me. My betrayal would hurt her more than Houston or Loren’s ever could because she never expected it from me. I could see the unshakable trust in Braxton’s eyes each time she looked at me.
Fuck.
“How old was he?” Houston asked, and I knew he wasn’t merely curious. The dick wanted her to admit out loud, even indirectly, that she wasn’t to blame.
Braxton fidgeted in her seat, her eyes and voice low when she mumbled, “Thirty-six.”
There was nothing but the sound of the plane’s engine and the air circulating through the cabin.
I watched as Braxton forced herself to meet Houston’s gaze, who never wavered. Her shoulders were back now, but her breathing seemed erratic. She was swallowing and flaring her nostrils at whatever teased her senses. It was a reaction, easily missed, that I’ve seen from her before. The cause was something else we needed to unveil and soon.
“Come here.”
Braxton hesitated for only a moment before unbuckling her seatbelt and crossing the small space between them. Houston made sure she faced us too when he pulled her into his lap. Her legs were thrown over the arm of his seat as she stared down at him.
“What if it had been Rosalie?” he questioned softly, going straight for the motherfucking kill. There was a reason Houston was our unspoken leader. “Would you have blamed her?”
Braxton’s brown eyes were hard when she stiffened in Houston’s lap. “Never.”
“So how could you think we would ever accept that what happened to you was your fault?”
Seeing for myself what Braxton’s parents made Rosalie do before she’d even learned to drive, nausea slammed into me like a relentless tidal wave.
It could have been Braxton.
If they’d known, if Jacob had knocked her up…the Fawns would have made their daughter marry a man old enough to be her father. They would have done it to hold their heads high in a middle-of-nowhere town.
Justice wouldn’t have been an option.
Braxton wouldn’t have been an option.
Their beliefs and their pride would have mattered more.
Braxton’s gaze snapped to me as if she’d read my thoughts, and it was at that moment, the first crack in her armor appeared. I could see it in her eyes even as she tried to reason with us. “It was a long time ago.”
Houston closed his eyes, and Loren responded.
I couldn’t do anything. My goddamn stomach was in my throat.
“And the fact that you’ve been carrying it ever since is what pisses us off, baby fawn. You’re never going to convince us any differently.”
She looked at Loren, who was strangling his seat as if it were Jacob fucking Fried. I was tempted to call my private eyes and pull them off Emily’s trail. I had a new mission.
“Is he still in Faithful?” I whispered.
Catching my drift, Houston didn’t react, but Loren was grinning like a Cheshire cat. Neither would stop me if I put the play in motion.
Braxton was none the wiser when she shook her head. “I promised him I’d never tell anyone, but it didn’t matter. He skipped town, and I never saw him again.”
“Is Fried the reason you believe you’re a sex addict?”
“No.” Laying her head on Houston’s shoulder, Braxton closed her eyes. “It was the ones who came after. It was their parents. It was my parents. It was everything I was taught. I was stuck inside a town too rigid to understand what was happening inside of me. I had all this energy and no conduit. All I wanted was to breathe. Jacob gave me that when he taught me to play. I had an outlet. I could express myself. I could follow my soul through the dark and find the light that called to me. The world my parents chose was no longer my sole reality. I understood who I was meant to be, and what I was meant to be—free.”
Her eyes slowly opened, trapping Loren within their depths.
“You were right. Jacob used me, but I used him too. Music wasn’t enough anymore, and he was the only one I trusted to understand. I preyed on his grief, and he preyed on my desperation. We were both too alone in this world to say no. After he left, I fought it. I was afraid of my parents finding out what I’d done. I didn’t just sin, I enjoyed it, and I wanted to do it again. Sex consumed me. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. Eventually, I didn’t fear my parents as much as slipping back into my shell.”