Chapter 9 #2
His surprised silence rings in my ears, but as realization ends in shame on his face, I know the answer. I turn and pace without thought for my surroundings as I confirm what I already knew.
“Adolescent males are so stupid.” With my brain running a million miles an hour, my mouth refuses to stop.
“Samuel was afraid I’d ruin his reputation so he refused to tell anyone we were siblings, but then he turns around and makes a scene and everyone starts coming up with ridiculous reasons why. None of them right, of course.”
“What did they think, sweet pea?”
I stop in my tracks and close my eyes. The hopeless misery festering in my soul threatens to rip me to shreds.
I pivot toward him and dig the gemstone of my ring into my palm.
“The popular girls thought you two liked me. They couldn’t fathom any other reason for you to notice me, so they were absolutely horrendous to me.”
He pushes away from his desk and braces his elbows on his thighs. After ducking his head and running his hand through his hair, he looks up and meets my eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks.
A scoff escapes my chest and I shrug.
“I was embarrassed! I was a twelve-year-old girl who was hoisted into high school and treated like a pariah. I had no one my age on the entire campus, no friends, no social skills, and a so-called brother who refused to acknowledge me. Telling you was the equivalent of suicide in my eyes.”
“So you thought pretending you’d locked yourself in the closet on accident was better?”
The anger in his tone won’t change the past.
“Yes! Looking foolish was better than looking weak and unliked,” I admit.
He takes a deep breath and stands.
“Did they do it again?”
His soft rumble coaxes the truth from me.
“Not that year.”
My damning words ring in my ears. I cover my face with my hands and turn away from him.
He steps around me and envelops me in his arms. Encased in his strength and pressed against his hard body, my control slips. An ugly sob wrenches from my chest.
His computer chimes. I twist my wrists, abandoning covering my face, and push against his chest.
My palms hit the lower part of his sternum. Like, below his pectorals. My heart skips a beat as the reality of his size hits me anew.
The top of my head barely reaches his chest.
“We’re in your office. Everyone can see,” I croak.
His hum vibrates throughout my body.
“Everyone went home already,” he says.
I twist my neck to look, but his gigantic bicep blocks my view. He bends and shifts his hug lower on my body. I squeak and instinctually grab his shirt front as he lifts me into the air.
He settles on the couch and sits me across his lap. I wriggle in a poor attempt at freedom, but he pulls my feet onto the cushion beside his hip and tucks my face against his chest.
“Is everyone really gone?” I whisper.
“Yes. Mr. Thomas was the last one, and he left ten minutes before you came into my office, but you were so in your own head you didn’t notice,” he murmurs.
My photographic memory insists he’s right, supplying me with information I couldn’t process through my emotional turmoil. As I sat scrolling at my computer, my coworkers filtered out with varying goodbyes until only myself and Mr. Sterling remained on the floor.
“Tell me everything, Penelope,” he says.
Emotions clog my throat. I shake my head and fill my lungs with his unique woodsy scent.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
Annoyance streaks through me as an errant tear slips from the corner of my eye and soaks into his shirt.
“You said they didn’t lock you in the closet again that year, but they did later?”
I nod.
“Did they do anything else?”
I press my forehead against his pectoral and give my head a tiny shake.
“Not while you were there,” I whisper.
His big, warm hand rubs up and down my back.
“Do you mean not while I was in the room or…?”
I take a big, shaky breath before responding as evenly as I can.
“They glared at me in the hall and whispered about me behind their hands, but that’s all they did before you graduated.”
My heart pounds in the silence.
“But it got worse?” he asks.
I nod.
“How bad?” he grinds out.
I shake my head.
“The scar on your head isn’t from an accident, is it?” he demands.
I fist his shirt and breathe through my nose. Responding is too hard.
“There’s more, isn’t there, Penelope? It’s why you freaked out when I crowded you under the table, why you kicked me when I grabbed your head during our kiss, and why you were catatonic when I opened the server room door, isn’t it?”
I manage the barest hint of a nod.
Even though every molecule in my body insists I tell him, a small, terrified part of me demands I run away. Every time someone I thought I could trust dismissed me, I lost another sliver of hope. I’ll never survive if he displays the tiniest bit of doubt. I want him too much.
“Where else did they hurt you, sweet pea?” he rumbles.
There isn’t enough oxygen in the room. Acid eats away at my lungs. My scars burn. Disgust and humiliation hold me hostage.
“Tell me, Penelope,” he demands in a low, coaxing tone.
I can’t. The walls have already closed in. His body is the only thing stopping them from crushing me. If I speak, everything will come fountaining out of my mouth, and I’ll lose him. I’ll lose everything.
“You can’t tell me?” he prods.
I force my diaphragm to pull in another breath.
“How about you show me?” he suggests.
A tremor wracks me from the base of my skull to my toenails. I can’t move without breaking down.
“I can find them myself, if you’ll let me,” he half asks, half threatens.
Terror closes my throat. In a Hail Mary attempt to prevent him from finding the horror story written in the flesh of my torso, I twist my wrist until the edge of my watch digs into his muscles.
He stills before reaching around and cupping my elbow in his gigantic palm. With his other hand, he works the strap of my watch free and pulls it off my arm.
Eerie silence falls over the room.
“Who did this? Who hurt you?”
His fury is a balm to my soul.
“I want names, Penelope. First and last. Every single person who knew, whether they were directly involved or not. Tell me, sweet pea, before I hire every private investigator in New York City to find them myself.”
I loosen my fists and lift my head from his chest. He drops my watch into my lap and brushes his thumbs over my wrist. Held in his massive hands, my forearm seems impossibly thin and fragile.
His thick digits tracing my jagged scar create too many emotions, so I try to pull my arm away, but he tightens his grip just enough to keep me in place.
“Tell me, Penelope,” he demands.
“I-I will, just let go of me first,” I beg.
His deep breath shifts me on his lap.
“I don’t think I can. Not yet. Give me a few minutes, yeah?” he pleads.
Wonder streaks through me. He could so easily crush my hand in his grip, but instead he cradles it like it’s the most precious thing in the world.
“Does it still hurt?” he asks.
I shake my head. He searches my face. I clear my throat.
“It aches sometimes, but it’s nowhere near as itchy or painful as the oth—”
I stop my wayward mouth before it reveals too much, but judging by the murderous glint in his eyes, I failed. Miserably.
“I’m okay now,” I lie.
He growls and lifts my wrist to his face. With heart-wrenching sorrow and a touch of reverence, he brushes his lips over my ugly, raised flesh.
“I’m not okay,” he growls.
I stare in shocked delight and disbelief as he peppers my scar with kisses before weaving his fingers through mine and meeting my eyes.
“Why did you suffer in silence? You weren’t a freshman anymore, so you’d had an entire school year to make friends. There wasn’t a single teacher in the entire school who didn’t adore you. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
Futile frustration roars through me.
“I did! I tried but no one would listen to me. The teachers were scared of the girls’ parents, so they didn’t dare intervene unless my grades slipped.
Samuel refused to believe me and brushed me off like normal.
My parents had their own issues to deal with, and their perfect, brilliant daughter had never given them trouble before, so they thought I just needed more time to adjust. And you… ”
His fingers stiffen within mine.
“I never reached out. Never came back. Never tried hard enough to make you realize how much I cared.”
His tortured rumble strikes deep into my heart.
I nod and blink back sudden tears but more flood my eyes and drip off my lashes.
He kisses the inside of my wrist before tucking it against his chest and cocooning me in his arms.
“Cry, Penelope. I’m here now. I believe you. You’re safe. I’m sorry.”
“B-but you said—”
“I deserve to hurt. Give me your tears, sweet pea.”
As though his command annihilates my composure, I break into ugly sobs. Relief, pain, humiliation, and so many other emotions pour from my eyes until his shirt sticks to his skin and my head throbs with hollowness.
He snuck past my defenses and ruined my hard-earned composure. Even though I refused to date him yesterday, he’s already shattered my conviction and wormed his way deeper into my heart.
I don’t want to deny myself anymore, even though I know it’ll hurt like hell when he learns the truth and everything falls apart.
I might never fully belong to or with him, but I want to try.
I want Sebastian Sterling.
All of him.
Somehow.