Bad Engagement (Billionaire's Club #10) - Elise Faber Page 0,61

this crush on a boy. I thought he was the cutest. Long hair”—a smile in his direction—“gorgeous blue eyes, and he was two whole years older. An eighth-grader when I was a lowly sixth-grader.”

Her fingers tightened on his shoulders when the memory cropped up, and she went to release them, not wanting to hurt Jaime.

“Don’t,” he said. “Hold on as tight as you need, Red.”

God, she loved this man.

But she wanted to finish this, to be done with the painful chapter, to do that looking forward she’d promised herself earlier.

“His sister was in my grade. We’d been friends for years, but grew apart in middle school, and it went as you might expect.” Kate sighed. “She started hanging with a different group, with the popular kids, and when they found out I liked him, they took pictures of me changing.”

Now Jaime’s grip tightened.

“Not naked,” she said. “But close enough. I was in a bra and underwear, changing from P.E., and those pictures were everywhere. The sole good thing about this is it was before Facebook and Snapchat and Instagram. But they printed out the pictures and taped them up all over school. I’d tear one down and then I’d open my locker and another copy would be there. Or go to the bathroom and there was one taped to the stall door, and to the mirror, and passed out at football games.” She shuddered out a breath. “Everyone saw them. It was . . . well, for a girl not comfortable in her own skin, especially for one with boobs and curves that were more developed, it was horrible.” A shiver had Jaime turning up the heat on the shower, and she was grateful. “Then they spread the rumor that I’d known about the camera, that I was posing for the pictures, and . . . guys made assumptions. Hell, girls and teachers did, too.”

Her chin dropped to her chest.

“Red,” he said hoarsely. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s not all,” she whispered then forced herself to lift her head, to strengthen her tone. “The police opened an investigation, and because I was underage and the pictures were shared, it was considered child pornography.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” She stroked her hands down his arms. “It was the right thing to do, obviously, but . . .”

“It blew back harder on you.”

Kate nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Eventually, we moved. The timing was good in a way. My mom had made the sale, was ready for a new job, and my dad could work remotely. But Ann and Jake were devastated.” She leaned her head back against the tile. “They had a hard time adjusting to the new school, to leaving their friends, their sports teams. I think they understood as we got older, but I knew they resented it at the time.”

“Your parents did the right thing.”

“I know,” she said. “I just hate that they had to, hate that even after the move I wasn’t even in any shape to go to school in-person. I home-schooled until I left for college.”

“You were violated, Kate. People don’t just bounce back to normal.”

She sighed. “I know.”

“Do you?” he asked quietly.

Her normal response would be to say of course she knew. But if the last week had taught her anything, it was that her first instinct wasn’t necessarily right.

“I’m working on it,” she admitted. “I think I spent so long trying to shove everything down and move forward like nothing was wrong that I didn’t realize exactly how much it had affected me, even now. Silly, huh?”

He shook his head, held her tighter. “No, Red. That’s normal.”

“Oh yeah?” she said, wanting to turn the page on this, to grasp on to something lighter, something not so painful.

Not that she was going to ignore it or pretend it had never happened.

Not any longer.

She was just going to put it behind her. To—in Jaime’s words—take away its power, wash it down the drain.

“Yes,” he agreed, pressing a kiss to her cheek, to the tip of her nose, to her forehead. “Completely, totally normal.”

“Well, what’s your quote-unquote normal that still haunts you?”

He didn’t hesitate, just offered himself up on a platter. “I wet the bed until I was eight or nine. Sometimes I still wake up in terror, thinking I’ve done it again, and it’s been more than twenty years.”

“Oh, baby,” she murmured.

“Pathetic, right?”

“No.” She kissed him.

“Not gonna tease me about Pull-Ups or a mattress protector?” he asked and though his tone was light, she picked up on the nearly hidden vein of embarrassment