Page 38 of Never Tell Secrets

Slowly, unsure what the hell I was doing, I moved to kneel in front of him. His eyes flashed as I reached up to trace the scar on his brow. Touching him after all this time was a heady experience that lit my body on fire.

“What are you doing?” I’d seen this side of him before. When I’d taken care of him, showed him tenderness, he’d always greeted it with watchful suspicion.

I cupped his cheek, breathing through the electricity that shot through my palm. Part of me wondered how I could show him kindness after what he’d done to me, but this moment didn’t feel like the time to hold onto that. I could put the wall up again later, but right now, he needed this and a part of me did too, even if I did feel like I was comforting a dog that had bitten me before.

“I can’t take you back, Alfie, but I can tell you I don’t hate you. I can tell you that I don’t think you’re a monster. I can tell you that it’s alright, I?—”

His eyes narrowed and he pulled away from me, standing.

“—You should go.” He stood and I followed him.

“You don’t want me to go. I’m trying to tell you I understand what happened and why you did it. It’s alright.”

“Stop saying that,” he snapped, his voice like ice.

“It’s over, Alfie. You’ve told me the worst of what you’ve done and you don’t need to hate yourself for it anymore. It’s alright.”I reached for him again but he pulled away with a sneer, taking steps away from me, away from the warmth of the fire.

“It’s not alright. How can you say that?” He scowled at me as if I was the one he hated, deflecting all his disgust for himself onto me. “Didn’t you hear me? Ikilledthem. I killed my own brother and father.”

“That’s not how I see it,” I argued, keeping my voice steady. “I see an abused boy protecting himself. But that’s the problem isn’t it? If you had been protecting me or someone else, you wouldn’t feel so guilty but because you were saving yourself, you do.”

“Stop it,” he hissed but I didn’t, I pressed on.

“Because you don’t see yourself as worthy of being protected. Despite your arrogance, you don’t see yourself as worthy of anything real. That’s why you spent years pleasuring every woman you could get your hands on. It was the only way you could buy worth for yourself. With money, with sex.”

“You think you’re so smart, O’Connell. Why don’t we examineyoursense of self-worth? I might have hated my father but at least he stuck around. Maybe your daddy issues explain why you keep going after men that hurt you.”

“You’re deflecting, Alfie, and that doesn’t work on me anymore.” I ignored his attempt to push me away and took a step closer. “I understand you now. You panicked that night in the jacuzzi when you didn’t get me off, because I wasn't interested in what you believed was all you had to offer. That’s what your family taught you, that you’re worthless, but it isn’t true. Theyviolatedyou, Alfie.”

“That doesn’t make it alright,” he muttered through clenched teeth. He looked like he was an inch away from taking my head off.

“No, it doesn’t. But it is alright for you to let it go. It’s been twelve years and you have paid the price.”

“I can’t.” His fists balled up at his side, a twisted tornado of anger and fear.

“Why? Because you don’t know who you are without the guilt?”

“Shut the fuck up!” He was cracking. His frame trembled with the effort of keeping it together. He didn’t want to break in front of me. He wanted to present a calm front, one that would reassure me and draw me back in, but that had never been what I’d needed. I’d needed to see what he really was, not what he wanted to show me, and this pain-stricken man was what truly lay beneath his shiny veneer.

“Am I getting too close? What? You’ve let me in and now the reality of that is hitting you?”

“You need to stop?—”

“Or what?” I cut him off. With a strangled cry, he lunged and pinned me against the wall. My system went into shock. He was touching me. Alfie was touching me. Two years and four months without it and suddenly his touch was everywhere. It took me a moment to breathe again and, when I did, his scent swarmed my senses, pouring through me and turning me to liquid. He pressed himself close, my wrists pinned above my head.

“Do you have any idea what I could do to you?”

I should have been terrified but instead all I felt washim.That cord that had once connected us, linking me to him so strongly was still there, frayed, hanging on by a thread but it was there and the connection was still alive. I looked up into that beautiful face that I knew so well.

“What you could do to me? Alfie, you’re barely even holding me.” To prove my point, I pulled my wrists out of his easy grip. He let me go without a fight, trying to hide his defeat.

“I’ve hurt you before, violated you before.” He was trying so, so hard to convince me he was an evil, worthless man.

“Yes and you paid the price for that too.” I gazed up at him, feeling weak at his close proximity. “I’m telling you that I’ve heard the worst of what you’ve done and I don’t hate you for it. It’s alright and it’s time to let it go.” Before my words were out of my mouth he shoved away from me and headed for the door. He’d done this before, the night he’d burned himself. I’d pushed him and he’d shut down and shut me out, sinking into his pity spiral. But not tonight. I was done with this shit. I raced him to the door and beat him.

“Get out of the way. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t hurt me, Alfie.” I faced him down, and his eyes flashed like a caged tiger. He reached for the door handle but once again I blocked it. I couldn’t let him go. I had to see this through. I was so close to freeing him. He struggled for the handle but barely.