Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
When she’d walked out of the home she shared with Gideon that night, what felt like a million years ago, she never expected what unfolded.
He’d chased her; not only that, but he’d also caught her, and then he’d opened up to her in a way she never thought possible.
She’d learned things about him as a child she only ever speculated about—she and Cora knew the basics, had chatted about it quietly at family dinners, but Kendra had never known the true extent of the trauma that had shaped a young Gideon Maddox into the formidable, cold, decisive man he’d become.
Abandoned by his mother during the most important years of his life, left to raise his three younger brothers under the pressure and cruel ridicule of a heartless father, and then expected to shoulder the responsibility of keeping the Maddox empire afloat and grow it into the juggernaut it was today…
daunting to even think about. But Gideon had lived it, he’d conquered every hurdle in his life with a chilly precision that made everyone bow to him.
But under all those tailored suits, expensive watches, calculated risks, untold rewards, and the unspeakable power…was a little boy who’d lost his mother and was forced into a role he wasn’t ready for.
Oh Lord, the mother in her was weeping for that little boy, the woman in her was proud of the man her husband had become through his own hard work and determination. The neglected, manipulated, heartbroken wife…well, she was still pissed, but she was listening.
She was sitting in his lap, her chest against his, her hands on his face, and—even after three years of marriage—she’d never been in that position before.
She liked it…a little too much.
Unless it would lead to sex, she and Gideon never…
snuggled. She’d lean against him in the car on the way back from an event because she was exhausted and he had the best shoulders.
He’d wrap his arm around her in public—that whole wholesome couple image he wanted to portray on display for the cameras.
She’d put her legs over his when they were both in the informal living relaxing—a rare occurrence—her with her books or streaming binges, and him with his bourbon and Brazilian jazz.
But never, not once, had he ever initiated close, intimate, non-sexual contact.
Something inside her…smoothed out, like a once vibrant rose, savagely crushed in his hands, but now slowly blooming, it’s devastated petals healing, quietly unfurling. Not yet fully vibrant again, but the potential was there.
If he didn’t crush her again.
God, am I just a weak idiot waiting to be completely destroyed?
His ragged voice cut through her thoughts.
“It was fear,” Gideon finally answered, his voice like shards of regret, like the words had been ripped from his very soul. “You terrified me.”
At that, Kendra’s mouth dropped open. “What?” she blurted, her voice high-pitched with offense. “I terrified you? Are you serious?”
Kendra nearly fell off the couch when Gideon Maddox’s ears turned red, his face growing pink as he dipped his chin as if to hide from her scrutiny.
“Gideon Maddox,” she snapped, “you are outrageous! How could you possibly be scared of me—I love puppies and babies, and I can’t stand the sight of blood, and I tear up at St. Jude’s commercials—”
“Baby,” he cooed, cupping her face and pressing his thumbs against her mouth to silence her. “Take a breath.”
She quieted quickly, shocked at the gentle contact.
Silently, his emerald gaze pouring into hers, he bent and pressed a soft kiss to her nose.
Oh Lord…the man was absolutely devastating! Where was this tenderness over the last three years?
Her mind shocked into silence, her body humming with unlawful carnal knowledge of the man encompassing her, and her heart aching for all that she’d missed with him and all that she still wanted with him she just watched, her gaze on his beautifully masculine face, as emotions she’d never seen on him before swept over his expression.
They filled his eyes, making her breath catch.
Fear was there, yes, but so was weariness and sorrow and regret and anger and…something deeper, more significant.
In a voice barely loud enough to be heard over her own pounding heart, her husband rasped, “What I felt for you…scared the shit out of me….” The words spoken were so broken she could feel them bleeding.
“I was never a man of emotions, Kendra, not when any sign of softness was ridiculed and despised by the only parent that didn’t outright abandon me.
Yes, my father didn’t leave us, but it would have been better if he had.
Scraped knees, bad grades, broken bones, broken hearts, grief, exhaustion, loneliness, and even hunger—nothing was safe from Nathaniel’s noxious rage.
Not a tear could be shed, not a whimper could be made, not a complaint could be spoken because Maddoxes weren’t pussies, they took what they wanted and didn’t give a shit who it hurt. ”
Left speechless, Kendra could only watch as Gideon’s expression shifted to rage.
“Nathaniel Maddox took everything, hurt everyone, and still felt the need to ‘teach his sons’ what ‘being a man’ was about—the asshole wouldn’t know how to be a true man if one tore out his fucking throat, but that didn’t stop him from targeting Adrian, Logan, and Lucian—and I couldn’t let my brothers get hurt.
So…I took it; every ugly word, every slap, every kick, every drop of his poison. ”
Her breath caught on a quiet sob. “Oh…Gideon….” Tears burning the backs of her eyes, Kendra brushed her lips over his jaw, pouring her strength and love into him.
He chuckled humorlessly. “I’m the cliched cold-hearted billionaire with a broken childhood,” he sneered, “is it any surprise I ended up being a piece of shit husband?” His clamped his eyes shut as if in pain. “And that I’ll be a terrible father?”
Oh God!
Her heart racing, the tears breaching the dam to slide down her cheeks, she choked out, “Gideon, you can’t think like that!
That is your past, yes, it made you who you are, but you don’t have to be that way.
Your father is an asshole, your mother is a selfish bitch, and, yeah, okay, you have hurt me so much…
.” Her voice cracked, and he tensed beneath her.
“And I honestly don’t know if I will ever forgive you for that…
” she said. “But the way you are with your brothers, how you care for them, protect them, and how you care about Cora, and how you look at those little nieces of yours, how you spoil them…you have a better man, a good man, buried there under all that childhood trauma…and that is the man I fell in love with.”
Just saying those words hurt more than anything could.
They were true—Gideon was driven by survival instinct, which left no room for softness, but that hadn’t stopped him from doing those little things, things no one really mentioned, for those he loved.
Even for her….
Sadly, for her, those little things were far and few in between, greatly outweighed by all the painful, hurtful, mean, and damaging things he’d done.
The neglect, the coldness, the purposeful distance, all the nights away from home he’d spent with Isabella Mancini, all the sparkling parties where she might as well have been invisible to him—there for the familial image but otherwise non-existent.
And the emotionless sex, like a transaction paid in orgasms and tears silently cried into her pillow.
How was she ever supposed to forgive him?
Looking at him now, subdued, defeated, vulnerable…how could she not feel compassion for him?
His voice shaky, he repeated, “The man you fell in love with….” He shook his head, disbelief and sorrow shifting in his eyes. “How is that possible?”
“Because love isn’t something you earn with good deeds, it is a gift, given away freely,” she replied.
“I fell in love with you, Gideon, not because of the charm you flashed, the money you spent, or the image you showed to everyone. I fell in love with you because I saw that better man hidden beneath the power suits, the fancy watches, and those dark, all-knowing eyes.”
He smirked, though it was edged in self-deprecation. “You were fooled, then.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, affronted. “Well, obviously, because you turned out to be a complete jerk!”
A laugh rumbled from his chest, catching them both off guard.
“Fuck, you’re adorable when you’re mad.” His hands slid down her neck, his thumbs brushing over her collar bones, and she shuddered, her nipples hardening under his touch.
He hummed, deep and velvety. “I miss you,” he murmured into her ear, and the core of her throbbed, needy and wet.
“I miss you, too,” she replied, though the words were in no way accurate enough. She ached for him, like a limb gone, a soul sundered, a sunny sky darkened.
“Even after what I said…how I hurt you, how our relationship began?” he asked doubtfully.
She sighed, leaning her head against his chin. It felt right…though her mind was convinced of the wrongness. He had hurt her; he had lied and manipulated her…but….
“There’s no accounting for the whims of the heart,” she replied. “Even a dog kicked, over and over again, will still come when its master calls.”
Forgiveness was easy, it was the forgetting, the moving forward, the leaving the destruction behind.
However, she wasn’t even ready to forgive—but, hell, she missed him so much it burned through her.
“And you’re that dog?” Gideon asked, his eyes narrowed. “Making me the abusive master?”
She hummed thoughtfully. “I think my leaving you proved that this dog is done being kicked.”
“So why are you still here, listening to me, letting me hold you?”
Kendra rolled her eyes and huffed, “Because, stupidly, I still love you, Gideon. I still see a man worthy of being loved.”
His breathing turned ragged as despair filled his eyes. “I just wish it was enough…that I was enough….”