An Invitation to Sin - By Sarah Morgan Page 0,69
DC and volunteered in a rehab unit. They didn’t care who I was, they were just grateful for the help. I felt good about myself for the first time in my life. It was Zach who helped me separate the acting from all the mess that surrounds it.’
‘I’m starting to almost like Zach.’ Luca stroked her hair gently. ‘So what made you come back to acting?’
‘I read this script. And Zach helped me see that I love being an actress, I just hate being in the spotlight when I’m not on set. I hate that feeling that everyone is waiting to tear me down. And because of our engagement you’ll be pulled down with me.’ She felt sick when she thought of it. ‘I dread to think what the board said to you.’
‘They told me I had to distance myself from you and that’s when I realised I didn’t want to. I didn’t want it to be fake. I want it to be real.’
‘Are you sure?’ Her smile was wobbly. ‘The real me gets me in trouble every time.’
‘Never with me. You’re forgetting that I grew up with fake. I grew up watching my mother turn herself inside out in an attempt to please my father.’
Taylor touched his face. ‘You’ve never talked about her.’
‘She worked so hard to make him love her.’ His raw confession startled her and she eased away so she could look at him.
‘You don’t have to tell me this.’
‘I want to. I want you to understand. But I’m not good at this—I’ve never talked to anyone.’
‘Why do you say she was fake?’
‘He hurt her again and again and she just came back for more and tried to be who she thought he wanted her to be. He travelled a lot and I used to dread him coming home. She went from being a relatively stable normal parent to an insecure mess. She’d walk into my room at all hours, sometimes she’d even wake me up, and she’d always be dressed in something different, wanting to know how she looked. “You have your grandfather’s sense of style, Luca, tell me if this works. Will he like me in this?”’ His handsome face revealed the strain. ‘For a while, when I was very young, I actually thought that to be loved you had to wear the right clothes. And every time my father rejected her she’d study his latest girlfriend and try and copy the look and she’d ask me again, “Is this better? Do you think he’ll like this?” And when he didn’t I always blamed myself. Maybe if I’d told her to wear pink instead of cream. Or wear her hair up instead of down. Maybe if I’d got it right, she wouldn’t have spent the whole night crying.’
Appalled, Taylor slid her fingers into his.
He’d shouldered responsibility for his parents’ marriage. He’d taken on his mother’s pain.
‘No wonder you didn’t want commitment.’
‘To me, commitment meant being responsible for someone’s feelings. It meant tying yourself in knots to be what someone else wanted you to be. It was about losing your sense of self. I had to watch her suffer every single day of my life growing up.’ His voice was raw. ‘I saw that love was manipulative and painful. I decided early on I didn’t want that.’
‘No. I can see why you wouldn’t.’ Taylor hesitated and then put her hand on his cheek. ‘I’m no expert, but if love exists I don’t think that was it.’
‘I know it wasn’t.’ He leaned his forehead against hers and she gave an unsteady laugh.
‘What a pair we are. We did this to give us both respectability. Thanks to me, your respectability has been blown apart. I don’t think it quite worked out the way either of us planned.’
‘I’m bored with being respectable. It makes me irritable. I want to be who I really am and I want to be it with you.’ Sliding his hand around her back, he pulled her hard against him. ‘How do you feel about doing this for real?’ He breathed the words against her lips. ‘We can spend the rest of our lives being disreputable together. We can live wickedly ever after.’
It sounded so impossibly good that tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away. ‘Is that really what you want?’
‘Yes. I love you, Taylor Carmichael Corretti. I love you for better and for worse—preferably worse, by the way.’ His eyes glittered into hers. ‘I love a bad girl. Think about it—if I