Eden

“When I was five, I caught my dad fucking my na

“Holy shit, I—”

“Yeah, you’re sorry. I get it.” He still doesn’t look at me when he continues, “She quit shortly after, but she never pressed charges. I imagine Dad gave her a generous payoff to keep her mouth shut.”

My stomach twists with disgust. Jameson Angelle is a fucking animal, and I’m afraid to hear more, but this is what I asked for.

“What else?” I whisper.

He scrubs a hand over his face. “When I was seven, I had a pet dog named Duke. I loved that fucking dog more than anything in the world. One day, I did something to piss my father off. I don’t even remember what it was, but he got so mad he took Duke away and had him put down. He didn’t need to kill him. He could’ve given him away or handed him to a shelter—anything. But, no, he needed to make a goddamn point and show me that he was the master of the universe and there were consequences to crossing him.”

I want to vomit. That’s so unbelievably cruel, and I can’t begin to fathom how someone could do that to their child. He tells me a few more terrible things. How his father would berate him in front of his friends. How he would never lay a hand on him, but he emotionally and mentally abused him in so many different ways. How his mother never did a thing to stop his father and would even tell him he needed to grow up and stop being a baby.

Just when I think I can’t handle anymore, however, he reveals the worst thing yet.

“On my thirteenth birthday, my dad decided I needed to lose my virginity. He was convinced I was batting for the other team, and he wanted me to prove myself.”

I stare at him in total horror. “What? Are you serious?”

He nods. He’s still not looking at me, but I carefully read his eyes and the one emotion I never thought I’d see in him is right there, blazing in his expression.

Shame.

“He bought me a prostitute. Said she was my birthday present, and that she’d make me a man.”

I have to reach out and grip the countertop so I don’t go toppling off the toilet.

“No, he didn’t,” I gasp. “That’s…”

“Disgusting?” he mutters. “Degrading? Humiliating? Traumatizing? It was all that and more, believe me. I vomited before and after she fucked me, and then I had to go to my father’s study to report all about it.”

“Oh my God.” I’m so stu

Saint’s mouth tightens at the corners. “Yes, well, he worked hard to build me up in his image.”

I grab his hand. It’s an instinctual move, and I don’t even realize I’ve done it until we’re touching, but I don’t try to take it back.

“You’re not a monster,” I insist in a fierce tone. “An asshole, sure, but not a monster.”

At last, he looks down at me. He looks tired. Like, bone-deep weary. His eyes are still a little glazed because he’s still drunk and high, but I can see he’s sobering up quickly.

He shakes my hand off of his so he can reach up and cup my face.

“If I weren’t a monster,” he murmurs, ru

“What?” I gasp, shaking my head. “Saint, no. That’s not—”

But he’s already drawing his hand from my face and turning for the door. I want to stop him and try to offer some kind of comfort, but I don’t know what I would do or what I would say. He was right. He has put up with a nightmare his whole life, and I can only imagine what his father has tried to force on him in the years since his thirteenth birthday.

It’s no wonder he’s so callous. Why it’s so hard for him to be intimate with someone beyond sex. What he’s told me explains so much, and yet I’m not sure if it can really change things. There’s so much between us that’s rotten. It’s not all our faults, but it feels like we were doomed to fail before we even met each other.

I watch him pause with his hand on the doorknob. Is he waiting for me to stop him?

Opening my mouth, I try to say something. To call him back at least, so we can talk all this through together. No words come out, however. My lips seal back together, and I stare at him, at a loss for what I should do right now.

He doesn’t say anything, but I can tell by the tension in his shoulders that he’s disappointed. I feel like total shit, but I still don’t call his name when he opens the bathroom door and steps back out into the hall.

The next moment, he’s gone, and I’m left alone with nothing but my guilt and his awful memories ru