Page 58 of Redemption

I scour my recent memories to understand this change in her. Maybe my unnervingly intense apology hadn’t frightened her like I thought. Yesterday afternoon—after she showed me her nightmarish self-portrait—I’d thought she’d been distressed. I overwhelmed her and made her break down sobbing.

No. That can’t be what’s changed her mind, no matter how sincere my apology was.

It must be this: the fact that I’ve told her my worst trauma.

I’ve made myself vulnerable with her.

The power she holds over me should be terrifying, but I want her too badly to care. She’s looking at me with that clear, open gaze for the first time since I brought her to England. Sheseesme in a way no one else ever has. No one has ever bothered to try.

I obey her gentle urging and draw in a deep breath. Calm settles over me, and my eyes droop closed with a sudden wash of exhaustion.

Her hand turns in mine, pulling away from my chest. My fingers tighten around hers, but she’s not trying to escape me; she’s urging me to follow.

“You should sleep in the bed,” she says. “That chaise can’t be comfortable.”

I look at her with wonder. Is she offering me absolution? Or at least acceptance?

I scarcely dare to hope.

“I don’t want you to pity me.”

“This isn’t pity,” she assures me and climbs into bed, making room for me beside her.

I join her before she can change her mind. She scoots back slightly, and I get the message: I can sleep beside her, but she still wants space.

I can give her that.

For now.

I’ll win her back, no matter how vulnerable I have to make myself. Nothing matters but having her.

“My father likes to drink, too,” she says after we settle down, inches apart. “And he doesn’t care who he hurts when he’s drunk. Usually, it’s verbal cruelty. But it still hurts.” She places her delicate hand over mine again, the lightest contact. “I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sorry about Katie.”

Just the sound of someone else saying her name in this house, acknowledging her existence, is enough to make my eyes burn strangely.

“Thank you. I am too.”

Another beat of silence passes before I growl, “You saidusually.Has your father ever laid a hand on you?”

“I don’t think we should talk about this.”

“Why not?”

She’s looking at me with that clear-eyed gaze again, and it takes everything in me not to glance away from the power of her guileless stare.

“Because I don’t know what you might do to him if I tell you.”

That answer is enough to seal his fate, but she won’t want to hear that.

“I’m serious, Dane.” She reads me so easily. “You can’t hurt my father.”

I decide to bargain with her. “I won’t, if you tell me what he did.”

She considers me for a long moment, assessing my honesty. Whatever she sees in my expression, she must decide that she believes me.

“It hasn’t happened since I was about ten,” she begins. “But he used to belt me if I disappointed him. Or angered him. He got angry a lot when he was drinking. At some point, I guess he decided I was too old to discipline me like that anymore. The cruelty was verbal after that. He would yell, and then my mother would dictate the terms of my punishments.”

“And what did she do topunishyou?” I can’t quite keep the dangerous edge from the question.