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  Probing deeply, I found only residual jealousy of the other women who had been in his life, which I knew was a silly reaction since they had paid for his time. Except Lila. He spoke of her with such affection, and perhaps love. Was it the kind of love between friends, or maybe mentor and mentee, or was it a deeper, sexualized love? Had Paxton ever been to bed with the other woman? It was strange that I was more jealous of one woman in his life, simply because she was still in his life, than the number of women who had been his clients for three years.

  It wasn’t my place to feel jealous or anything else, and I knew I was fooling myself if I thought Paxton wanted anything more than a physical relationship while he was in this house. Once his mother died, I’m sure he would be gone soon after, and there would be nothing left between us. Not because of my dad’s dictates; just because of Paxton’s own history. He had written off his own mother for more than a decade, so why would it be much different now? Yeah, we were lovers, but I knew he was a man who didn’t do love or commitment.

  I was fine with that. After all, I was only twenty-one, and I was hardly ready to get married and pop out twelve kids and settle down for the rest of my life. I giggled at the thought of Paxton living in suburbia, surrounded by a dozen kids and changing diapers on a set of triplets. Yeah, that wasn’t the kind of future he had ahead of him, and it wouldn’t be the kind I wanted either. I wanted to travel, finish my education, and figure out what kind of career I wanted. I didn’t want to get married or settle into one relationship.

  I ruthlessly squashed the voice trying to whisper in the back of my mind that I could be totally content if Paxton was the only man in my life. I wouldn’t care about exploring relationships with other men or having other lovers if I had him. That voice had to die, and I killed it as efficiently as I could with the reminder that I was nothing more than a fuck buddy for my stepbrother.

  11

  Paxton

  I fell into a strange sort of routine, both with Mia and my mother. I swam with Mia in the mornings, spent most of the afternoon and part of early evening with my mom unless Dirk intruded, and then spent my evenings with Mia again. It wasn’t all sex, though there was plenty of that. Surprisingly, we talked a lot and just hung out. We had similar taste in movies and food and even similar political views. She was fast becoming a friend in addition to being a lover.

  It was strange, because I wasn’t a guy who made friends with women. There was usually sex or nothing. Lila had been the sole exception before now, and my friendship with her was different from the one I had with Mia. Even if we didn’t factor in sex, I think I was already closer to Mia than I had ever been to Lila, who knew me better than anyone in the world, or so I’d thought.

  Each time I had that realization, it drew me up short. As close as Mia and I were, there were things she still didn’t know about me, and they were things I would never voluntarily tell her. They were the kind of secrets that stayed buried, and Lila only knew them because she had seen me falling apart, dealing with them at my worst, and helped me through. I wouldn’t have willingly shared them with her if I’d had a choice. But when you’re falling to pieces, you’re happy to hold on to anyone who keeps you together.

  Was that all Mia was for me right now? Was she simply a crutch to help me get through my mother’s last days and her death? Was I using this sweet woman to assuage my pain?

  Guilt seared through me as I admitted that was partially true. I was using Mia for physical and emotional support and release. But I knew she was using me in a similar capacity. Plus, there was a whole other layer to our interactions that I was afraid to examine too closely, in case I realized there was more to it than mutual fucking and support. I didn’t want to know if there were real emotions involved, because I didn’t need that kind of baggage. I had enough to deal with, and once my mother died, I would leave this place and never looked back.

  Each time I told myself that, it was supposed to be an encouragement, to bolster my ability to stay and get through what had to be done. It wasn’t supposed to send a dart of pain through my chest that felt like it ripped out my heart whenever I imagined walking away from Mia Gaithway.

  After ten days, it became clear my mother’s time was running out. I hated it, but I couldn’t stop it. No one could, and having seen her suffer so much, I was still going to be happy for her when this was all over. I wasn’t going to be happy that I was losing my mom forever, but at least her pain would be over.

  That night, I sat at her bedside holding her hand. Dirk was on her other side, though he didn’t hold her hand. Instead, he kept his head buried in his tablet and looked up at her occasionally. When she drew a shallow or raspy breath, he would pause work long enough to check on her before returning to it. It was cold and callous, but nothing less than I would have expected from the man.

  Mia had curled up on the bedside near Laura, her arm around my mother’s shoulders. It was heartbreaking and also touching to see the bond between them, and I was grateful Mia had been here for her during the eleven years I hadn’t been. It put a lump in my throat, and I had to keep clearing it as tears burned my eyes.

  A younger version of me demanded I not let Dirk see me cry, and it was the same young boy who had been tormented and bullied by his stepfather in the past. I ignored that voice and the judgmental gaze of my stepfather as he looked up at me upon occasion. My mother deserved to see my pain and know I was crying for her. I couldn’t let her leave the world without her knowing how much she had meant to me, and how much I loved her.

  Fortunately, we’d managed a deep conversation a couple of days ago, during one of her lucid periods, though I had never fully revealed my reasons for running away. She hadn’t pressed me, and I hadn’t been able to entirely pour out my heart to her, but I’d told her I loved her.

  I didn’t even try to fight tears as her breathing grew shallow and raspier, the minutes between each exhalation coming farther and farther apart. I didn’t even know if she could see me or hear me, and her eyes never opened, but I let the tears fall on our joined hands.

  It was a little after eleven o’clock when she started making a rattling sound. Her eyes snapped open for just a moment, though they remained sightless and unfocused. A single shudder ran through her body, and the rattling increased. After five minutes of that, she fell silent. The nurse who had hovered in the background stepped forward to check her vitals, and her expression said it all even before the woman said, “She’s gone. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  It was difficult to let go of her hand, even as I wanted to run from the room. I knew this was the last time I would ever see her, and I struggled to burn the memory into my brain as I wiped off tears dripping down my face. A second later, Mia was there, her arms around me, and I drew her close as I took her strength. It seemed like a cowardly and pathetic thing to do, since she had been more of a child to my mother the last decade-plus than I had been as an adult, but I needed her. Like always, Mia was there for me.

  “Let go of my daughter.”

  I jerked back with surprise, having completely forgotten Dirk’s presence in the room for a long moment. I didn’t let go of Mia, but I didn’t hold her as tightly as I turned to glare at him. I had no words, at least no words that would be productive. Instead, I eyed him with disdain. I no longer had any reason to maintain even the coldest front of politeness.

  “I want you out of my house.”

  Mia froze in my arms before lifting her head. She glared at her dad, and I could sense outrage rolling off her in waves even before she spoke. “What the hell? Laura just died, and you’re being a dick, Dad.”

  Gaithway’s eyes narrowed, and his thin lips pursed. “Don’t take that tone with me, young lady. I already told you as soon as she was gone, I wanted him out.”

  I stiffened, looking at Mia for confirmation. The trace of guilt across her features confirmed she had known her father’s intentions.

  She firmed her lips. “I know what you said, but I didn’t believe you wou
ld be so cruel. I didn’t really believe you would do this. If Paxton goes, I go.”

  Dirk’s face turned an angry shade of red. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “He’s family, and I’m not going to let you treat him like this. His mom just died, and he’s not going anywhere alone right now. So if you want him to leave, fine. He’ll leave, but we’re leaving together—and don’t expect me to come back.”

  Dirk seemed to swell like an enraged toad, and I hoped he’d have a heart attack and die right there. The justice of it would be delicious. Unfortunately, he took a few deep breaths. His face paled slightly, though he was nowhere near his normal color. Clearly still enraged, he didn’t even look my way when he said through gritted teeth, “You can stay for the funeral.” Without looking at either one of us, he turned and marched from the room.

  Mia sagged against me, her arms wrapped around me. “I’m so sorry about that, Paxton. I don’t know why he’s like that with you.”

  I could have educated her, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to see the horror on her face, or get into that right now. My thoughts were still centered on my mom, and her passing. I was also overwhelmed with gratitude and emotion I couldn’t quite name that Mia had stood up for me, demanding I be allowed to stay, or she would go with me. I wasn’t going to stay very long, certainly not through the funeral, but I didn’t resist when she came with me to my room, taking me into her arms again as she rocked me on the bed in a soothing manner.

  Before I knew it, sobs ripped from my throat, and I buried my face against her shoulder, soaking her thin T-shirt with my salty tears. As she rocked and murmured comforting words to me, I cried for losing my mom, and for the years I had lost with my mother. I also cried for the childhood I’d lost—that had been stolen from me by a ruthless pervert, and I cried for what I had endured every night then and since.

  She laid down with me, and there was nothing sexual about the way she held me so tenderly. Mia was giving me comfort, and I took it as the selfish bastard I am. I ran my hands through her hair because the gesture soothed me as much as it calmed her. I hated being so egocentric and focused on my needs, but I couldn’t seem to stop drawing her comfort like I was a sponge, and she was water.

  “Why does my father hate you so much, Paxton?”

  I was too raw and emotional to even think about lying or deflecting the truth. “He hates me because I know the truth.”

  She held me closer, her lips brushing against my cheek in a tender gesture of support before she whispered, “What truth?”

  A strange sense of numbness slipped over me, and I didn’t know if it was grief, apathy, or just sheer exhaustion. Whatever the cause, it prevented me from lying or evading her question.

  “The truth is, Mia, Dirk Gaithway is a pedophile and a bully. He raped me almost every night for the four years I lived in this house, and it wasn’t until he told me he was going to share me with his friends that I found the balls to run away. I couldn’t take anymore, so I left my mom behind, and I bowed to his intimidation when I called and tried to get hold of her. I was afraid of him, so afraid that I let him run me out of my mom’s life for eleven years. If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have seen her the past few days, and I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to tell her how much I loved her. Thank you for that.”

  She had gone stiff in my arms, but she hadn’t pushed me away. After a second, a harsh slob escaped her, and she clung even tighter to me. I had braced myself for her doubt, or her outright refusal to believe, so when all she did was hold me and pull me closer, whispering sounds of sorrow at what I had endured, I simply surrendered. I surrendered to her embrace, to her comfort, and to the blackness creeping through me. I don’t know if I fell asleep or passed out, but I let go of everything around me, including my consciousness, as I drifted into a state of unawareness.

  Mia

  I woke alone. I wasn’t terribly surprised to find him gone, but it broke my heart to know he hadn’t stayed around to see my reaction the morning after his revelations. I had believed him without question. My dad had never behaved in a way to suggest he was a pedophile, but as Paxton had told me the truth, the words resonated within me, and I had known he wasn’t lying. It sickened me to think the man I had looked up to, who had doted on me like an adored and pampered princess, was a child rapist who had planned to share his stepson with his equally perverted friends. It was all I could do not to throw up as I contemplated his actions.

  Not only had he abused a helpless young boy whose own father had died a few years before, he had manipulated a single mother into marriage just so he could have access to her son. Paxton had confessed that to me in the early hours of the morning, when we had both awakened at one point.

  The conversation had picked up as if it had never stopped the first time. He had whispered to me that was why he was so enraged that day in the gym. My father had admitted to him bluntly he was the reason Dirk had had any interest in Laura, and the reason he had married her.

  When Paxton ran away, Laura and Dirk had quickly drifted apart, though I had been too self-absorbed in my tween dramas to notice that. It had taken me a long time to realize their marriage wasn’t a close one any longer, but I never would’ve guessed the reason why my father had married her in the first place. I wondered if Laura had guessed the reason too, and I couldn’t fight a surge of bile at that thought. I leaned over and puked into the trash can beside the bed as I thought of Laura speculating about her husband having an unnatural interest in her son, but choosing to stay.

  I shook my head, instantly rejecting the notion. There was no way Laura would have stayed with Dirk if she had ever imagined he had been raping Paxton. She would have taken her son and fled, because she had loved Paxton as much as she’d loved me. Laura was the kind of woman who was a mother first. She wouldn’t have let a rich lifestyle or an influential husband keep her in that kind of soul-destroying relationship, even if Paxton had already run away before she realized what had happened.

  Slowly, I eased from the bed and made it to my own room without running into anyone in the hallway. I showered and dressed in a simple black T-shirt and black capris. It seemed fitting, though the funeral wouldn’t be for a couple of days yet. Bright colors were the last thing I wanted to wear, and the last person I wanted to see was my father when I emerged from my room a little while later.

  Thankfully, he was busy with a solemn-looking man in a dark suit, and they were entering his office downstairs. I managed not to vomit out accusations as he nodded at me, though his expression was cold, while he led the other man into his home office. I assumed it must be the undertaker, because I had seen him once before, during a meeting with Laura, so I wouldn’t have to deal with facing my father just yet.

  Instead, I dialed Paxton’s cell number, but it went straight to voicemail. He had turned it off. I left a message for him, striving for a calm tone and trying not to sound desperate to reach him. I didn’t want to frighten him away, and I was in an emotional state at the moment.

  I’d lost the woman I considered my mother yesterday, and I’d basically lost my father too. He was still alive, but might as well be dead to me. I couldn’t continue living here, maintaining the charade he was a loving father, now that I knew what he had done. God, there was no telling how many other times he’d done it, and how many other young lives he had wrecked in the process. Even now, he might be indulging in his sick perversities. Not right this minute, but he probably had some poor child at his mercy in some context.

  At that thought, I hastened back to my room, quickly losing the contents of my stomach into the commode. I hadn’t eaten much the last twenty-four hours, but I had a surprising amount of vomit come forth as I tortured myself with thoughts of what my father was, and what he had done.

  Each wave of bile seemed to wipe away a little more of the love I’d felt for him. By the time I had purged my stomach completely, I think I had also purged all trace of emotion for my father as well. In a way,
he was just as dead as Laura. The man I had thought he was clearly had never existed, or he had definitely died last night with Paxton’s revelations. I was orphaned and alone, with only Paxton, and he didn’t answer his phone when I’d tried calling him again.

  As the day passed, my messages were a little more frantic, until I found myself begging him to call me back. I fell asleep on my bed, tear tracks on my cheeks, and my stomach still burning with the last vestiges of remaining bile.

  When I woke, I immediately called his number again. Instead of sending me to voicemail, a disembodied recording informed me the number had been disconnected. Paxton had cut me out of his life as surely as I planned to cut my father out of mine. I shouldn’t have had any additional tears left after yesterday’s crying jag, but new moisture flooded my eyes as I curled up into a miserable fall and surrendered to my grief—grief for Laura, and grief for what could have been with Paxton.

  12

  Paxton

  Like a goddamned coward, I observed my mother’s funeral from a distance. I didn’t bother going to the mortuary for the memorial service, but I observed her interment from a distance. I saw Mia standing by her graveside, and Dirk was a few feet away. I wanted to reach out for her, to apologize for freaking out and running away, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t go to her anymore than I could return her calls, and I couldn’t undo disconnecting my phone number. I couldn’t handle hearing her voice any longer, with the faint waiver in her tone, and the hint of tears in her voice.

  I had hurt her, and I knew it. I had told her the truth, which had been an unforgivable sin. I had stolen her father from her, and though he wasn’t much of a person to be worth bothering with, he had been her parent. I’d had no right to dump that burden on her.