What you need to take from that, Addy, is he loves you that much. God’s honest truth, you really could hate him for the rest of your life and he’d feel the loss of you and not recover from it, but he’d still do it if it meant you didn’t have all that ugly shit eating you up. You understand that? That’s love. That’s real, selfless, undying love. That’s what I want for you. So when I tell you he’s a smart man, what I mean to say is he’s a good man. And he deserves a woman by his side that is just as loyal. He’s not mad. But he is downstairs worried. Come down and put him out of his misery.”
“Everyone—”
“Loves you. Period. The end. They just love you. Go down and show them you’re okay and they’ll be good.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” Jasper placed his lips on Addy’s head, then pulled back and grunted, “But put some damn clothes on, would ya?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
Fuck.
Daddy.
That never got old. Not one second in the last thirtyish years had Jasper Walker taken that one word for granted.
29
I knew Trey was awake because he was gently removing his hand from my bottom.
Last night while my family wandered his house, giving themselves an unguided tour, I apologized for what I’d said, he’d forgiven me, and the rest of the night he kept me close. I knew the few times I’d left his side he’d watched me and I knew why. He straight out said I’d scared him. Being as the scene had been ugly and I’d zoned out for a lot of it, I understood.
After my family left, he’d led me to bed, where we’d laid and talked. Not long, and not in depth, but he’d again assured me he held no grudges and knew I was not myself. He also made sure I understood why he’d called my mom. In his mind, it was either her or he needed to call a doctor because I was so out of it, you guessed it, I’d scared him.
But he also thanked me for sharing. He’d held me tight while his hand coasted up and down my back as he listened to me tell him about my conversation with my mom. After that I was mentally drained, Trey probably was, too, so he suggested we go to sleep.
The last thing I remembered was his warm palm resting on my hip. Obviously at some point during the night his hand had dropped to my bottom. Not only that, but it had made its way under my panties, and now Trey was doing his best not to wake me while he pulled away.
This was un-Trey behavior. If his hand was on my bottom, he left it there, then he commenced the good stuff.
But not this morning, the morning after I’d had a nervous breakdown and told him my secret.
Damn, that hurt.
“Trey?”
“Morning, baby.”
His hand settled on my hip and at the same time, he pressed his lips on my forehead.
Well, at least that was something.
“I need to tell you something.”
He went still.
No, not still, steel. The muscle under my cheek jumped, then it turned solid.
I shoved away how that made me feel and took a deep breath.
“Yeah?” he prompted but did not relax.
He’d asked me to trust him. So I was going to do that.
“I need you to know, I fully understand the difference.”
“Difference?”
Crap. I hadn’t thought about how I was going to explain this, but it needed to be said. Everything had to be out in the open. It would kill me if he treated me like I was broken. If he stopped touching me.
“The difference between us making love and what he did to me.”
So maybe he hadn’t turned into steel, because now he was steel and not breathing.
“I never got that part mixed up in my head. Even as it was happening I knew what he was doing was wrong and it was not my fault but his. I knew it was an act of violence.”
“Baby—”
“Trey, I need you to hear this.” He nodded and kissed my head. Just that small gesture gave me the courage to go on. “Yesterday was not about that, what he did, so much as it was about my fear if my secret got out what my dad would do, and what my family would think of me. And the shame I’d been harboring for not leaving him sooner. The part about that day, that I didn’t want to remember, was him demanding