Always My Babygirl A Billionaire Romance - Jane Henry Page 0,31
down my back. I smile, humming with delight, and roll onto my back. His fingers move to my side.
To my scar. My eyes open. My muscles, so relaxed just a moment before, tense.
“It’s beautiful, you know. This silver crescent moon.” His finger traces the semicircle. “Will you tell me about it, now?”
White heat spreads over my face. “I… it makes me… self-conscious.”
“It’s a part of your story. And I want to know about all of you. Even the parts you hide from the world. You can show them to me.” His gaze reassures me.
Everything in me tells me to keep this light, to keep things surface level only. But what I feel when I look in his eyes tells me to grip onto this connection, this euphoria.
To hold tight… onto him.
And so, I share my story. “We grew up on the coast. From birth I was a water baby. My dad taught me to surf. There wasn’t a single weekend we didn’t go out together.”
That’s the sweet part of the story. The easy part to tell.
The next piece, this part makes my throat feel tight, my eyes sting. “The morning of my high school graduation we decided to celebrate with an early surf. We went out, side by side, each of us laying on our board, paddling out with our arms. He was teasing me about a guy I had a crush on. One that we both knew was going to ask me out soon. We were laughing… just enjoying the day…”
He senses my unease. “It’s alright.” He strokes my arm, smooths his hand over my hair. “You’re safe now. With me.”
His touch, his soft words, offer me what I need to continue. “I felt this bump. Against my board. At first, I was confused, thinking I’d hit a rock, all the while knowing we’d surfed the same spot a hundred times and there were no rocks. Then, I heard my dad scream my name.”
Miranda! Watch out! His voice calls out in my mind, haunting me.
I brush tears from my eyes. Hoping they go unnoticed, I dive back into my story. “The shark took a bite from my board. Lucky for me, it was a smaller shark and his bottom row of teeth sunk into the board. I only got scraped by the top half. But it was enough to tear my side.”
I think of the blood. Pools and pools of it, turning the water red all around us. “I felt no pain—later they told me I was in shock. The bite was almost harmless, in the end, only requiring plastic surgery to put me back together. There was no internal damage.”
“How did you get away?”
There’s a sick, quiet beat of silence in the air. I make my confession. “My father saved me.” My words die. A heavy silence falling over us. My father may have saved me that day, but he lost his life in the process. The scar is a memory of the day I lost my dad, and it pains me to think of it.
And somehow, he knows. Gabriel pieces the rest of the story together himself. “I see.”
This man that hardly knows me, knows not to ask any more questions. Just to hold me tight. To curve his body over mine, until he’s a protective shell, kissing me. I close my eyes, wanting to feel the full depth of the kiss.
Maybe that’s why providing Lexi with the perfect wedding is so damn important to me, I have to stand in where he should have been. Somehow compensate for the fact that I’m here, and he’s not.
Gabriel keeps kissing me and, in his embrace, I find healing.
I think of the events after that day, and for once, it's not in pain, only in a reflection. I moved to Nevada, wanting to never be surrounded by water again. I was penniless, scared, and alone. But I owed it to my dad to do something with my life. I enrolled in college, and with the help of a friend, I started Sugar Daddies as a way to pay for my classes.
I hid my scar, traumatized by the pain it caused me. Hell, my attempts to hide that silver crescent moon may even be the reason I didn’t have sex yet. That, coupled with the fact that I hadn’t yet met him.
Gabriel Lord. The man who’s too good to be true, yet he’s becoming as real to me as my own flesh and blood.