Page 102 of Scandalous Lover

Maybe this crazy, indecisive anxiety is just what it feels like to finally care about another person as much as I care about myself. I want Sam. I want him so badly it’s burning me alive.

But I also want him to be safe and happy and not crushed under the weight of my baggage.

I focus on the slow, steady movement of Sam’s finger on my belly to ground myself. As I watch, however, I start to see that he’s not drawing circles at all.

He’s tracing hearts.

I shift my hips suddenly so that I’m laying on my side,effectively tossing his hand from my stomach. He stretches out on his own side, gaze finally making it up to meet mine.

And it’s time to be brave.

“I’ve been alone for a long time, too. Most of my life. My mother…well, you know what happened to her. And my father never looked at me. I assumed it was because I look so much like her, but I’m not her. Dom was whatever, gone, busy. It was just me. I made it work. I made myself a life. I finally had something going. I trusted people.” I pause as my voice breaks, rolling back to my back, using both hands to wipe my face. Sam just waits for me to calm down. I can feel his gaze on me. “I don’t know what to do now. But I do know this. It feels good here. It feels safe.” I finally drop my eyes to meet his. “You feel safe. But I need that to be true for both of us.”

For a minute, I think Sam might cry as well, but then his deep look turns pensive. “I don’t know what happened to your mother.”

I feel the surprise hit my expression at his words, and I struggle to find a response.

“Do you?” Sam asks, seeing my hesitation.

This is not something I talk about often. Actually, I’ve never talked about it before.

No one has ever asked.

After a long moment and a few deep breaths, I nod. “She died of…me, I guess.”

Sam visibly flinches and I leap in to save him. “It was a long time ago.”

“My mom told me something vague about complications with childbirth, and I always just imagined a wound that never healed.”

“I suppose that’s correct.”

Sam shifts closer and pulls me into his body, curling around me until I’m wrapped in his warmth. “I always knew that yourhouse wasn’t a safe place for anyone to talk about their feelings.”

“What did Dom say about it?” I ask, suddenly curious. In addition to my father never mentioning my mother’s name after her death, my brother also seemed to just forget about her.

Sam is quiet for a moment, considering. “It wasn’t exactly something he brought up often. But before you were born, when your mom was pregnant with you, he talked about you a lot. He was really excited to have a little sister.”

“Until that sister stole his mother away.” I don’t mean to sound so bitter. None of this is Sam’s fault, and it really was a long time ago. I’m over it.

I feel Sam shake his head against my body. “It wasn’t like that. It was almost like he was scared of you. Or scared you would get hurt. He never wanted you to come with us because what we were doing was too dangerous, even if it was something simple like riding our bikes to town. He would yell at you to go back home, and when one of the other guys would ask him why he was so mean, he would just say that you were too little to come. What if you got hurt, he would ask?”

“Protective since day one, I guess.” I huff. “I guess that explains our current predicament.”

“We protect the things we love the most, Naomi. Not the things we don’t care about.”

Sam’s words hold so much truth, I can’t bear to have them land on me. I’m not ready to forgive. I’m not ready to admit that the two men who caused me the most pain in life were just in pain themselves. Instead, I just snuggle deeper into Sam’s arms and close my eyes.

I have no idea when he gets up and stops the recording, but when I wake the next morning, my phone is plugged in beside the bed.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Naomi

I’m lounging in the passenger seat of Sam’s golf cart, feet kicked up on the dash, hair blowing in the warm, tropical breeze, pretending this is my goddamn life.

What was it he said the other day? The words came out as if by accident.

I was pretending it was my life.

---