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I fought the sudden urge to slide my hand under her sweatpants. Cradle that hip. Or maybe slip my fingers between her legs and feel the wetness I’d left there.
I dragged myself back to reality. She was watching me, her chin jutted.
“I never understood why you were friends with him.”
I considered it for a moment. This was tenuous ground.
“I met him at a point in my life when I needed direction,” I said. “He was older than me and he’d been through the military so he was disciplined. I…I owe at lot of my own ability to be so disciplined to him. He kept me focused. And he helped me militarize the organization and gain a lot of ground along the East Coast.”
“But did you ever spend time together outside work?” she pushed.
“No, but then all I did was work and sleep.”
She blinked rapidly. I could tell this conversation was incredibly difficult for her. It made me want to take her in my arms. Soothe her, hold her against my chest.
But she didn’t need that. She was trying to say her piece, I could tell.
And she deserved a place to do that.
She swallowed, shaking her head. “Nothing. Never mind.”
She turned to slip away, but I slid my arm around her waist. Holding her between my body and the counter. Her eyes narrowed as she fixed them on me.
God, she had a withering glare when she needed it.
I brushed her cheek with my thumb, cradling her head. “Talk to me.”
“Okay.” She swallowed hard. “My father wasn’t a good person. You are. I don’t understand how you ever tolerated being friends with him.”
“He never did anything to me,” I said. “It wasn’t until he left you in my care that I got an inside look at his family life. What did he do?”
She swallowed and tears brimmed. Threatening to spill down her cheeks. A cold sense of dread simmered in my stomach and I had to take a deep breath to calm myself.
“Did he…did he do something to you?” I asked.
My voice cracked. I cleared my throat and she frowned, clearly confused.
“What?”
“Did he molest you?”
“No,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “No, God, no. It wasn’t like that. He was just so cold and distant. Even when I was a little girl, begging him for a hug because I was afraid at night. He never let me play with anyone but Candice because he respected her family. He didn’t let me have any fun…or just let any happiness into our house period.”
“That’s...difficult,” I said, my muscles loosening.
She laughed again. Short and without humor. Her arms crossed over her chest.
“He made me wear the ugliest clothes,” she said. “All I wanted was a pretty dress like the other girls at my school. But he put me in these horrible, beige dresses. He didn’t want me being a slut, is what he said.”
She rolled her eyes. I kept quiet.
“It was a weird thing to say to a ten-year-old,” she said. “And I wasn’t allowed to even eat normally. No sugar ever. Not even on my birthday or Christmas. It was like…it was liked he enjoyed controlling me and denying anything that might make me happy.”
I’d known Edwin was a strict man, that he never indulged himself. I’d picked up some of his traits. We’d both eaten the same, stripped back, austere foods.
I just did it for different reasons.
“Does it trigger you that I eat like him?”
