“No, it isn’t.” Money wasn’t affection. “But until Samantha moved to Maryland, I didn’t know any better.”
Eloise shifted, like hearing Samantha’s name made her uncomfortable. I held her to me, needing to feel her skin against my own after too many days away.
“Samantha’s father is also in politics,” I said. “They moved from New York City to Potomac when I was ten. Dad and John met through work and became friends. Mom and Ashley hit it off too, and from then on out, if there was an activity or function, our families did it together. I preferred it that way. When John and Ashley were around, my parents were flipped on. And I had Samantha. She was my first everything. Crush. Kiss. We lost our virginity to each other at fourteen.”
Eloise dropped her gaze, staring blankly over my shoulder to the pillow.
“What?” I asked.
“Just . . . jealous.”
Fuck, but I loved that she could lay it out there. That she didn’t hide it from me.
If our positions were reversed, I wasn’t sure I could hear about her past lovers. Hell, the day at the ranch when she’d told me about the guys she’d brought home had been hard enough.
“Are her parents like yours?” she asked. “Disinterested?”
“Yes and no,” I said. “Ashley is a surgeon and constantly at the hospital. John works even more than my dad. I don’t doubt that they love Sam. But she was always second priority. We had that in common. We gave the attention we each craved to one another.”
We’d filled that void. The moment our families would get together, Sam and I would disappear, not a parent concerned with what we were doing. Even as teens, either our parents hadn’t known or they hadn’t cared when we’d vanish to a closed bedroom and fuck for hours.
Sam was the first person I’d ever loved. The first and only person who ever heard me say I love you. I’d given that woman all I’d had. And it still hadn’t been enough.
“We went to the same private high school in Maryland,” I said.
Sam and I had spent our teenage years as bored, rich kids. With bored, rich kids. Three of my classmates had graduated with substance abuse problems. There weren’t many drugs Sam and I hadn’t sampled. Drinking had been a casual pastime up until my senior year, when I’d had someone pull my head out of my ass.
“Sam wanted to go to Cornell because that’s where her parents met. I wanted Georgetown. Mostly because I wanted to stay in DC.”
“Why?” Eloise asked. “You didn’t want to get away from your parents?”
“I did. But my senior year in high school, I started taking karate at a local dojo. It was like I’d found a passion, you know? It was the right place for me. I got attached to my sensei and wanted to earn my black belt. Moving to New York meant a different teacher, and I wasn’t about to change, start over. So Sam left, and I stayed.”
“Did you get your black belt?”
“Yeah. My sophomore year at Georgetown. I got my second degree about two years after that. Right before my sensei passed away. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.” Eloise pressed a kiss to my heart.
“Me too.” I threaded my fingers through her hair, most of the strands nearly dry now. “His name was Dan. He changed my life.”
He’d taken me—an arrogant, spoiled brat—under his wing. He’d taught me humility. Discipline. Grace. Respect. He’d been the father I’d never had.
“He was a widower. No kids. So when he was going through chemo, I went with him a lot. Sat with him at the hospital while they pumped him full of drugs.” Toward the end, the doctors had been honest with us both. It had been terminal. But he’d gone to treatment anyway, never giving up hope for a miracle.
I missed Dan every single day. Would he be proud of the man I’d become? I wished he were here so I could ask him myself. I wished he could meet Eloise because he’d adore her. And he’d kick my ass for getting myself tangled in a fake marriage. He’d call me a turd.
I missed being called a turd.
“One day at the hospital, toward the end, I asked him why he picked me,” I said. “Why he gave me so much time and energy. What was so special about me. Why he treated me differently than his other students.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t answer.” The lump in my throat began to choke me. “He said that if I couldn’t look in the mirror and know the answer to that question, he hadn’t done a good enough job. Broke my fucking heart. So I went home that night and stared at the mirror for an hour. Still not sure what he saw.”
“Jasper.” Eloise’s chin began to quiver.
“Don’t cry, angel.”
She sniffled, her eyes flooding. “I can cry if I want.”
“Don’t cry for me. Please.” It only made this harder.
“Okay,” she whispered, blinking away the tears.
This was the most I’d spoken of my past in, well . . . ever. Not even Foster knew this much about my family. But Eloise had said she wanted to know me better than anyone. There wasn’t much I could give her, but I could give her this. And before we went to Sam’s wedding, she deserved the truth.
“Dan died a week after I graduated from Georgetown,” I said. “I was a wreck.”
My exams had been finished, thankfully. I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on a test. But I’d been totally lost without him. He’d become this anchor. This voice of reason. And suddenly, I was adrift, left alone with only the voices in my head.
And Sam’s.
“Sam and I stayed together through college. Did the long-distance thing. Saw each other when we could, but we were both busy. If I wasn’t at school, I was at the dojo. When Dan pulled back, after he got sick, I stepped up to help teach. And I’d wanted to broaden my martial arts skills, so I’d started doing some Muay Thai too.”
There’d been too many emotions stirring at the time. With school. With Dan. The only way I’d known how to deal with them was by shoving them aside. And it had always been easier to shut down emotionally if I was channeled wholly into something physical.
In high school, when my parents had overlooked me, I’d ignored that pain and, instead, gotten lost in sex with Sam. Then I’d started at the dojo, and martial arts training had become my joy in those days.
“Sam was in a sorority,” I said. “They always had functions, plus she had school demands. We’d talk every day, but it was shallow. We were both changing. Moving in different directions. Not that I realized it at the time.”
Hindsight was a bitch.
The red flags had been endless, but I’d overlooked each and every one.
“Did she know Dan?” Eloise asked.