Page 97 of Reckless Devotion

“I feel it,” she whispers, fresh tears still gathering.

The bridge of my nose prickles, and I admit the only thing I can think of. “Sometimes I feel fucked up too.”

The memories I refuse to acknowledge, the incessant drive to create a world where I’m in charge of my own environment, and the constant masking that sees me perform as court jester—all of it born of some fucked-up situation I realistically had no control over. And slowly, over time, all of those things infiltrated the cracks of who I once was, forming into hard lines to fuse me back together into who I am today. A creature reborn. Still damaged, but strong.

“Why?” The space between her eyebrows creases and she swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand.

My molars clamp together, a crawling sensation prickling beneath my skin. I never talk about this, never eventhinkabout it. But she deserves this small grace, to not feel so alone with the broken bits she tries to hide.

“How much do you know about my father?”

She goes still, scanning my face, which feels nothing more than a mask of stone. “Barely anything, aside from his business ventures, and…and that he went to prison.”

I nod once, a lump forming in my throat as I lower my hands and brace them on the couch on either side of her. Iknow there is little to nothing about Jack Walker online, because me and my family fought damn hard to keep it that way when everything unraveled.

“The prison thing is a long story, and one that isn’t mine to tell…” I think back to those hellish weeks when our family lay in tatters, Mason facing a sentence of twenty years for a crime he didn’t commit and my mother distraught.

“But he was—” I rub the back of my neck, feeling the long-ignored anvil of my childhood weighing on my chest. “He did things that were…inappropriate.”

Suddenly I can’t meet her gaze, instead looking out of the floor-to-ceiling windows where the bustling city conducts her usual business. Skyscrapers, landmarks, and the sweeping Hudson River. A rat race of hustle, from street level to penthouse. I love this city, but I can’t deny that it holds some dark memories to go with the good.

“Chase.” Pepper uses one hand to slowly draw my face back, and I lean into the warmth against my cheek, feeling my stubble scratch her palm. “Tell me.”

I turn my head and kiss her palm gently, before taking hold of it and lowering it into her lap.

“He used to sneak into my room at night when everyone was asleep, and I—” My voice falters and I clear my throat. “I was too young to understand what was happening, but I knew that I didn’t like it.”

Tears fill her eyes again for a whole new reason. “Oh Chase, I’m so sorry.”

She slips her arms behind my neck and pulls me into her, crushing our foreheads together. I wrap my arms around her, holding her tight to anchor myself into the present. I’m not that defenseless boy anymore. I’m a grown man with an empire at my fingertips, and my father rots in the ground where he belongs.

“Don’t be sorry for me, I survived. Just know that I understand what it’s like to feel broken, and you never need to hide that part of yourself from me.”

I wash the ghosts of my past away with one long look—drinking her in like a starving man in the desert—eyes glistening and full of compassion, smooth skin and the most beautiful soul beneath it all. She might pretend to be this big, hard character to the world, but I see the real her. The soft one who loves fiercely and fights for the ones closest to her. Who fights for people who don’t have a voice.

“That man.” Her voice is a low, rough whisper. “I went to school with his younger sister, and they used to throw big parties at the start of each summer.”

I still, my stomach twisting with dread.

“They had a huge house by the river and everyone always wanted to be invited.” Her eyes gain a faraway look as she treads an old path in her memory, a sad smile ghosting over her lips. “And I never was, being the weird kid in foster care who always had secondhand clothes.”

I try to picture her, a young girl conjured in my mind with dark hair, that same pouty mouth and sloping nose—not yet with any of the fire that she had to learn along the way. My chest aches, grappling with the knowledge that this spectacular woman didn’t have the beginning she deserved. She didn’t have the loving parents or the security to just be a kid. Instead, she had to carve her own path, transforming herself from carbon to diamond under immense pressure. And god damn did she become magnificent in the process, but I’d trade all of that in a heartbeat for her to have had a softer start.

“My senior year, I got an invite, and I couldn’t believe my luck. I felt like finally the kids in our town might be giving me a chance. Except it was all just a cruel joke, designed to make me look stupid when I arrived and get turned away.”

She lifts one shoulder and drops it, and I understand this part of her story to be anecdotal. Every cell in my body knows that what follows will be worse. Much worse.

“I was devastated, as you would be at that age, and her brother found me crying at the end of their driveway. He was nice at first…he invited me back in and apologized for his sister being such a bitch…” She sniffs, shaking her head. “I don’t know if he slipped something into my drink, but the next thing I know, we’re in a bathroom and h-he’s—”

Her voice cracks and her eyes glisten, her throat working hard to swallow. A new lens slots over her, asking me to help her reclaim that part of her…in a bathroom, no less.

“You don’t have to say it, baby.”

“No, Ido.” Her eyes flash to mine, swirling with burning fury and determination. “I’ve held it in like a shameful secret for so long, and I refuse to—” A dry sob catches in her throat, and I sit back in awe when she grits her teeth and gathers everything she has, a tear streaking down her face and dripping off her jaw as she confronts her darkest demon. “I refuse to be ashamed because some asshole raped me.”

My heart grows and shatters all at the same time, admiration and sorrow flooding my system in equal measure. Veneration for her strength. Heartbreak for her pain. Warring with each other. Tangling into one beast and morphing into something darker—something that wants to march out of this office and put that slimy little fucker into the ground. My eyes sting, heat rising to crackle like static over my skin.

“Baby girl,” I whisper as she shakes with emotion, silent tears slipping down her face. “You havenothingto be ashamed of.” My hand trembles as I slide it around her neck, my own breath coming in short, shallow draws. “What happened next?”