Entangled (The Accidental Billionaires, #2)(37)

“So you just kept giving the information quietly to the police?” he asked.

“I went to the police first, and they brought in the FBI.”

“How did you do it? How did you keep feeding them information not knowing when or if the family would find out you were the inside source?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t have a choice. If they didn’t all get put away, I’d have to be scared of whoever was left on the outside. I learned to hide my feelings incredibly well. I didn’t cry, I didn’t show emotion. So they never suspected.”

“What about Maya?”

“She had no clue what I was doing. I kept her away from all that. I was pretty damn grateful when it was over. But it didn’t really end until the trials were all done and I knew none of them would ever get out of prison during their lifetime.”

He put his hands lightly on my shoulders. “You realize that what you did was insanely dangerous, right?”

“I knew,” I admitted. “That’s why I had to make sure that someone promised to protect Maya if anything happened. And that they knew where to contact you. I guess even back then I knew you’d never reject your daughter if I wasn’t around to take care of her anymore.”

His fingers tightened on my shoulders. “You were so damn brave, Skye. But it literally makes me sick to think about anything happening to you. There’s so damn much that could have gone wrong.”

I shot him a weak smile. “Then imagine how I felt. I spent a lot of time looking over my shoulder, which is probably why I have some lingering PTSD. That and the fact that I never knew what Marco was going to be like whenever he walked through the door.”

“Why did it take so long to arrest them all?”

“They required some very concrete evidence. They didn’t want to jump the gun and risk not having what they needed to put them all away. It was a long, frustrating process. But I just kept thinking about when Maya and I would finally be free. How much we could do together. How neither one of us would have to be scared again. Maybe Maya never knew the details, but she was always a little nervous. I think she could sense my fear over the whole situation.”

Aiden wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly against him. I felt his big body shudder as he said, “Jesus! I don’t know what to say to make anything better.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck. “You don’t have to. It’s over, Aiden. Other than the fact that I still have some lingering reactions from trauma, I’m good. Maya and I are free of them now. Honestly, I’m not sure she’ll ever really remember much of what happened. She was only six when they hauled the entire bunch of them off to jail. And I said as little as possible to her about it.”

“She’s doing fine,” Aiden said huskily.

“I took her to a counselor, but she said Maya was well adjusted. Maybe she didn’t get to do some of the things that I wished she could have, but I tried to keep life as normal as I could for her.”

Aiden tightened his arms around me. “I’m not worried about her. You did a good job at shielding her. I’m more worried about you.”

I sighed. It had been so long since anybody had cared about me that I wasn’t quite sure how to handle his concern. “I’m okay. I really am.”

“Then why did you just ask me to have sex with you?” he asked drily.

Okay. Yeah. Maybe it hadn’t been the best of ideas, but I couldn’t marry Aiden. However, I couldn’t deny that I wanted him. I think we both needed to scratch that itch. Maybe then he’d realize that I wasn’t exactly normal. That I didn’t feel things like normal people did anymore. And I’d make a lousy wife.

“I guess it was pretty selfish,” I confessed. “But I think it’s something we both want. When you touched me in the hot tub, you made me feel things I haven’t felt since I was eighteen. I want to love sex again. I want to feel good. The last thing I want is to remember what happened to me during those years I was married to Marco. I’d rather replace those memories with something better. I’d like to think about you instead of him.”

Aiden stroked my hair absently. “I want that, too, sweetheart. But I don’t just want to fuck you—although I want that pretty badly, too. I want you to marry me. I want us to be the family we always should have been.”

“You know I’m messed up, Aiden. You don’t want me to be your wife. Something broke inside me during those years. I’m damaged.”

“You’re not, baby. You just need some recovery time.”

“I’ll never be the same Skye you knew years ago,” I told him. “I was young, stupid, and terribly naive. The life I led after I got pregnant and in the years after changed me. I can’t be that new high-school graduate anymore.”

Sometimes I wished I could go back to the days when I was a lot more innocent, but I couldn’t. I’d seen too much, been through too much. My dreams had been shattered, and I’d learned to just survive.

I’d managed to endure.

But I hadn’t been truly happy in a very long time. My only joy was my daughter.

“I can’t be the guy I was back then, either,” he informed me. “But you and I can be something better.”

“When you touched me, I could feel again,” I tried to explain. “I guess that’s why I wanted . . . more.”