never talked about his family.
It wasn’t the first time that Adison’s presence had loosened his tightly enforced boundaries. It was probably the occasion that he would come to regret the most, though.
“You’ve never mentioned her before.” Adison’s head cocked. “I got the impression that you don’t have any family left.”
“I don’t.” He turned his face to the fire.
“Oh,” she said softly. Then… “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Really?”
It wasn’t. He’d only said that it was because that was the facade he projected. The facade he’d worked so hard to build. Now, with one reply, it was crumbling. He tried to hold onto the mask, but it was sand slipping between his fingers.
“You know, I have a way of coming undone around you.” He turned his face back to Adison. “I’m not sure whether I like it or not. I’m not sure how I should feel.”
Her lips parted, firelight dancing in her eyes. Her hair hung loose over her shoulders, and he longed to twist his fingers in it, to close his eyes and inhale her scent until he wasn’t sure which way was up and which was down.
Adison inhaled a shaky little breath and looked down, her eyelashes fluttering. Ken’s heart constricted.
“I’m sorry.” He grit his teeth. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Her eyes lifted and met his. “Just to be clear, are we having this conversation as boss and employee or friends?”
He licked his lips. “I would like to think of you as a friend, but there are also limits to that.”
“Exactly.” She went to take a drink of her wine but reconsidered it and put the glass down. “So you don’t celebrate Christmas because it reminds you of your sister? Is that it?”
Ken tensed. He thought that he’d successfully navigated away from that topic.
“I don’t do a lot of things I used to,” he said. “I run my foundation and that’s it. It gives me purpose. Every morning when I wake up, I know what I need to do and I do it. I make a difference in people’s lives, even if it’s from a distance.”
“Why does it have to be from a distance?”
He pressed his tongue against his front teeth, the emotions he worked so hard to constantly bottle up rising. “Because I hurt people.”
Adison’s eyebrows pinched together. “I don’t see that. Who? Who do you hurt?”
He couldn’t look at her. “I hurt my sister.”
“What do you mean?” she whispered.
He laced his hands together. Very few people knew about this. He was tired of walking around with the shame, though, and assuming he was no good because of it.
He wanted to unburden himself, to reveal the truth to Adison and let her make her own judgment call. If she accepted him, great. If she threw stones, then okay. He would accept the punishment.
“Becca was autistic,” he said. “She needed constant help. Dressing. Eating.”
He let out a shaky breath and paused. Last chance to back out of sharing.
But he figured why not go for it. It was almost Christmas, and people liked to speak about miracles around this time. God knows he was due for one of those.
“My parents depended on my help with her. It was hard, I have to admit, but I never saw Becca as a burden. She was the most loving person I knew. If she saw a mosquito in the house, she would insist I catch it and put it outside rather than kill it.”
He smiled at the memories. Becca had been too good for this world.
And the world had been too cruel for her.
“Sometimes she would have seizures.” His hands tightened on each other. “On Christmas Eve when I was seventeen, I went out partying with friends. I was supposed to wake Becca up and get her ready the next morning because my parents had gone out to grab something last-minute. A present.”
He still didn’t know what that present was; if it was for him or Becca or the both of them. He’d never asked. Out of everything that occurred that fateful morning, it was the least important detail.
“I didn’t want to get up that morning,” he said. “My dad came in to tell me he and my mom were leaving. I told him that I was getting up right then…”
His voice cracked. He stared into the fire until his vision blurred. “I was tired. I kept telling myself one more minute. I guess those minutes turned into an hour. I had fallen back asleep when all of a sudden it was like someone shook me