Royally Chosen Christmas (Royal Sons MC #7) - Elle Boon Page 0,25

look at her like if he’d ever seen her wearing the apparel. Of course, he never gave her the opportunity to be in anything close to the lace items, not since she’d been seventeen, and at that time, she’d been barely a twig having just started puberty. When she did start to fill out, she’d tried to be more like the women she’d seen him with, but he didn’t appear to notice her as a female at all.

“I could be a virgin and need him to take away the ghastly V-card or I’d die, and he’d probably deny me.” She wasn’t a virgin though, not that she’d ever been promiscuous like some of her friends were. However, after her little visit to the ER and subsequent stay in the hospital when she’d nearly starved to death, she’d struggled to regain control of her life. It had taken a long time, years, to become healthy, both physically and mentally. Once she did, she’d also had to adjust to forming friendships with people who didn’t know about her family. All her friends from school had known about Angela committing suicide and being pregnant, then her father dying under suspicious circumstances. Talk in her school had been vicious, with the cool kids saying terrible things that had made her skin crawl. Food became a weapon she could control when nothing else was within her ability. Her mother had been busy keeping up a façade of perfection. Not that she was a bad mom, just the opposite. She was perfect in every way; except, she wasn’t her mom. It took a few months of not eating and vigorous exercise for her body to begin showing the damage.

“Poor little rich girl,” she growled, driving around a curve a little faster than most would’ve, but she knew how her car performed and how to handle the machine. Even now, she could see the IVs in her arms, could hear the beeping of machines working to keep her alive. But the most jarring was her mother’s soft sobs, the feel of her warm hands wrapped around her own.

“Please, Talena, don’t leave me. I can’t lose you. You might not be the child of my flesh, but you’re the child of my heart. Please, baby, fight to stay with me,” Tara cried.

Talena inhaled, hating the memory of how frail she’d been, how hard it was to speak. She hadn’t known it at the time, but her throat was raw from the intubation she’d gone through. Fuck, the humiliation she’d suffered after she’d gone home and realized everyone in the inner circle knew she’d almost died from her stupidity.

Her mind thought back to when her body began to change, going from stick thin, to full and curvy. She’d almost fallen back into old habits out of fear, waking up at three in the morning and working out for hours while the house was quiet, then pretending to have already eaten before going on a jog. Her mother had noticed right away, her mama bear instinct kicking in. Tara, god love her, began waking up earlier and earlier until she’d found the right time and put a stop to the downward slide Talena had begun. Tara Haven was a steamroller who didn’t take no for an answer. Instead of berating Talena, she showed her how to embrace her figure, and she’d forever be grateful to her mom for her tenacity, knowing many who were as sick as she’d been hadn’t survived.

Although she’d wanted to be more like her mother, slim and petite, she’d learned to do as her mother had said. It took work, but she appreciated what she had. Her mother, although not a curvaceous woman, more physically fit, still drew men, young and old. Talena often wondered where she’d got her looks and build. People had always commented she looked like a Haven with her blonde hair and blue eyes, but after Angela’s revelation, it was like a dagger to her heart every time someone said those words. She wanted to blurt the truth when people would look at her and refer to her as a Haven replica. Their common remark would then be something about her and Hollywood taking after their father, rest his soul. Each time someone would say that she was sure she’d grind another layer of her back molars off. She wasn’t tall by most people’s standards at five-feet-seven, with most of her height seemed to be in her legs, yet next to their