Page 136 of Cruel When He Smiles

“Meaning?” Nate’s voice is careful, but there’s steel under it.

I hold his gaze. “Meaning he didn’t care about the mind. He thought physical pain was the fastest way to erase a weakness.”

Nate’s hand rests on my jaw now, grounding me without force. I should stop talking. I’ve said enough, more than enough, but it’s like the second I start, I can’t turn it off. “Every bruise, every cut, every time I couldn’t stand for days—it was either a lesson or a punishment. My mother built me to manipulate, my father built me to survive.”

His thumb drags along my cheekbone, the motion almost absent-minded but enough to keep me here, in this moment, instead ofthere.“You’re wondering why I’m telling you this,” I say, and I can hear the edge in my own voice.

“I’m wondering why you’ve never told anyone,” he corrects quietly.

“Because it’s mine,” I say simply. “The one thing no one gets to use against me. You tell people where the cracks are, and they’ll make it their job to split you open.”

His grip tightens enough to make sure I’m looking at him. “I’m not them.”

That’s the dangerous thing about Nate—he gets inside without forcing his way in, makes me want to give him the parts of me I’ve buried so deep they stopped feeling real.

The silence stretches again, but it isn’t the kind that pushes me toward the edge; it’s the kind that lets me breathe.

And that’s when I fully realize he’s on his knees in front of me, too. We’re both here, neither of us higher than the other, no power tipped in one direction. For someone like me, that’s rare. For someone like me, it’s almost unthinkable.

I get to my feet and pull him up, before lying down on his bed and pulling him down with me. We’re on our sides facing each other when I take a deep breath and start.

“Even though my father used his fists, my mother was worse. She was a psychologist and taught me how to be this way.” I don’t know why I’m saying it. I don’t talk about her—I never talk about her. But now, with Nate in front of me, his skin warm against mine, his fingers moving in slow, steady strokes that I hate how much I like—it just falls out. “She taught me how to pretend.”

Nate stays quiet, waiting, his fingers slipping into my hair.

So, I keep going.

“She taught me how to smile the right way, how to say the right words, how to convince people to do what I wanted them to.” My fingers tighten on his hip. “She called it an experiment. Calledmean experiment.”

His breath hitches, but I can’t look him in the eye. “She said feelings were distractions and weaknesses. That they made you vulnerable.” My jaw clenches. “She said I was supposed to be better than that.”

Nate’s fingers still in my hair, and I close my eyes. “And then you happened.”

It’s barely a whisper, but Nate hears it. His grip tightens, his breath stutters, his whole body reacts, and I hate that he knows—that he sees. That I’ve let him in this much. I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do with that. I don’t know what the fuck he’s going to do with it either.

And I don’t know why I keep talking.

“You don’t fucking break, Nate. I’ve tried. I’ve pushed you away. I’ve twisted you up and fucked with your head and made you doubt everything you are, and you still—” I shake my head. “You still fucking fight me. You keep making me lose control.”

My voice is quieter now, almost a whisper. “I don’t know how to fucking handle that, and that’s the real problem. That’s the thing that’s been eating at me. Because I don’t know how to be this person. I don’t know how to be Liam Callahan when he’s not in control.”

My breath is coming fast, my chest is too tight, my hands are trembling because I can’t handle this. I can’t handle being out of control, and hate how Nate has turned my entire fucking world inside out, that I just admitted more than I ever have to anyone—

A warm hand lands on my cheek and stops everything.

The spiral. The storm in my head. The memories clawing at the edges of my vision.

Just—gone.Like the second his hand touches my skin, everything else fades into nothing. I still don’t know how he does that. How he can settle me with a single fucking touch, and how he knows when I’m about to tip over the edge and pulls me back without a word.

I don’t realize how much I’ve tensed until his hand drops away from my cheek. There’s space between us now, but not enough for me to breathe the way I want.

Nate watches me for a moment, then his eyes narrow just a fraction. “What were your parents’ names?”

The question catches me off guard. “Why?”

“Because I’m asking,” he says, and there’s a flicker of something unreadable in his gaze.

I exhale slowly, leaning back enough to watch his reaction. “Lisa and Elias Callahan. But my mother hated being tied to my father’s name, so she went by Lisa Harmon-James—her maiden name.”