and imagined what she was going to do with him that evening.
‘You’re too good at this.’ He groaned. ‘Don’t forget this is a public beach, Red.’
She was having trouble doing just that, when the familiar ridges across his shoulder blades rippled beneath her fingertips. In the bright sunlight, the thin white scars stood out more prominently than ever.
‘Did you get these in prison?’ The question popped out before she’d thought about it. She regretted it instantly when his shoulders tensed. Her hands went still.
His past was one of the subjects they never talked about. From the little she knew about it, she guessed it was something he didn’t want to be reminded of, so she had tried hard not to pry.
‘No,’ he said finally.
‘I’m sorry, Monroe. I shouldn’t have asked that.’
He rolled over, studied her.
She sat back on her haunches. What had she done? ‘I really am sorry, Monroe. I didn’t mean to bring back bad memories.’
Seeing the stricken look in her eyes, Monroe reached out, took her hand in his. ‘Don’t look so scared, Red. You’re curious. You’re entitled to ask.’
‘I didn’t mean to. It just sort of slipped out.’
She hadn’t asked, he thought, although he knew she was curious. By not asking, she had given him her unconditional trust. And he hadn’t done the same for her.
He’d told himself over and over that keeping things light, keeping things easy, was how it had to be—especially after their conversation at Montauk Point. He couldn’t be her dream man, he didn’t want to be, so there was no use pretending that they had anything more here than great sex and a good friendship.
But in the last two weeks he’d been more settled than he’d ever been in his life. He didn’t know how it had happened, but gradually the restlessness that had been a part of him for so long had disappeared.
He’d fed off Jessie’s compassion and her generosity, had basked in her approval and had revelled in the passion they’d shared. But underneath it all had been the tug of guilt and the knowledge that, when it ended, leaving her was going to be harder than he could ever have imagined.
He could see, with the worry swirling in her eyes, that the reasons why he had deflected her questions weren’t so clear-cut any more.
Had he kept silent because he didn’t want her getting any wrong ideas about where this relationship was headed or because he was scared? Scared that once she knew all the sordid details of his life she wouldn’t look at him with the same adoration, the same affection any more?
Should he stay silent, let the moment pass, or should he give her something back? Didn’t he owe her that much?
He sat up slowly. ‘I didn’t get the scars in prison. My mother used a belt on us when we were kids.’
She blinked, stiffened. ‘That’s terrible.’The tear that spilled onto her cheek shocked him, and touched him in a way he would never have expected.
‘Don’t cry. It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now.’
‘Your own mother scarred you. Of course it matters.’ She sniffed, wiping the moisture away with an impatient hand.
‘She hated us. She had her reasons,’ he said.
‘What reasons could she possibly have for doing that to a child?’
The vehemence in her tone made him feel oddly comforted. ‘Do you really want to know? It’s ancient history.’
‘Yes, I do.’ Her eyes were fixed on his face. ‘But only if you want to talk about it.’
Drawing a leg up, he rested an arm on his knee and studied the undulating sand and the insistent drift of the sea beyond.
Could he talk about it? Did he want to?
It was weird. He’d never felt compelled to talk about it before, but, oddly, with her he did.
He couldn’t give her a future, he knew that, but would it be so terrible for him to give her a little of his past?
Jessie waited, watching his profile, her emotions a confusing mix of anger—at the boy he had been, the horrors he had suffered—and anticipation. She so desperately wanted to know more about him. Was he finally going to talk to her about himself?
It seemed like an eternity, but eventually he turned back to her. ‘The night before she had me arrested, my mother told me why she hated us. Me and Linc.’
‘She had you arrested?’ Jessie couldn’t disguise the horror in her voice.
He shrugged, as if it weren’t important. ‘Yeah. Corruption of a minor, that’s what I did time for in juvie. The girl was fifteen. I was just sixteen, so technically they were right. She was hot and she was as eager as me. I didn’t stop to ask for ID.’
He picked up one of the small pebbles nestled by his feet, skimmed it absently across the sand. She noticed the ridged skin on his back and had to force the next question out.
‘What happened when your mother found out?’
‘One of her friends from the country club saw us together.’ His shoulders hitched as he turned back to her. ‘When I got home that night she was wired on the prescription drugs she popped like candy. She tried to go for me with the belt. Kept shouting at me, saying all this really ugly stuff. It didn’t take much to wrestle the belt away from her. She told me then about what it had been like for her with my old man. How I was just the same.’ He shook his head slowly, his breath coming out on a long sigh. ‘First time I ever saw her cry.’
Jessie could hear the pity in his voice, but couldn’t begin to share it, for a woman who had terrorised and despised her own children. ‘What did she tell you?’
He looked at her, his eyes shadowed. ‘That he’d raped her, repeatedly. That he’d wanted sons and even when she’d had several miscarriages, even after she’d begged him not to get her pregnant again, he’d forced himself on her. Forced her to have us.’
Jessie recoiled at the horror of it. What should have been a proclamation of love had become for Monroe’s parents a proof of hate. Could it really be so?
‘Did you believe her?’
He nodded. ‘My old man was in his late fifties when she met him. She was seventeen, just off the plane from London, keen to find the American Dream. He was from one of Newport’s richest families. She held out till she got his ring on her finger, then I guess she found out that it wasn’t just sex he wanted.’
‘What was your father like?’ Jessie tried to keep her voice steady, not to let her disgust for the man who had sired him show.
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t know him. He died when I was still a kid. We didn’t see him much. My mother sent us back to stay with our grandmother in Britain every summer.’ He shrugged. ‘When we had to be with her, we lived on his Rhode Island estate, but he had several other properties.’ He looked up and gave her a hard look. ‘He died of a heart attack. He was busy balling an eighteen-year-old showgirl in Vegas when it hit.’
He picked up a fistful of sand, watched it run through his fingers. ‘He wasn’t interested in us. Linc and I, we knew that, we were just a means to carry on the family name. But we never understood why our mother hated us. Her own mother, our granny, she was strict, but she wasn’t twisted like her; she never once raised a hand to us like our mother did. After a while, I just kind of accepted it, but I know it screwed up Linc real bad. She beat on him the worst, because he would stand up to her.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I guess the more he did that, the more it reminded her of the old man.’
‘She hit Linc, too?’
‘You don’t know about that?’
‘No.