Priceless (Forbidden Men #8)(18)

I squinted. Ashamed? That was so not what I thought she’d say. “Ashamed of what?”

“He’d hate me if he found out,” she went on. “He’d never want to see me again. I don’t know where I’d live, or what I’d do. He’d send me away to—”

“Sarah!” I gripped her face in my hands, forcing her to look up. “Shh.”

When she finally calmed down enough to stare back at me, her chest heaving from her anxious breaths, I shook my head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I killed her,” she croaked, and more tears spilled down her cheeks. “I killed my mom.”

Not expecting her to say that either, I blinked a moment, gaping badly, before a frown overcame me. “Say what?”

No way could Sarah kill anyone.

It took her a minute to quell her emotions enough to talk. But once she did, everything spilled out. “I told you my mom used to do drugs, right? Well, a few months ago, I noticed my bottle of antispasmodic medicine kept going empty before I should be finished with it, so I started hiding it, but...”

She went on, telling me how she hadn’t gone to Mason with her worries or confronted her mom about stealing the medicine. Convinced it was her fault her mother had overdosed, she kept going, confessing more from years past.

What she told me about her brother shocked the shit out of me. But, really? Mason had been a male prostitute? That shit was just crazy. I’d known him for over two years, and I never would’ve guessed that. But the fact that Sarah thought it was her fault that he’d become one was even more ludicrous.

As I listened to her tell me all her deepest, darkest secrets, I wondered why she’d never told me any of this before. But then I realized, I’d never told her my most humiliating secret either. Holding her close when she finally fell silent, spent from all her talking, I kissed her hair and closed my eyes.

“Do you hate me?” she asked into the dark room, and I almost laughed.

“I could never hate you.”

If I hated her, then I’d have to hate myself, because what she’d done was nowhere near as awful as what I’d done.

“Get some sleep,” I murmured, afraid to soothe her from her guilt because I was certain I’d end up spilling my own little confession if she kept making herself feel so shitty. “Everything will be better tomorrow. I promise.”

Thank goodness she didn’t argue with me. Letting out a sigh as if lighter now from unloading some of her burdens, she burrowed close and fell asleep almost instantly.

The next evening, I pounced on Mason the moment he showed up to see her.

“I need to talk to you.” With a discreet glance toward Reese, I added, “Alone.”

Mason and Reese shared a worried look between the two of them, but he nodded and followed me out the back door and into the yard for some privacy.

I couldn’t believe I was going to do this to Sarah. She’d probably never forgive me for betraying her confidence, but I could no longer watch her self-destruct over some unnecessary guilt that I could stop. This shit ended now.

Once he closed the door, I turned and lifted my hands. “First of all,” I started. “How much do you love your sister?”

Mason only blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I can’t tell you anything unless you promise you won’t get mad at Sarah.”

“Why would I get mad at Sarah?” Narrowing his eyes, he took a step closer to me. “What’s going on? I thought she was just upset about our mom’s death.”

I backed up an inch. “Well, yeah. She is upset...and then some.”

“Brandt, you’re not making any sense.” He moved closer.

I only shook my head. “I’ll explain everything when you tell me you can forgive Sarah no matter what?”

Grabbing the front of my shirt, he yanked me close. “Start talking, kid.”

“Okay, fine! She thinks it’s her fault you became a gigolo.” When I shrugged away from him, he was so stunned he let me go without a scuffle.

“What?” He stared at me a moment, then opened his mouth, only to close it a second later. Gripping the back of his head, he spun away, paced a couple feet into the yard, then whirled back and returned to me. “How... When...?” Shaking his head, he finally settled with whispering, “She knew?”

I nodded. Burrowing my hands into the pockets of my hoodie, I began from the beginning, telling him how his mom and landlady set up his first...job...as a hooker. All the while, the shock in his eyes dulled to a numb kind of defeat.

By the time I got to the part where Sarah knew their mom had started taking drugs again, he’d bowed his head and was shaking it miserably at the ground.

When I finished, I gave him a moment to soak everything in. But anxious on Sarah’s behalf, I finally demanded, “So are you going to forgive her or not?”

Mason glanced up. His face was noticeably paler than it’d been when he’d come outside, and his shoulders were drawn in around himself, but his features contorted with confusion. “Why would I forgive her? She doesn’t need forgiveness. She never did anything wrong. Nothing that happened was ever on her shoulders.”

I blew out a relieved breath, but just as quickly shook my head. “I don’t care. She still feels like shit over it. So you need to go in there and tell her you forgive her so she can get over this and start trying to forgive herself for everything she’s convinced she did do wrong.”