into his eyes. Pain and anger radiate from his black orbs.
“What do you mean?” I whisper.
“Even before my mom passed away, I knew what kind of man my father was—I could sense it. But my mom shielded Harper and me from the worst of it. After she passed, my shield was gone and I had to become the shield for Harper.” His jaw twitches.
“Did he… hit you?” I can barely get the words out, picturing a young Garrin cowering at the hands of an abusive father.
He shakes his head. “That would have been preferable in a lot of ways. My father’s go-to is to threaten the things I care about and take away the things I love. When I was twelve, I was into art. It was something my mother had introduced to me, so I tried to keep up with my drawing and painting after she was gone, even used her old supplies. Every time I’d sit down to paint with the same paintbrushes she had used for years, I felt closer to her, a little more at peace. But my dad thought that it was a stupid way to spend my time and wouldn’t further me in life.” He stops, and I patiently wait for him to continue.
“One day when I returned home from school, he called me to his office. I didn’t know why he wanted to see me, but he had me sit in the couch in front of the fireplace when I arrived and lectured me on my responsibility as the heir to his fortune and the Stone name. There was a fire going in the fireplace, which didn’t mean much when I first came in because there often was. But when his words started to drone into each other and my mind began to drift, they looked toward the fire and that’s when I noticed the edge of a canvas sticking out. I got up out of the chair and walked over to see that he’d burned everything. The few paintings I’d worked on, ones my mom had done herself and all her supplies. It felt like watching my mother’s body burn in front of me. I hadn’t cried that much since when I’d lost my mom, and my father told me that this would toughen me up, which was what I needed.”
I don’t even know what to say when he finishes talking. The cruelty of his father’s actions toward his own child makes my stomach roll.
“That’s awful,” I whisper as tears fill my eyes.
“That’s only one of many examples over the course of my childhood. I’m a cruel bastard because I was conditioned to be, but I assure you that my greatest fear is to become just like him.”
I sit up and straddle him so that I can cup his hands in my face. The hair from his five-o’clock shadow scratches my palms. “I don’t know your father, but I do know that you are not like him. If you were, you wouldn’t have told me about releasing the tape, and I never would have known. You’re a better man than him.” I lean in and press my lips to his.
His arms wrap around my waist and he deepens our kiss.
When I lean back, he tucks my hair behind my ears. “I want to be a better man, for you.”
“You already are,” I say, the words ringing true.
He still looks a little skeptical, but he’ll see for himself over time.
“I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose my dad,” I say, locking eyes with him.
Empathy shines through his dark irises. “You can’t think like that. You need to stay positive. But if the worst happens and you do, you’ll keep going. You’ll survive. You’re a survivor.”
There’s conviction in his words that I have yet to feel during this entire time.
“I don’t know.”
He grips me by the top of the shoulders, his gaze intense. “You will survive. I did and so will you.”
His words sound final, so I don’t argue. I don’t want to talk about this anymore anyway. I just want to curl up with him and watch some TV before his driver takes me home so that I can spend some time with my dad in the morning.
“Do you have any of that wine I like?” I ask him, changing the subject.
He takes the opportunity and runs with it. “I might be out up here, but I can grab some from the Titans’ Den. You wait here.”
I roll off him and