Page 14 of Vengeful Seduction
“No, I hadn’t. Because I’m a terrible person.” David sounded defeated, which matched with the subtle movement of rubbing his eyes that I’d seen. I could almost swear he didn’t know he’d done it.
“I didn’t get the whole story from Theodore,” I admitted. “He didn’t exactly talk a lot about, well, much of anything. But he tried to call you the night before he died.”
“I know,” I could barely hear David speaking and had to lean forward again to pick up his words at all. “I didn’t take the call. I was too scared.”
In my experience, that wasn’t the sort of thing men admitted to very often—being scared. Especially not strong, attractive billionaires. It got my attention, to say the least.
Then he started speaking, and I felt the same pain—the same pressure building up in my heart as I had when Theodore had spoken to me the night before he’d died.
“I couldn’t stand the thought of losing him too.”
Nine words. That was all it took for him to turn my heart inside out, to make me feel like someone had stabbed me right in the stomach. And he didn’t stop there.
“I was such a coward,” he confessed, his voice still almost too soft to hear. “When my dad died, everything about my grandpa reminded me of him. My dad, he looked a lot like me, and my grandpa was the spitting image of both of us. I couldn’t even hear him talk without wanting to shut down.”
Why was he telling me all of this? I didn’t know, but I couldn’t make myself stop him—not for anything. Maybe he was telling me because he needed to tell someone and it was sort of flattering that he was trusting me with all of this.
“I’m sorry,” I broke in gently, when it became clear that he was gathering his thoughts.
He shook his head and his eyes were bleak, the shimmer in them almost gone when he spoke again.
“You have no reason to be sorry. It was all my choice. It’s on me. I was too scared to be hurt, and because of it, now I really have lost everyone and everything.”
I thought of myself as a pretty good judge of character, and the way he was speaking to me, I found I believed him. Once more, I couldn’t think of a single reason he would bother lying to me. Why would he take the time, when I was sure he was a busy man?
“I wish …” His voice broke and he finally looked away from me, seemingly utterly defeated. “I just wish I could build a time machine. I wish I could go back to the past and live it all again.”
I had to swallow around a lump in my throat and my eyes threatened to tear up. The story was so tragic and I knew I was only getting the first parts of it. With nothing more than a brief hesitation, I shifted over onto the couch and reached out to touch his hand.
It was very forward of me, but I found myself eager to provide some sort of comfort. This man wasn’t one of my patients, but he was obviously suffering, and I couldn’t just sit around and not try to help.
“You can tell me if you want to,” I told him, holding his hand firmly in mine. He gripped onto it like I was a lifeline. “You can tell me everything. I’ll listen. I don’t know what else I can do, but I can at least do that.”
He shot me a sad little smile that made my heart break for him even more and, still holding my hand, he started to speak.
David
Sitting on her little sofa, I felt odd. I was actually telling her the truth about myself. I had meant to, but it still felt weird as the words flowed out of me with ease. Kaye was remarkably easy to confess things to. It was part of the plan for me to expose my true self, making myself so completely vulnerable. The thing that shocked me the most was how much it hurt to talk about all of it.
I’d spent hours trying to figure out what sort of story I was going to give her to get her sympathy. After all, you can’t just call a woman a bitch and then expect her to welcome you back with open arms. So what was I going to say to get her to forgive me for that?
I’d settled on the truth. It was easier to remember than a lie, for one thing. I wouldn’t need to keep a fancy lie straight in my head.
I hadn’t realized just how much it would hurt to talk about these things with an actual living human being. I’d spent so long—twelve years—trying not to even think about any of them, even to myself.
And there she was, with her small hand gently wrapped around my fingers, telling me that I could tell it all. Which was, of course, just what I’d wanted. I wanted to work on her sympathies and this was the perfect chance to do so.
It was also just good to talk—to say these things that I’d kept hidden for so long. Maybe I’d needed to get all of this out of the depths of my own head. It wasn’t why I was doing any of this, of course, but it was still nice.
So I did. I talked about things I had never said out loud before. Things I hadn’t so much as thought about before. Kaye hadn’t said much, yet she seemed to be able to pull things out of me no one ever had. Not even any of my friends.
“I was seventeen when my dad died, but before that, my mom left. I barely remember her.” I found my hands clenching at each other, the fingers fiddling together with my nerves, and I glanced up at Kaye. “May I have some water or something to drink?”
I wasn’t thirsty, but I wanted to get my hands to stop dancing together.
“I’m so sorry. I should have offered.” Kaye got up, and I heard the fridge open. Seconds later, she came back with a bottle of water, which I accepted gratefully.
“Do you know why she left?” Kaye prompted, and I realized I’d let myself get lost in my head again. It was a bit of a habit with me.
