Stroke of Luck - Opal Carew Page 0,24

three of us.”

She glanced to Quinn, who simply sat in his chair observing.

She sighed. “It helps if you understand a bit about my past. I didn’t tell you that the reason my name is April is because that’s the month I was born. My last name is Smith because … well, the person who named me didn’t have much imagination. You remember that I told you my mother abandoned me at the hospital. The insurance she’d used was someone else’s. They didn’t want to give me that person’s name. After that, I was put in foster care.”

“I’m surprised you weren’t adopted,” Austin said. “There are so many couples looking for an infant to adopt.”

“I was. But my luck has never been good. My adopted parents weren’t … well, as caring as they should have been. I was pulled from their home when I was about two years old. A neighbor reported a problem, and the authorities checked in and found that the parents were practically starving the child. She was suffering from malnutrition, and it took a lot of hospital visits, therapy, and patience by one kind woman to get the child back to a normal weight.”

Austin was confused at first when April started talking about the child and she, but he suddenly realized she was referring to herself in the third person. He didn’t think she even realized she was doing it.

“That woman couldn’t adopt her, though,” she continued, “and the child went to another home. Now labeled as a difficult child for care, she didn’t stay in any foster home for very long.”

She was staring at her glass and started tracing lines on the surface.

“I could go on and on about the problems of being in the system … the heartbreaks … but…” She drew in a deep breath. “When I met Maurice … The attention he paid me … I felt wanted for the first time in my life.”

Austin noticed Quinn’s compressed lips, and even though his expression was closed, Austin could tell that her statement was a kick in the gut.

“I saw what I wanted to see,” she continued. “He took care of me. He said he loved me.”

“So you mistook things like him cosigning your mortgage, getting you a job in his company, keeping you within his group of friends as his looking out for you?” Austin asked.

She bit her lip. “Yes, that’s right.”

“And his money,” Quinn said. “I’m sure that played a big part in your love for him.”

She winced a little.

After a brief hesitation, she said softly, “I’m not going to deny it.”

Austin could feel the pain in her words. Her gaze turned to Austin, her eyes begging him to understand.

“When you’re in the system,” she said, “you know that you’re out on your own at eighteen. No fallback. No safety net. I was lucky to get a scholarship for college so I had a hope of a better future, but the uncertainty I’d lived with all my life left me craving security. I believed he loved me. And he had money. I’d never have to worry.”

Austin could see that she hated herself for having to admit that. He could also see that Quinn couldn’t see anything past her admission, which would exacerbate his belief that she was a gold digger.

Damn, but their relationship history was fraught with pain and misunderstanding.

He’d asked this question not to torture her but to get her to open up about what she wanted in a relationship. About what love was to her. He’d hoped that her answers would help Quinn see that she wanted more from a romantic relationship than money. And he’d hoped it would give him some insight into why she hadn’t found what she’d needed with Quinn. Austin was sure she hadn’t left Quinn just because he’d been broke at the time. He’d hoped to find some clue that might help bring them together again.

Because it was so clear to him—it had been all along—that Quinn loved this woman.

“Okay, so we get that he made you feel secure,” Austin said. “But as a man, what did he do? How did he behave to make you think he loved you?”

She glanced at him in surprise—as if amazed he would even talk to her now that she’d made her admission.

“As I said, he paid attention to me. He made me feel special.”

Austin could feel Quinn seething behind his indifferent expression. Austin was sure he was thinking that he had done the same thing. From what Quinn