Sweet Love - Mia Kayla Page 0,29

beautiful, but like the saying goes, Beauty is only skin deep.”

“How about your parents? Tell me about them.”

I didn’t know how the branding/marketing session had turned into a me-wanting-to-get-to-know-her session. Yet here we were.

Her smile slipped, and she inched back, shrinking smaller into her chair.

“My mom remarried. And … I guess I like him. The new guy.”

She was almost the color of her red shirt. “I didn’t mean it that way. Richard is a nice man.”

After waving a hand she pulled at her neckline, and I shifted in my seat because my eyes flew back to her fingers … which were near her exposed creamy skin by her collarbone. I tore my gaze away and focused on her face.

What the hell is wrong with me? It was as if I were a teenage boy going through puberty and had never seen breasts before.

“My stepdad treats her like a queen, and she deserves to be treated as such. She’s not used to anything less because my father treated her like a queen all the way down to his last dying breath. I mean …”

My heart seized.

Charlie dropped her stare to the table, and I couldn’t read her eyes. I placed a hand on her fist, my thumb brushing against her knuckles. Only then did her gaze flicker up to meet mine.

“I’m sorry about your dad. What happened?”

“Cancer.” Her tone was heavy with sorrow, and my heart sank.

I released a deep sigh, and I had this undeniable urge to hold her. But I kept steady. As I’d grown up in a no-parent household, it was my grandmother who had taught me about kindness and sympathy toward others. It was how I’d helped raise my brother. My parents had been too busy with raising a business instead of raising us.

She pulled her hand from under mine and rubbed at her brow, her fingers trembling. “He was in hospice toward the end, and that was really, really tough. Quite honestly, it’s still really, really tough.” Now, both her hands made it to her temples, as though reliving the memory was too hard for her to handle.

“You want to know the real reason I don’t care for chocolate?” Her shoulders dropped, and when she lifted her head, I saw all the emotions swimming in her green-as-emerald irises. “It’s because”—a slow, heavy breath escaped her—“when we were in the hospital, I’d go to the vending machine and grab a chocolate bar while waiting for his results or when he got his treatments. Almost every day, I’d go and get a chocolate bar, and now, I just can’t do it anymore. It brings me to a part of my life I want to forget.”

Silence stretched between us. It was as though I could tell her mournful misery came off her in waves, and it sucked. Life sucked sometimes. Out of everyone, I knew that the most.

“I’m sorry,” I found myself saying again. “About your dad. About your hate for chocolate now. About everything.” I decided to focus on the positive then. “Your mom is so lucky to have you.”

“Thank you.” Her eyes briefly met mine before her gaze fell somewhere over my shoulder, seeing nothing. “When she found someone, even though my life was set in Wisconsin and I had a job and my friends, I just wanted her to be happy, so here I am. Implant.” She ended that sentence with a smile, but it was a forced smile that didn’t meet her eyes.

“That’s selfless of you. Really. Given that you could have stayed back in Wisconsin. It’s not like you’re seventeen, not legal, barely out of college, and you need your parents.”

She shook her head. “I’m far from a saint, let me tell you. Half the time, I’m trying to think of ways to secretly torture my stepsister.” She laughed at her own joke, and it was a beautiful laugh. “But honest to goodness, my childhood and family mean everything to me. My childhood was filled with laughter—like, I’m talking belly laughs till I couldn’t get up—and on the daily. How many families can say they’re like that? We were one unit. Even though I didn’t have any siblings, I never lacked a thing.” Her smile widened, and it was natural this time. “At times, my dad was a big, old kid, constantly joking around.”

I wished I had memories like that. Endless laughter with my parents? It never happened. But I did have laughter in my memories. They consisted of Nana and Papa and Kyle.