Sinful Longing

She turned to him, dropped her hand to his leg, and squeezed his strong thigh. “I do worry about you, Colin,” she said, meeting his gaze.

He flashed a small smile. “I like that you worry about me.”

“I worried about you yesterday, too. I was worried how you were going to take the news from Marcus,” she said softly. “How was it?”

A bird chirped in a nearby branch, and Colin gazed at the rocks on the other side of the creek as he told her about meeting his half-brother, from the utter shock, to the sparks of humor he said he saw in Marcus, to how Michael and Shan had reacted when he’d told them—which was in much the same way he had. “Honestly, I didn’t know how Michael would take it, since there’s no love lost with him and our mom. I was worried he would want to have nothing to do with Marcus.”

“But he didn’t react that way?”

Colin shook his head. “Oh, he was surprised as hell, and had a few choice words to say about Dora Prince. But he’s always looked out for the younger ones, and I guess Marcus is part of that now. But the whole thing is this big reminder of my mother, and how I barely even know who she is. She’s like this strange, evil magician presiding over all of us from behind bars. Or maybe a master puppeteer, and she pulls all these strings whenever she wants,” he said, holding up his hands to demonstrate an evil mastermind, adding in a cackle.

“She didn’t pull this one,” Elle pointed out. “Marcus came to you on his own.”

He huffed. “I know, but she played her part by never saying a word for years.” He shook his head in disgust. “How do you keep a kid a secret? Why? I don’t get her. I don’t know what language she speaks, if she’s even human. I seriously don’t understand how I’m connected to her. I hate that I’ve ever had anything in common with her.”

He turned to her, the sunlight streaming through the branches and illuminating the deep frustration etched on his handsome face. She ran a hand gently through his hair. “I don’t know her at all, but I hardly think it does you any good to beat yourself up over whether you’re similar to her. You’re such a good person, Colin. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever known.”

He cupped her cheek. “Thank you,” he said. But he didn’t seem to hold on to her words because his tone turned dark again as he let go of her face and clenched his fist. “Most of the time, I’ve dealt with the stupid decisions I made as a kid, but sometimes I hate that I had friends with brothers in the Royal Sinners. I can’t believe I even associated with them that way.”

“And you didn’t wind up in it. You didn’t venture down that path.”

“I was such a fuck-up as a teenager,” he said, gritting his teeth.

“Please. It’s not like I have some perfect record as a teen. I got knocked up.”

“Yeah. But something good came of that. Your kid.”

“True. But still, I was pregnant when I graduated high school. Of course I don’t regret it, but my point is, you shouldn’t let the past gnaw at you either. You are your present, and what I see in front of me is pretty great.” A light breeze swirled the water by their feet as he smiled—a soft, tender smile. “Hate is a hard thing to hold on to,” she added. “It can eat away at you.”

He nodded a few times, as if he was letting her remark soak in. “Do you think that’s happening to me?”

“Any time we harbor that sort of hate, it can’t do any good. And it’s all directed at her, but I think you’re mad at yourself too, Colin,” she said softly, placing her hand on his arm, tracing his tattoos that she loved. His skin was warm from the sun.

“Why?”

“Because you’ve struggled with some of the same things your mother struggled with,” she said, stopping to pause before she said the next thing, “I think that’s one of the reasons you have so much hate for her.”

He scoffed. “Not because she, you know, killed my dad?”

“Obviously that is the biggest part of it. And in no way am I advocating you forgive that,” she said firmly, holding her hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Good. Because I won’t and I don’t.”

“Nor should you. But you hate that you have this one small thing in common with her. Perhaps, the person you need to forgive is yourself.” She softened her voice as she said the thing that she knew would be hardest for him to hear. “Maybe to do that, you need to see her.”

He sat ramrod straight, as if he’d been jolted with high-voltage electricity. “Are you kidding me?”