Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 147967 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147967 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
She sucked in a deep breath. “We have something in common.”
“We do. For similar reasons. I need to tell you something.”
“All right,” she whispered, wondering what he was going to tell her. He wasn’t a person to talk much about himself. She’d gotten bits and pieces but nothing more.
“Both of my parents are dead.”
Um, right. He’d already told her that. But she nodded anyway, waiting for what he had to say.
“I told you that they died in an accident, but that wasn’t the full truth. That’s just something I tell people because it’s easier.”
Okay, she didn’t like that. She wasn’t just people.
No, she wanted to be more. She wanted to believe in what he was saying about wanting more with her. However, there was a part of her that was having trouble believing that it was real.
“There was a car accident, but that’s not how they both died. My papa was driving too fast for the conditions. We’d been on at him to get his eyes tested, but he thought he had perfect vision. He miscalculated a turn and took it too fast. The crash left my papa injured but all right. However, my maman was left in a coma, fighting for her life. She had brain damage and the doctors warned us that it wasn’t likely that she would survive.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“My father didn’t take it well. When I finally got him to agree to take her off life support, he collapsed. I should have known . . . should have realized that he shouldn’t be left alone.”
She had a terrible feeling that she knew where this was going. And she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to hear what he had to say.
“I found him several hours later at their house. He shot himself.”
“Oh, Matthieu. I’m so sorry.” She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him.
He stood and picked her up in his arms, then he sat on the bed with her on his lap. Her legs were straddling his hips. She could feel herself blushing.
Now isn’t the time to get turned on.
“That must have been terrible for you.” She couldn’t even think of what to say to him. She was so crap at this.
“It was. I was so angry at him. But I was even more angry at myself for not realizing, for not doing something. I know I was an adult, but I still needed him.”
Hesitantly, she cupped his face between her hands. “I’m not the best person at knowing what to say in situations like this, but it wasn’t your fault. You lost your mom too. He should have known how upset you would be.”
She knew it was wrong to feel mad at his dad, but she couldn’t stop that feeling from welling up.
If his dad was here now, she’d probably let him know exactly what she thought of him.
Easy. His dad is gone. He’s in pain. The last thing he needs is you telling him how angry you are at his dad.
“Yeah, I think that’s why I was most angry, because it felt like he didn’t even think about me. All he thought of was himself. How devastated he was. How he didn’t want to live without her. But I had to go on without them both. It was always the three of us. They couldn’t have other children after me. We were always close. They adored each other, but they always loved me as well. I used to watch the two of them, how devoted they were to one another and I wanted something like that.”
Is that why he’d never had a long-term relationship? Because he’d never found that before?
Had he found it with her?
Hope welled inside her.
“But after they died, I realized the downside of loving someone that much. So much that you lost yourselves in them and couldn’t imagine being without them.”
And the hope started to die. Did he want her because he didn’t love her the way his parents had loved each other?
“I decided that I didn’t want to end up like them, so in love with another person that I couldn’t live without them. That I would leave everyone else behind to be with them. I couldn’t love to that extreme.”
“So that’s why you want to be with me?” she asked in a hoarse voice. “Because you know you will not love me like that?”
Shock filled his face and he grasped hold of her hips firmly, as though he was worried that she would try to get away from him.
There was no way she was moving, though. She wasn’t certain that her legs would even hold her up.
“You deserve a consequence for that,” he informed her in a stern voice.
Her mouth dropped open. She couldn’t believe he’d just said that to her.
“E-excuse me?”
“I’m going to add that to the punishment you have coming. Something we will take care of soon.”