Page 22 of The Billionaire's Virgin

“It’s an eggplant dip.”

“You got Jenna to eat eggplant?” I asked, impressed.

Taylor laughed. “Children don’t always need to be coaxed into doing certain things. You just have to package it right. In any case, Jenna’s new-found love of cooking has made her take more risks with what she eats now.”

“I’ve noticed,” I nodded. “It’s made my life easier.”

What I really wanted to say was that Taylor had made my life easier. But that felt a little too intimate somehow.

“So… read any possible bestsellers yet?” Taylor asked.

I sighed. “There are lots of possible bestsellers,” I admitted. “The problem is that they’re buried under inexperience. I can’t take a chance on all of them. I have to make cuts somewhere, and that’s the hard part.”

“I can imagine.”

“I feel like I need to do more at work, but then I realize I have a daughter who I don’t spend enough time with and… it’s a vicious cycle.”

“I think guilt is something all working parents face,” Taylor said. “But I wouldn’t worry too much about that. You’re doing a pretty great job.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You can’t honestly believe that.”

“Of course I do,” I said. “You’ve given her a pretty amazing life so far.”

“Does that justify neglecting her?” I asked.

Taylor gave me a sympathetic glance. “Don’t say that,” she said. “You’re doing the best you can.”

“Which is obviously not enough.”

“Says who?” Taylor asked. “You’re being far too hard on yourself.”

“I don’t think I am,” I countered. “I think I’m just… telling it like it is.”

Taylor was silent for a moment. Her eyes unfocused as though she remembered something she would have rather forgotten.

“I never knew my biological father,” she said, after a moment. “He ran out on my mother the moment he knew she was pregnant with me. My mother didn’t believe in hiding the truth so I grew up knowing that I was the reason he disappeared. I was seven when my mother married and my stepfather; he was not a good man.

“He was always temperamental… constantly angry with the world and he took that anger out on my mother and me. At first, he reserved the physical abuse to my mother, but when I was a little older and I became more vocal about defending her, he started hitting me too.”

I watched her talk and goosebumps pricked at my skin. It was like she was describing my childhood. We had shared the same horrific experience and as painful as it was, or maybebecauseit was so painful, I felt a tangible connection form between us, fueled by my attraction towards her.

“Believe it or not, I know exactly how you feel,” I revealed. “My father was abusive too.”

“Really?” Taylor asked, and her eyes grew wide.

I nodded.

“Do you have any contact with him?” Taylor asked.

“None at all,” I admitted. “After my mother divorced him, neither one of us ever saw him again. At least she enjoyed the last couple of years of her life… free from him before she died.”

Taylor nodded. “Did he give her the divorce easily?”

I snorted. “No… he had no choice. He had hit the both of us so often that he forgot that sometimes even the most frightened dog bites back after a point. He forgot that I was no longer a little boy cowering under the staircase. I was fourteen the first time I hit him back. He tried to bully me back into submission, but it suddenly hit me. I wasn’t powerless anymore. I convinced Mom to file for divorce, and I told him that if he didn’t sign the papers, then I would report him for domestic abuse.”

“It worked?”

“It worked.” I nodded. “He disappeared after the papers were signed and I never had to look at his face again.”