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“I’m… aggravated.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry.”
Our eyes met. “Why are you sorry?”
“You were pained by that interaction. I hate to see you in pain.”
He stared at me, and something ran through his thoughts before he dropped a kiss on my forehead and looked back out the window.
“I’ve experienced pain that goes beyond that interaction, trust me.”
Sorrow knotted in my belly. “I’m sorry about that, too.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.”
He looked down at me again. “Okay. It’s not fine. But, I’m here in the present with you. So, technically, it’s fine. I don’t have to live in the past.”
“While you’re not physically living in the past it is something that haunts you, isn’t it?”
“I do the haunting. Nothing haunts me.”
“Do you think your past has anything to do with how you rule your present?”
He peered at me. “Are you asking if being abandoned is the reason I rain hell on Earth?”
I ran my tongue across my teeth. “Sure.”
He chuckled. “Maybe. Not entirely, but somewhat. I had to build a fortress around myself as a kid because people take advantage of kids, they abuse them in a lot of ways, and someone has to teach these types of people a lesson.”
“That someone is you, I guess.”
His gaze went back to the beach, and I took his silence as his answer.
“Was it your foster parents?”
“It was everyone I came in contact with until Cruz, Storm, Rev, and you.”
My hands stilled, then I hugged him tighter. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“But I am.”
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.”
“You didn’t deserve what happened to you.”
“You don’t know what happened to me.”
“From what you said I can read between the lines.”
He glanced at me, his jaw locked, and his thoughts shuffled again.
“What happened to your mother?”
His nostrils flared at the same time sorrow moved through his faraway gaze.