Page 344 of Tormented Billionaire Romance Series

We haven’t exactly “reconnected” since I’ve been back, and while sex is unlikely tonight, it’d be nice to feel him sleeping next to me.

I hedge my bet and dress down to my underwear. Slipping under the covers, I feel like I’m lying on a cloud, assuming that cloud was also warm and safe and perfectly supported every inch of my body like a womb. That’s it. The mattress feels like a womb if a womb wasn’t closed off and messy. It’s kind of like what it’d be like sleeping on a cloud in a womb on another cloud.

Maybe I am alittledrunk.

As I drift off, my thoughts play over fantastical visions of lavish cocktail parties and all the glorious excess I’ve been telling myself I’m somehow morally above. Tim and Darla would be there, of course. That gentleman from Microsoft, perhaps he’d be there as well. I’m especially interested in his charity work.

I wake up feeling a little silly, the memory of how I drifted off still somehow fresh in my mind. The next moment, the covers on the other half of the bed are being pulled back and Zach is climbing into bed.

It occurs to me Zach might not be where I am. He’s been much more amiable since Amelie and that mess, but when I first got here, he had some things on his mind and we haven’t hashed them all out yet.

In a whisper, he asks, “Are you awake?”

Not knowing how to answer, I say nothing. My back is to him. Still, I feel exposed lying here.

My act of doing nothing apparently does the trick, though, and he settles in not too close, but not too far from me.

“It’s hard, you know,” he says, whispering. “There are some things I’ve wanted to tell you for so long and when I finally work up the courage to say them, you don’t want to hear them. If I don’t say them to you sooner than later, I’m going to go crazy. Maybe this will have to do until you can trust me enough to hear it.”

Could be I’m still dreaming. I open my mouth slightly to see if the motion feels real, but I didn’t brush my teeth before bed. My eyes start watering, the inside of my nose burning. I’m awake all right.

I close my eyes, but only after I close my mouth. Yeah, sex is not an option tonight.

Not feeling the usual dip in the mattress as he moves, I’m nearly startled “awake” when I hear Zach breathing so close to me. My eyes are closed. His lips softly brush against my forehead, and he returns to lie somewhere at least a foot away from me, though it’s impossible to tell with precision just how far.

This bed is fantastic.

“What I wanted to tell you,” he whispers, “is that we didn’t meet in the store. I didn’t just happen to spot you through the window. I know you don’t recognize me and you may not even remember me, but we went to school together for a while back in eighth grade.”

I feel like I should say something, but I can’t move.

He whispers, “At the office, everyone’s heard me say at least one quote from my dad. They’re great for inspiring fear and discipline, but the truth is I hated my dad. It’s easy to turn a threat into advice if you word it right.

“We were always moving and I was an alien to everyone I met. As soon as I’d get to where I almost had the courage to try to reach out and maybe make some friends, dad would get new orders. We were never allowed to argue. Orders are orders, and I get that. Even where I was supposed to get some sense of comfort, or at least belonging, though, was just praying dad wasn’t home. If he was, all I could do was pray he was in a good mood. He wasn’t in a good mood often.

“There was a lot of stuff that I don’t want to talk about from back then, but after a while, everything was just so bleak,” he murmurs. He takes a breath.

Does he know I’m awake?

He whispers, “When we were in school, I knew who you were, or at least I’d seen you, but we hadn’t crossed paths except in the halls between classes. I was so young and it was so stupid, but at that point in my life, it just didn’t seem like there was any point in going on. Things at home kept getting worse and those who did know who I was at Mulholland Junior High were just brutal. Whether it was because I was the new kid or because I never said anything, it didn’t matter. It feels a little stupid thinking about it now, but back then, that was all I saw. Truth is, it was stupid, but you get beaten down in so many ways, you start believing you deserve it.

“That doesn’t matter now, though,” he mutters. “All that’s lead up, but you’re not awake.” He waits a beat. “Are you?”

I’ve already waited too long, so I don’t respond.

“The first time we ever spoke, I had my belt off and I was standing on a milk crate beneath the limb of one of the oak trees way back behind the school. It was already summer and no one was there, I figured it’d be the best place to get some privacy,” he whispers. “I was holding the belt and just starting to thread the end through the buckle before attaching one end to the tree and the other around neck and I heard footsteps coming through the dry leaves.

“When you first saw me, I was sitting on the milk crate, trying to put my belt back through my belt loops,” he stifles laughter. “It didn’t work so well. When you came around that last tree and saw me, you stopped. I figured I was caught, or at very least that whatever was going to happen would only be more reason to climb back up on that crate once you’d gone again.”

My heart is slamming against my ribcage. I remember him, only his name wasn’t Zach or Nikolai or Nicholas or anything like that. The man lying next to me hardly bears any resemblance to that scrawny little kid with the glasses so thick his eyes looked twice as big as normal. Still, when I saw something familiar in his eyes, isthatwas I was remembering?

“That didn’t happen, though,” he continues. “You just said, ‘Come on,’ and kept on walking through the trees. I didn’t know what else to do, so I stood up, finally got my belt around my waist and followed you. I don’t think I talked once that first time we went for one of those walks, but I didn’t need to. Right from that moment, it was like you and I had grown up together or something, only I’d somehow forgotten everything I knew about you and you had to fill me in again.”

We had a very different experience of that day. It’s mortifying to think now, but I thought I’d walked up on him either getting ready to masturbate or just finishing. The way he was messing with the front of his pants, I had no idea what was really going on.

It was awkward, but I didn’t want him to hate himself like I was pretty sure I would in his shoes, so I passed it off like nothing was wrong. I’d been in enough knock-down drag-out fights with Naomi, I was confident I could take him if he tried anything. I was embarrassed, though, so I talked.

What embarrassed me most of all was as we kept walking, I became painfully aware that I was getting a little crush on him. The bespectacled, quiet, dorky kid I thought I caught pulling his ding-dong wasn’t exactly who I thought I should have any interest in, however unconscious.

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