Page 44 of Love Restored

Blake shook her head. “Chris is dead. This is his parents.” Her voice shook. “They want Rowan because they’ve always found me unfit.”

“We won’t let that happen.”

Blake’s head shot up at Graham’s voice. Maya moved out of the way, and Graham moved closer to Blake. Her heart raced, her body going numb at the sight of him.

“You must have broken like every traffic law to get here,” Derek said.

“I’m here. That’s what matters.” He turned to Maya. “You okay without Blake today? I’m taking her to my place so she’s there when Rowan gets out of school. Derek, you okay driving her car back to my place later with someone?”

“Got it, just get me the keys.”

Blake held out her arms. When had everything fallen out of her hands into others’? This was so unlike her, and she hated it.

“Stop,” she said softly. “Stop trying to fix it. You can’t fix this, Graham. No one can.” She paused. “I appreciate everything you guys are doing, but I need to do this myself.”

Graham pinched her chin and forced her gaze to his. “You’ve been doing everything on your own long enough. We’re helping you, and you’re going to have to deal with it. Scream at me and hit me later. For now, we’re carrying your burden so you can get your head on straight.”

And with that eloquent statement, Blake promptly burst into tears.

Graham held her close, taking the papers from her hand, causing her to cry even harder. With each tear, she hated herself just a little bit more for not being able to hold it together. She’d been doing just fine for a freaking decade, but apparently, she couldn’t do it anymore. And it killed her that she wasn’t strong enough to be what Rowan needed now.

She must have said the last part out loud because Graham growled. “Keep calling yourself weak, and I’ll have to show you how strong you are. Now come with me, baby. We’ll handle this.”

“But you hate me,” she whispered, even as he led her to his car. She hadn’t looked at the others in the shop on the way out, her pride far beyond torn. How could she face them? How on earth could she ever repay them for picking up the pieces when she had nothing left to give?

Graham got her in the car and started the engine once he’d gotten into his seat. Then he sighed. “I don’t hate you, Blake. I was angry and said things I regret, but we’ll come back to that. Now, I’m going to need you to tell me everything you can as we get to my place. Can you do that? My brothers are getting your neighbor and daughter right now and will meet us. But I don’t know if you want to talk about everything in front of your kid. So tell me now, and let’s see how we can fix this.”

“We can’t fix this,” she said softly, her gaze on the window, unseeing.

“Doesn’t mean we can’t try,” he said gruffly. “Now talk, baby.”

She’d told herself she would tell the others anyway, so why not tell the man she’d been falling for? She didn’t know what would happen after this—if there was something after this—but she couldn’t keep it bottled up anymore.

Graham deserved to know what he’d put his family in the middle of.

He deserved so much more.

“I fell in lust with Chris when I was sixteen,” she began. “I thought it was love, but it wasn’t. I can see that now. We were high school sweethearts, you see. The prom queen and king with all the money and privilege in the world.”

“Hence the house,” Graham said.

“Hence the house.” She took a deep breath. “I was born a trust fund kid, a silver spoon in my mouth with forty spoons to spare. I had everything I ever wanted. My parents were the typical parents you read about with that much money and not enough love to shower on their child. They didn’t abuse me, didn’t neglect me, but they didn’t pay much attention to me once I started dating Chris. They were best friends with Chris’s family, so the match was perfect for them. They’d have their darling Blake married off to another rich family, and then we’d have perfect little babies and a perfect marriage. I wouldn’t need to go to college on their dime because I’d have found my husband already.”

Blake snorted. “God, I was such a young idiot.”

“We’re all idiots when we’re young.” A pause. “I married my high school sweetheart, after all.”

Blake looked over at him. Though his attention was on the road in front of them, his hands were fisted around the steering wheel. She knew she’d lose him again once she told him how not the sweetheart she truly was.

“We never married,” she said after a moment. “The day after graduation, we withdrew as much money as we could because, hey, it was our money, right? I figured I’d go to school after I lived a bit, you know? As for Chris? I don’t think he ever wanted to go back to school. He just wanted to party and live off his parents like his dad had done before he’d found his path. So he drank, and I drank with him. He smoked, but I didn’t since I never liked the taste. When he started doing drugs because some of his friends did, he scared me, and I broke up with him and ran back to my parents. They wanted nothing to do with me. Not that I could blame them. They disowned me, hit me, and called me a whore. So I lived on the streets for a couple weeks before I found a job as a receptionist at a tattoo shop and tried to figure out my life.”

She let out a breath.

“Chris got clean and I went back. I was so freaking stupid. I quit my job because Chris’s family paid for his lifestyle, while my parents threatened my life daily. His parents figured if they let him party it out, he’d come back to them. I don’t know if he ever would have, even if things had turned out differently. I was worse than an abuser, I was an enabler. I tried to get Chris off drugs, but it was never enough. When I got pregnant, I ran. I didn’t want my baby to be a part of that.”

She closed her eyes.

“Chris OD’d a few days after I had Rowan. He never met her, never knew I was having a girl. I was so scared someone was going to take her away from me, but they didn’t. I had a job, a roof over my head, and the determination to keep her.”

---