It's All Relative(129)

Running a finger through her hair, watching a long strand wrap around his finger, he smiled and shrugged. “I know Nate Harper isn’t really my father.” Kai paused; those words still felt weird to him. Swallowing roughly, he continued, “But regardless, I love him.” He tore his eyes from her dark hair to find her studying him with a small smile on her lips. He smiled. “He loved me as a son, even when he knew I wasn’t his. That’s pretty incredible if you think about it.”

Jessie nodded, running a few fingers down his cheek. “Uncle Nate is a good man.”

Kai could easily see the resemblance to the man who had raised him in the woman beside him. There was comfort in that fact now. “Yeah, he is.” He shook his head. “I’m not really sure what Mason is like, and maybe he’s a good man too, but I think I got pretty lucky with the father who raised me.”

Kai felt a peaceful calm flowing over him as he said it. True, he didn’t like what his parents had done, what they’d kept hidden from him, how they’d lied, how they’d chosen to tell him the truth. But he had to respect all of the support, wisdom, and unconditional love that he’d been given by the man he’d known as father.

Jessie let out a happy sigh. “And he did a really good job raising you. You’re a good man, Kai. You’re a great man,” she whispered.

Pride and love filled him at her words. He wanted to be a good man for her. He wanted to be everything for her. He knew that every day he would strive to be the man that she saw when she looked at him. “You amaze me…how you see me.”

She shrugged. “I only see what’s really there.”

He shook his head, a little dazed, and she pulled him down for a long kiss that left him breathless. After a moment, she pulled away; she was a little breathless too. “What are you going to say to your parents when you talk to them again?” she asked.

Kai looked away. “I don’t know. I’m not really sure what to say. I mean, I love them, but I still have questions over things that they did. I’m still not happy that they lied to me. I’m not happy that my mom had an affair.” He paused, thinking about his parent’s relationship. “How could she betray her husband like that?”

Jessie sat up in bed, still not covering herself. Trying not to be too distracted over that fact, Kai sat up with her. “Maybe your mom found herself in love with someone she wasn’t supposed to be in love with.” Her eyes darted down his body. “Maybe she tried to do the right thing, when she got in too deep.” She peeked back up at his face. “She couldn’t have known you weren’t Uncle Nate’s, not in the beginning.” Kai frowned and she quickly added, “I’m not excusing what she did, I’m just saying…she got herself in a bad situation, and she made a hard choice to stay with her husband, to raise you as a family.”

Kai nodded and looked down. He understood being in a hard situation. He also understood falling in love with someone he wasn’t supposed to fall in love with. And the awful fact was, if his mother hadn’t done what she’d done, he wouldn’t be able to be with the woman he loved right now. In a weird way, his own romantic happiness was born from his mother’s infidelity. He supposed he couldn’t really condemn her for that. Too much.

Shaking his head, he looked up at Jessie. “Why didn’t they just tell me when Dad found out? They got divorced when I was thirteen. Why keep up the pretense for so long?”

Jessie lovingly stroked his hand resting on her knee. She shrugged. “That’s exactly why, Kai. You were thirteen. Your parents were going through a divorce. Uncle Nate obviously loves you…he didn’t want to break you.”

Kai sighed and laced their fingers together. “Why now then? Why after all this time…”

Jessie leaned into him, so her breast was touching his arm. Even though their conversation had turned serious, Kai smiled at the contact. She sighed and kissed the edge of his tattoo. “I don’t know. Maybe they finally felt you were old enough? Maybe it’s been eating away at them all this time, and they just needed you to know the truth.”

Kai nodded at her guess. He knew she didn’t have any firm answers, but he liked having someone to share his concerns with. “Why send me here? Why couldn’t they tell me themselves?”

Jessie gave him a wry smile, like she knew he was aware that she didn’t know anything for sure, and it amused her that he still asked. She answered though. “They had to be terrified. You and your parents are close, right?”

He nodded and looked down. “Yeah. I mean, I talk to my mom nearly every day, and my dad, before I left we were tight.” Kai sighed forlornly, returning his gaze to the comfort of her body. “I wish one of them had told me. Or both of them, together.”

She shrugged. It made her chest move in an intriguing way that made Kai smile again. “I don’t know what their real reasons were, but if it were me, I’d be terrified of losing you.” He looked up at her face and she bit her lip as she searched his eyes. “Maybe they thought it would be better if it didn’t come directly from them?”

He leaned in to kiss her, then sighed against her lips. “Better for whom?”

She kissed him softly a few times, sucking on his lip. “I’m sorry they did that to you, Kai.”

Kai was already beginning to forget the conversation they were having. He unlocked their hands and cupped the breast that had been teasing him. Rolling the weight in his fingers, he rubbed his thumb over the peak. He heard her inhale a sharp breath.