Leo(A Sign of Love Novel)(57)

He looks at me finally, then. "I guess, but I take responsibility, too. Especially, since it continued and it became our secret from everyone, especially my dad." He looks away, a look of shame crossing his face.

“Did you ever try to tell him?” I ask.

"A couple months after it started, I thought about telling Phil, but I felt so damned guilty and shameful for my own part in the situation. What if he didn't believe me? And what if he did and I destroyed them? Could I live with that, too? Eventually, I just focused on numbing myself.

"And then, even more shameful for me, I wanted to have a family so much. I loved all the things they were giving me, the luxuries, the trips, stuff I had never had before. And that made me hate myself the most." He scrubs his hands down his face.

"Anyway, I was a f*cking mess in high school. I dragged my parents through hell. Lauren always bailed my ass out with my dad, for obvious reasons, and my poor dad just tried to help me. But there was no help for me, not then. He had to think, 'what the f*ck did we do adopting this kid?' a million times, but he never, ever said that to me.

"Things started getting better for me when I moved out to go to college. I finally got some distance from my mom," he lets out a humorless laugh, "and started thinking a little more clearly. My dad and I were hanging out more, outside of the house and I developed a relationship with him - finally. He had to have been doubtful that I'd ever be trustworthy enough to learn the ropes at his company, but about a year after I was out of the house, he came to me and asked me if I'd work with him. I said yes and we started getting even closer. It was nice. He was a good guy. A workaholic and distracted, but decent and good.

"Anyway, when I graduated, he and Lauren bought me a Porsche as a gift. The night of my graduation party, Lauren cornered me in my bedroom and made another one of her passes. I pushed her off of me and she was pissed about it so she lashed out and then she told me that she hadn't wanted to tell me, but that she had gotten information on my brother years ago from the family attorney she had asked to investigate it for me. I was constantly asking her to find any information she could so that I could visit him. She told me that he died three years before of pneumonia but she hadn't told me because she knew it would upset me. Jesus. Upset me? I practically raised that kid from the time he was born. And she just threw it out there because she was mad that didn't want to have sex with her."

He stops and I can't help it, I grab his hand and I squeeze it. He turns his head to me, an expression of pain crosses his features again before he goes on.

"I tore out of there, taking my new car, driving like an idiot, tearing around corners, accelerating to speeds I knew were dangerous, suicidal even. I lost control, side swiped a semi and flipped my car six times. Or so I'm told. I don't remember any of it. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital with a head wrapped in bandages and tubes sticking out of me."

I suck in a breath.

"I had a fractured jaw, had shattered my right cheekbone and broken my nose all to hell, I had an eight inch gash across the back of my head, three cracked ribs, a ruptured spleen, two broken arms and a broken leg. I was in the hospital for six months while they rebuilt my face and my body healed."

"Oh my God," I breathe.

"I had nothing to do but lie there and self reflect, so in one sense it was the best thing that could have happened to me. A part of me actually had died and was being reborn. I almost had no choice but to face my demons. The unfortunate part was that Lauren came to see me every day and there was nowhere I could run. One day after I had been there about a month, she came by to tell me that she had convinced them to let me come home with her after my next couple surgeries so that she could nurse me back to health. I protested, got angry, told her I was over 18 and there was no way I was letting her get near me. She tried to convince me by throwing back the covers and going down on me. There was nothing I could do. I was literally helpless to stop her, although I was railing at her to cut the shit, that I wasn't going to stay quiet anymore. That's when my dad walked in. She jumped back and we all just froze, stunned for several minutes and finally he said, 'This is why? All these years, this is why you hated us both.' It was like it all finally just clicked into place for him. Then he started clutching his chest and Lauren screamed and pressed the button for the nurse. He had had a major heart attack."

"Oh God, Leo," I whisper, more tears coursing down my cheeks.

He continues but he sounds tired, almost monotone now. "He regained consciousness the next morning and we thought he was recovering but he got a blood clot five days later and that's what killed him. It can be common after a heart attack. The morning that he came to, they wheeled me in to him and he put his hand over his heart and told me how sorry he was and that he didn't blame me. I cried like a damned baby."

I squeeze his hand again.

"The day after that, his lawyers came to the hospital and he changed his will to give me full ownership of the company. Lauren has all she needs to live the life she's become accustomed to until the day she dies. But the company is 100% mine."

We're both quiet for a minute as I consider something. "Was it Lauren who came to your hotel room in San Diego and answered your phone?" I ask quietly.

He runs his hand down his face again. "Yeah. She found out I was in town and surprised me in my room. I basically told her to leave or I'd call security. I know from experience how ugly it could have gotten and I wasn't up for it and so I told her that I was going to get in the shower and lock the door and if she wasn't gone by the time I got out, I'd have her thrown out. I wasn't ready to give you details about her at that point and so I lied. It just felt like the lies were piling up and I didn't know how to deal with it without telling you everything. What a f*cking mess. And it was all my fault."