Trust Fund Fiance - Naima Simone Page 0,10
his older brother, Luke. But in his head where he couldn’t run from his denial?
Well...even if he had the speed of Usain Bolt, he couldn’t sprint fast enough to escape himself.
“I forgot your parents were buried here,” Reagan said, her voice closer. Her scent nearer, more potent. “I always wondered why they weren’t with the rest of the Wingates in their mausoleum.”
“Because they weren’t Wingates,” he replied, still staring off into the distance, squelching the clench of his gut at his explanation. Smothering the unruly and insidious thought that he wasn’t one either. That in a family mixed with Wingates and Holloways, he and Luke were still...different.
“My father was a Holloway, Aunt Ava’s older brother. He created a bit of a scandal in the family and society when he married my mother, a black woman. But in spite of the derision and ostracization they faced—sometimes within his own family—my parents had a happy marriage. Even if they remained somewhat distant from the rest of the Holloways.”
“They were protecting their world,” Reagan murmured. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”
“They were very careful, sheltering. But they still taught us the value of family. When they died in that car crash eleven years ago, Aunt Ava and Uncle Trent took Luke and me in...even though by then, we were both in college and technically adults. They gave us a place to call home when ours had been irrevocably broken.”
He turned back to her. “They might have taken us in, and we now work for the family company, but my parents didn’t consider themselves Wingates, so Luke and I didn’t bury them as ones.”
She slowly nodded. Studied him in that calm-as-lake-waters way of hers that still perceived too much. Unlike most people, she didn’t seem content with just seeing the charmer, the thrill seeker.
He didn’t like it.
But damn if a small part of him didn’t hate it either.
“Where will you choose to be buried? The Wingate side or the Holloways?” she mused. But there was nothing casual or easy about the question...or the answer. “God, that’s a morbid question. I heard it as soon as I asked it. Still...can’t be easy feeling as if you’re split in two. Trying to figure out if love or obligation, a debt unpaid, holds you here.”
His pulse thudded, echoing in his ears. And inside his chest, the arrow that had struck quivered in agitation.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, abruptly changing the subject away from his family. From his own discomfort and inner demons. “Can’t be just to visit Melissa’s grave.”
That clear inspection didn’t waver, but after several seconds, she released him from it, glancing over her shoulder. And he exhaled on a low, deep breath.
“No, my grandmother rests just over there. I come by every other week. It’s only been a couple of months since we lost her, so being here...” She shrugged a shoulder. “It brings me more comfort than it does her, I’m sure. But I try to bring enough flowers for her and Melissa.”
“Thank you,” he said, his palm itching to stroke down the length of her dark brown braid. He slid his hand in his pocket instead. “And I’m sorry about your grandmother.” The troubles with WinJet and the fire in the manufacturing plant had consumed him, and he’d been working like a madman since, so he hadn’t heard about her death. “I didn’t know her, but she must’ve been very special.”
The brief hesitation might not have been caught by most people. But most people weren’t paying attention to every breath that passed through Reagan’s lips.
“We shared a close bond,” she said.
“But?” Ezekiel prodded. “There’s definitely a but there.”
His light teasing didn’t produce the effect he’d sought—the lightening of the shadows that had crowded into her gaze.
“But it’s difficult to discover the one person you believed loved you unconditionally didn’t trust you.”
The tone—quiet, almost tranquil—didn’t match the words. So one of them was a deception. From personal experience, he’d bet on the tone.
And against his better judgment but to his dick’s delight, when he reached out, grasped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipped her head back, he had confirmation.
Her eyes. Those magnificent, beautiful eyes couldn’t lie. If windows were eyes to the soul, Reagan’s were fucking floor-to-ceiling bay windows thrown wide open to the world.
A man could lose himself in them. Step inside and never leave.
With a barely concealed snarl directed at himself, he dropped his arm and just managed not to step back. In retreat. Because