Bad Boy (An Indecent Proposal) - J.C. Reed Page 0,68

that I had to accept my family for who they were. As I grew older, I knew I needed to escape. Marriage was my only way to get away from them all.

That my uncle raped me throughout my childhood and adolescence is not something I’m proud of. In fact, I wished I didn’t have to tell you, but if it opens your eyes to the world I lived in, then so be it. I hope it’ll help you understand some of the choices I made in my life.

There’s something else I need to tell you. Something that’s even harder to put on paper. Something I still cannot live with, even after all those years.

My tears are falling as I write this, and I have to be very careful not to stain the paper.

You have a half brother. That’s when my parents could no longer deny the obvious. I was fifteen years old when they sent me to a monastery to bear my uncle’s child. I was left afraid and alone among strangers, so my parents’ rich friends wouldn’t find out. Among strangers I learned to feel safe until the day I was forced to give up my child.

I prayed. I pleaded with them to allow me to keep my son, but nothing I said could make them see my pain. Even to this moment, I still think of him. I miss him every day. The three days I had him might not seem like a lot, but they were the best of my life, until I had you.

In that short time I dared not sleep out of fear that I would miss a single moment with him.

Giving him away was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, much harder than the sexual abuse I had endured. After nine months of carrying him, I loved him more than I loved myself. I loved him and his innocence in spite of my hatred for the despiteful man who was his father. You don’t know how hard it is to give away a part of your heart until you experience it.

I cannot state how many tears I have shed about my broken family, or how many times I thought of killing myself.

As I’m writing this, my boy should be sixteen. He’s seven years older than you. By the time you get the letters, he’ll be almost thirty. The name I chose for him is Kaiden—Kaiden Stonefield—though his new parents might have changed his name.

I don’t know where he’s living, but I can feel him in my heart. Like I can feel you in my heart. Two children, both linked by my blood and womb.

I pray he’s with a good family. If I could tell him that I would never have given him away out of free will, I would. I would hate him to think his mother didn’t want him because she didn’t love him when the opposite is the truth.

Having a real family has always been my dream. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to be a mother. When you were born, I was older, wiser. I knew you couldn’t replace Kaiden, but you filled a big hole in my heart that your brother had left behind.

My God, Laurie. I was so happy when I held you in my arms the first time. You had the tiniest hands and feet. Born with the cord around your neck, the doctors were sure you would never breathe. But as I was holding you in my arms, my tears staining your little face, my fear that I would lose my next child paralyzing me, I whispered, “Breathe, Laurie, breathe for me.”

And you did. You did it for me. And when you opened your eyes and looked at me, I knew I would love you forever. I knew I would never give you up, no matter what happened. That I would protect you with my life because you were my little girl.

I was so afraid that the same history would repeat itself and what happened to me would happen to you. I could trust no one. It’s one of the reasons I married Clint. You needed a father figure. And I needed to get away from my family.

Only a few people know what happened to me: my parents, Clint, your father. The truth was, my life was a complete lie to everyone else. I met your father when I was seventeen. He was my first friend. He was also my first love. He was also