Maggie squeezed her arms around me again. She was so happy she found that box. I didn’t understand how parents could treat their children so cruelly. My father wanted nothing to do with me even after I stopped the drugs and started the rehab center with Tim. Tim said he didn’t want anything to do with our father, but I’d be willing to bet that our father told him he was dead to him, too, as long as he was with me.

In reality, I was no better than my father. I was the only family Tim had left, and I walked out on him, too. He was desperate enough to get me to come home by any means necessary, but I ignored that and told him to fuck off. I was just as big of a piece of shit as my father.

“What are you thinking about?” Maggie broke me out of my thoughts.

“Nothing.”

She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at me. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you Bev was my mother. It’s been awkward. I had been asked the same questions a million times when people around here found out, and I still didn’t have the answers to try to explain it again. I didn’t know how to say it to you without sounding like a bitch.” She looked down. “I was a bitch, though. I have a lot to make up for.”

I cupped her face and stroked her cheek with my thumb. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, and I guarantee you Beverly understands. I wish you would’ve told me sooner because it puts things into perspective. She isn’t a nosy bitch who runs the diner across the street. She’s a mother protecting her daughter from the asshole who moved in on her.”

“You’re not an asshole.” She laid her head back down. “If you’re not upset with me, then why are you so quiet?”

“I’ve been thinking about my brother. I left him just like you thought your mom left you. He has no other family, and I ran away. I think I need to go back.”

The circles she was drawing on my chest with her fingers stopped. “You’re going back home?”

“I’m thinking about it.” I sat up and rubbed my face. “I need to see him. I need to see why he was so desperate to get me back there. He has to be hiding something.”

“So, you’ve made up your mind. You’re leaving?”

I turned quick and pushed her back on the bed, covering her body with mine. “I’m not moving back home. I’m just thinking about a visit.” I kissed her.

“I want to go with you.”

“No.” I sat up, shaking my head. “That is not an option.”

“Are you ashamed of me?”

“Not at all.” I turned and looked at her. “You’re one of the best things to ever happen to me. I’m ashamed of me. I’m not a good guy. When are you going to believe me?”

She got to her knees and wrapped her arms around me. “You are the best thing to ever happen to me, too. Whoever you were isn’t who you are now. When are you going to believe in yourself?”

I looked into her eyes. I wanted to believe what she was saying, but she didn’t know what I knew. She didn’t know how cruel I’d been to others. She’d seen glimpses of it, but never the full force of what I was capable of.

She put her forehead to mine. “What makes you think I don’t already know?”

I startled her when I gripped her arms and held her back from me a little. “You know nothing about me. These little stories about poor little Brody not being loved by his daddy may be a story you think you can relate to, but you are out of your element when it comes to the rest of my life.”

She looked as if she was wrestling with saying something. I stood and paced at the foot of the bed. “If you’ve got something to say, spit it out. I don’t play games.”

“I don’t play games, either. I was hoping you’d tell me on your own, but I can see that will never happen.”

I stopped pacing and looked at her. She couldn’t know. I was far enough away from home that the news wouldn’t have broken there. It took a couple of states to stop running into people who recognized me, but she couldn’t know. I wouldn’t have been standing in her bedroom with nothing on if she did.

“Who is Laney Mosley?”

She knew. I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me. My hands shook as I squeezed my fists. I didn’t want to lose Maggie, but regardless if I answered that question or not, I lost her.

I grabbed my jeans off the floor. “Fuck this.”

She got out of bed and grabbed my arm. “Please don’t leave. I want to hear what happened.”

“You wouldn’t understand.” I wretched my arm free and bent over to grab my shoes. I stood when she jumped on my back and held on. I took her arms and pried them off me before tossing her back onto the bed. “Stop.”

She ran to the door and blocked it before I could grab my shirt. “You stop. Think about what you’re doing. I want to know. I’m not afraid of the truth. Why are you?”

I got into her face and yelled, “I’m not afraid of the truth. I live with it every day. It follows me everywhere.”

“What happened? We can talk about it. I promise I’m not going anywhere.” She stroked my face.

“I kidnapped her. I fucked her. I almost ruined her life!” I bent down closer and whispered as her eyes grew wide at my confession, “I will ruin you, too, if you don’t get out of the fucking way.”

She still held my face as she closed her eyes and put her forehead to mine. “If you walk out that door, you will ruin me.” She didn’t move her head back, but opened her eyes and looked directly into the anger staring back at her. “I’m falling in love with you, Brody Michaels, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

I slammed my fist on the door behind her, causing her to jump. I couldn’t speak in more than a whisper. “Please don’t love me.”

She pulled on my arm that still had the fist against the door and took my hand in hers. After she coaxed me to relax it, she placed my palm on her chest over her heart. “I’m strong enough to handle anything you think you’re going to throw at me.” She placed her other hand over my heart. “I know the man you are in here. It’s time you get to know him, too.” She whispered, “Talk to me.”

We stood at her door feeling each other’s heartbeats as our foreheads were pressed together. She never looked away from me. How could a woman like her know what I’d done and still look at me as she was? No one had ever looked at me like that before. Not even Laney.

“Her father hired me.” I felt her heartbeat pick up, but she never wavered. I stood up straight and backed away a few steps. “He didn’t like the man she was going to marry and wanted to destroy the relationship. It almost worked.”

“Why did you agree to it? Did you know her?”

I ran my hands through my hair and sat on the edge of the bed. I expected her to sit next to me, but she stayed where she was by the door. “No, I never met her before.” I sighed. “How did you find out?”

“Walt showed me the headline.”

I looked at her. “That’s all you know? When did you find out?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “When I went to get more money after he met you. Brody, I wanted to know what happened, but I wanted to hear it from you.”

“What did it say?”

“The headline? It said you kidnapped a woman and were shot by a father.”

I shook my head. “They got that wrong. Her father’s right-hand man shot me. He was why I did it. Marco was a creep in every sense of the word. When Joshua Mosley was sitting in my office, telling me what he wanted me to do, Marco was in the corner jacking off thinking I was going to turn the job down and he’d get to do it. I couldn’t let her go with him.” I looked down. “I was no better than him, though.”

“But, you’re not in prison. If you had done all those things to her, you’d be in prison.”

“I turned myself in and helped the district attorney put her father away. He wasn’t a nice man.” I blew out a breath as I stood and paced. I hadn’t talked about any of it since I gave my official statement to Ryan. “He said he wanted her away from her fiancé to break them up, but he knew that wasn’t going to be enough.

“There was a long list of terrible things he’d done before that to try to get them apart. They loved each other. Nothing worked.”

“Why? My dad was as controlling as anyone could be, but he still wanted to marry me off.”

“I’m not sure of all the details, but he didn’t make an honest living. He was close to getting caught and needed to funnel his cash flow into something else. He used her business while I had her. I didn’t know that was his real motive until after I’d turned myself in.

“Ryan Wilcox was the prosecutor who put me away when I was young and stupid. He’s been impressed with my life after prison, so while we aren’t close, he has kept tabs on me. He’s now the DA and the only reason I trusted the law enough to turn myself in. He thought things through and what was best for Laney and the situation.”

“It sounds as if he thought what was best for you, too. You’re not in prison.”

“I should be. I expected it and accepted it when I turned myself in. I almost didn’t take the deal he offered. I didn’t deserve to get by with a charge of obstruction and only have community service. I deserved to be in prison for what I did just like her father.”

“Are you still in love with her?” She scoffed when I stopped pacing and looked at her as if I didn’t know what she was talking about. I knew. I didn’t think she did. “You can deny you loved her all you want, but no man is going to turn himself in and face prison time just because he’s a nice guy. What made you do it?”

“I wanted to nail Joshua Mosley to the wall. If anyone needed to be ripped from her life, it was him, not her fiancé. I’d been in prison before for destroying a bar on a bender, but that was nothing compared to the prison I put myself in for ruining innocent lives. I couldn’t forgive myself if I let her father win and rip them apart.”

“So, you still love her.”

It wasn’t a question, but I didn’t have the answer anyway. “I honestly don’t know.”

She crossed her arms. “Did she fall for you?”

“No. That I can say with certainty. Everything she did was to get back to Bryce, her fiancé.”

“That’s why you left? You couldn’t stand to see them together?”

“No, I left because I told my brother to tell her I didn’t make it.”

“What?” She dropped her arms and narrowed her eyes. “She thinks you’re dead? How could you do that? That’s cruel, Brody. That’s really cruel.”

“It wasn’t cruel. I didn’t want her to worry about running into me. She didn’t need to be reminded of what I put her through. I did my community service in some of the most disgusting jobs possible to be sure I wouldn’t run into her or Bryce. I stayed home when I wasn’t paying my debt to society. As soon as the debt was paid I was gone. She’d never have to worry about me again.”

“No, you didn’t want her to choose her fiancé over you when given the chance. You couldn’t handle it and made the choice for her.”

I shook my head. “She did that every time she lied to me. She chose him every single day over me. She just got better at hiding it.”

“Did you rape her?” There was some anger in her voice. “You said you fucked her, but she’s supposed to be in love with her fiancé. Did you rape her?”

“No. I didn’t have to. I had sex with her one time. I thought she was—” I scoffed. “I don’t know what I thought, but she was playing me to get free. When I realized that and how much she really loved Bryce, I went to Ryan and turned myself in.”

I watched her as she processed everything I told her. She didn’t stray from the door. I wanted to know what she was thinking, but her silence said enough. I sat on the edge of the bed and put my shoes on.

When I reached down to grab my second shoe, I saw her feet in front of mine. I held on to the tongue of my shoe, but I waited for her to make the first move.

“So, when are we leaving?”