Barefoot in the Sun (Barefoot Bay)(32)

She looked away, refusing to make eye contact.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” he asked.

“I could lose them, like I…lost you.”

He tightened his grip. “You didn’t lose me. Surely you believe that by now.”

Finally, she shifted her gaze to meet his. “I’m ashamed,” she said softly.

“You were a kid.”

“But I let this lifestyle go on and on for years,” she said, inching free to make her point. “Every time I had a choice—including that day in Chicago when Pasha said I should stay—I took the chickenshit, lazy, easy, loser choice.”

Yet she was none of those things. “You and Pasha simply got yourself painted into a corner, Zoe. She protected you and you protected her and neither one of you could get off—”

“Don’t make my excuses for me.” She took a lusty gulp and put the glass down so hard he thought it might crack on the stone pavers. In a second, she turned to him, her eyes bright.

“Then don’t make your own,” he said.

“Touché. So you noticed that I’m naked under this?” She fluttered the hem of the dress seductively.

Of course, she wanted to plow over the tough stuff with sex. And as much as he wanted to drive that plow, he refused.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Her brows drew together. “When?”

“I know you say Pasha’s at risk of being charged for kidnapping, but what actually happened?”

She tilted her head, a smile pulling. “You don’t want to have sex with me?”

“I’m going to assume that’s a rhetorical question. What I don’t want to do is derail this conversation yet.”

Without warning, her hand landed on his crotch, squeezing, a bolt of lightning shooting right into his balls. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure you’re a guy.”

He put his hand over hers and pressed, his erection growing with each passing heartbeat. “I’m not a guy. I’m the guy. I’m the one who knows you, Zoe.” Very slowly, because it hurt like a motherf*cker even to think about making the move, he lifted her hand and put it on her lap. “Now tell me the story. What happened when Pasha ‘kidnapped’ you? I take it she didn’t throw you in a trunk and drive off.” He frowned when she didn’t reply. “Did she?”

“Of course not.” She picked up her hand and looked at it like her very fingers had betrayed her. “I’m really losing my touch.”

“Your touch is…” Insane. “Fine. And my kid’s asleep upstairs,” he added, more to assuage her humiliation than anything. “I’ve waited nine years, Zoe.”

“For sex with me?”

“For this story.”

Puffing out some air, she leaned back on her hands, breaking their contact but staying close enough that he could feel the silk of her calves against his and the splash of warm water between them. “She did drive off. But I was in the passenger seat, not the trunk.”

“Ten years old?” The threads of her story had stayed in his mind over the years, but no real tapestry had emerged. She’d been in trouble, run away, found safety with Pasha, and—that was all he knew. “How did it happen?”

She didn’t answer for a while, drinking instead.

He gave her leg a nudge.

“Okay, okay. I’m getting fortified.” One more luscious sip, this one with her eyes closed and head tilted back. It took everything in him not to dip his head and kiss her exposed throat. “I have never spoken this story out loud,” she announced as she set the drink down next to her. “Not once, not even to myself. So bear with me.”

“I have all night and an eight-pack of Juicy Juice. Talk to me.”

She exhaled a soft whistle and looked out over the water, gathering her thoughts. “I was raised in foster homes. I think I mentioned that on our balloon ride.”

He nodded his head, but she didn’t even look at him. “Yes, you did. But when we were dating, you told me your parents died in a car accident, and that Pasha was your father’s aunt and your only living relative and she was appointed as your legal guardian. But…” His voice trailed off as it hit him then—really hit him like a brick to the brain.

Zoe had lied to him from day one. She’d never told him the truth.

She glanced at him, no doubt reading his expression. “And I only knew you a month. Can you imagine how my lifelong friends are going to feel?”

Yes, actually, he could. They’d feel betrayed and hurt and cheated. Those emotions strangled enough that he couldn’t talk.

“Sometimes,” Zoe said, “you tell a lie for so long it becomes the truth.”

“No,” he managed to reply. “It never becomes the truth.”

“I’m sorry, Oliver.” She angled her head toward him. “I wasn’t happy about lying to you. That’s why I took you on that balloon ride. I wanted to tell you the real truth up there. I did, I tried, anyway.”

“Tell me now, down here.”

“Okay. I might have to go back to, you know, the beginning.” She took another drink, then continued. “I have no idea who my father is. I doubt my mother did, either, but she overdosed when I was four, I think. I really don’t know. I was truly an orphan—she was a runaway, too, and…” Her voice cracked.

“Shhh. Zoe, don’t cry.” He put his hand on her shoulder, but she wiggled out of his touch.

“I’m not crying. My voice always cracks when I’m nervous.”

“Why are you nervous? This is me.”

She looked at him and, for a woman who said she wasn’t crying, her eyes were pretty bright. “I’m nervous because it’s you. And you matter.”

Which might have been the nicest thing she’d said since she’d shown up in his office. “Zoe, it’s not your fault who or what your mother was.”

“It’s my legacy. A long line of runaways. Not exactly the bloodline you married into.”

“Adele isn’t here, and she won’t ever be. You are. Please.” He managed to settle his hand on her bare thigh. “I’m not judging you.”

“All right.” She reached for the drink, then shook her head and put it down. “Anyway, they put me in foster care and from there the State of Texas pretty much forgot I existed until whatever family had me got sick of me.”

“How could anyone get sick of you?”

She gave a dry laugh. “I was mouthy, sarcastic, irreverent, impolite, and never met a rule I couldn’t break.”

“All the things I love about you.”

She startled a little, making him realize what he’d said. He opened his mouth to correct himself, but closed it again.

For a long, heavy moment, neither said a word, but when he looked down at the water, her toes were curled into tight little balls.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I was in Corpus Christi last, with a family who had three foster kids. I really don’t know why they took fosters, probably for the subsidy money and free labor. And free…” She shook off the thought. “Anyway, about two doors away, this incredibly sweet lady moved in. Her name was Patricia Hobarth.”

“Pasha?”

She nodded. “She lived alone and we became friends that summer. I’d visit her almost every day. She taught me how to play cards and do crafts and”—she laughed softly—“read tea leaves. She was…sad. Lonely and lost, like I was, and we formed an unlikely friendship.”

She was quiet for a moment, maybe holding on to an old memory, but he let her go, waiting for her to finish.

“So I spent a lot of time there because…the father at the house where I lived…” She fought for a breath and his heart fell down somewhere into his gut.

“God, tell me he didn’t hurt you.” White-hot rage blasted through him, and she hadn’t even told him anything yet.

She swallowed hard and shook her head. “Not me. At least, well, no. He had sex with one of the other girls. She was fourteen.”

“Fuck.”

She closed her eyes and stayed quiet a really long time. “Every night. In the next bed.”

“Oh, shit, Zoe. How do you handle something like that?”

“Run, Zoe, run.” The words were no more than the breath of a sad sigh, hardly discernable.

“Excuse me?”

“That’s when the voice started.” At his look, she gave a dry laugh. “No, I don’t hear voices. Well, one. And it’s mine, but it’s…loud. Usually telling me to do something that goes against common sense. But it started in that room, on those nights, when I’d stick my head under the pillow and try to drown it all out. The voice…helped.”