I felt in my bag, and the keys with an angel key ring fell into my hand.