survival-training situation, being there while your keepers were attacked and taken, and having your past purposely hidden from you? That was a lot to go through at an age when you should’ve been having fun, dating, and making bad decisions.”
“I do what many so-called rational people won’t do. I talk to a shrink at least twice a month, unload my burdens on her,” she admitted, giving me an answer I hadn’t expected, but respected and liked.
“So do I,” I confessed since she had shared so freely with me.
“You see a head doctor? I never imagined anyone in your family would do so, let alone admit to it.” Her smile came gradually, the appreciation for my information sharing written in her expression. “Does it help?”
“Yes,” I responded quickly.
When she glanced at me under her lashes without blinking and her body angled away from me just a touch, I knew the fun was over and she was about to grill me so hard that I would be well done.
“You don’t have to answer this question if you don’t want to but, Arlo’s mother, where is she? You mentioned her, but neither you nor your father or even Arlo for that matter ever talk about her. And why is this house guarded so heavily?”
I swallowed hard at the questions, not because I hadn’t seen them coming, but because I believed she deserved to know the answers.
Should I tell her everything?
19
Patrena
Tywin had lost that appearance of everlasting confidence he always presented, something I had rarely seen up to this point. The haunting glint in his eyes told me the story concerning his son and his son’s mother was no fairy tale. He swallowed hard and his throat bobbed in response to whatever was running through his mind.
“Arlo’s mother is at a level within the syndicate that required I sign an NDA to never reveal who she is, not even to my cousins. The hardest part of this situation is that I’ve never seen where my son goes when he leaves here, only that he boards a plane and he always calls me when he lands. To not know where my son is for long stretches of time is one of the heaviest stresses I’ve had to carry.”
My heart sank at the disclosure, and I brushed a tender palm against his chin. “Tywin, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine.”
The impact of his statement kept running through my head even as his sorrowful gaze remained locked on mine. This was why he and his father took their time with Arlo so seriously.
“My father is the only person in the Vallin family who knows her name because she and he had a brief fling. I believe my father knows more about her and her family than I do, but like me, he’s bound by a contract, so serious, that if breached it could mean never seeing Arlo again or even death.”
I touched my temple with my index finger and closed my eyes like that would help me think. “So, wait. I’m confused. How did you two meet? Does anyone outside this house know that you have a son?”
“Everyone knows that I have a son. They’ve all met him, but they don’t know who his mother is or that she and my father had a fling a long time ago. My father decided to move on, but she didn’t. When he married my mother, she stirred up a lot of trouble that nearly got him and my mother killed. If cancer hadn’t taken my mother’s life when I was ten, that crazy-ass woman would have tried.”
My gaze dropped to the pink breast cancer ribbon tattooed on his chest, right over his heart. It was the only tattoo on his upper front side, like he didn’t want anything else on the canvas with it. Although I couldn’t read the small scripture on the tattoo, the words were translated into understanding by the depth of the sadness reflected in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry to hear about your mother,” I expressed sincerely. Losing your mother at that young an age involved a kind of torturous pain that I understood well. The long silence that followed and the way he had dropped eye contact told me I should put questions about his mother on hold.
“Your son’s mother sounds like she might be a real piece of work,” I stated, shaking my head with my face still pulled tight in confusion.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” he replied. “I’m convinced the woman taught the devil