She shrugged. “It is what it is. We lived in an apartment, so eventually the landlord came calling for rent. I didn’t have any money, so I packed some things and left. Stayed at my friends’ houses for sleepovers every once in a while and then eventually stuck to shelters. I stayed in school and graduated, and after getting a job at a diner, I got my own apartment.
“I still wanted to help, so I spent my free time helping in the shelters I had lived in. Eventually I began throwing benefits for them. That’s how I met Clayton. You probably don’t want to hear about that part, though.”
“Tell me, I’m curious.”
“All right.” She sighed. “Clayton was smart, charming, and from what I believed then, he was a charitable man. He asked me out, and all I can remember thinking was, wow, this wonderful man is interested in me. I didn’t think much of myself, so the fact that he was looking in my direction meant everything.” She took her last bite and pushed her bowl away to take another drink of wine. “I thought it was strange that he never seemed to want to, you know, take our relationship to the next level. Physically, so to speak, but when I asked him he told me it was because he had wanted to be married first. Naturally, I thought that was honorable, so it placated me at first. He proposed, I accepted, and shortly after that is when I started to see who he really was.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
She hesitated for a moment. She had given that a lot of thought over the last year. “I was afraid. He had a lot of pull in the shelters and other charities throughout the city, and I was afraid that he would stop donating if I left as a way to punish me. He knew how much helping people meant to me.”
“So you stayed and was beaten because you were afraid the punishment for leaving would fall on innocent lives that were already suffering enough.”
“Yes and no. He hadn’t hit me yet, so there was no abuse as of then. I fear I stayed for selfish reasons as well. I didn’t have to worry about money, I was able to live a life I had never dreamed of before.”
“I doubt it was the more selfish reasons that were the main reason behind it, though.”
“They weren’t,” she admitted. “I found out about a month after his proposal that he had been sleeping around. Probably had been since the day I met him.”
Harley shook his head. Why in the hell would anyone not want to be with the woman sitting before him was beyond him. “Fucking idiot,” he said out loud without meaning to. “Sorry,” he said, and took a drink of his wine.
“It’s okay. He was an idiot.”
“How did you find out?” Harley wondered.
“Walked in on him. He had some redhead bent over his desk in his office. You know, the son of a bitch didn’t even stop when I walked in, and the woman looked at me and smiled. She knew who I was, that we were engaged, and it didn’t bother her at all.”
Harley had no words. What kind of asshole screwed around on his fiancée and continued literally screwing when she walked in?
“I was going to leave, and he had his guards hold me in the other room while he finished. That’s the night he hit me for the first time. He gave me a black eye.” She rolled her eyes. “I was so stupid for staying with him as long as I did.”
“I can’t disagree there,” Harley said with a smile, hoping it would cheer her up. “But you did it for good reasons.”
“I suppose.” She smiled back. “It’s all behind me now. As soon as this nightmare is over I am going to go to college. I want to be a social worker.”
“You’ll be a great one.” He nodded and stood to clear the table. When she stood, he set the dishes on the counter and turned to her. “You deserve so much better, Norah,” he said, and stroked her face. She reached out and gently grabbed his arm, holding it to her cheek.
It felt so good to be treated this way. To have a hand on her in kindness rather than in anger. She wondered what his lightly calloused hands might feel like on other parts of her body.
She bit her bottom lip and looked up at him through her lashes. If he kissed her now, she would not stop him, and she found herself wishing he would.
Just as she thought he might do it, he dropped his hand and turned to the sink.
She cleared her throat. “I can do the dishes. You cooked.”
“I can do it.”
“Please let me do it, Harley. Go get a shower. Trust me, you’ll feel amazing afterwards.” She smiled and watched as he left the room.
* * *
HARLEY LET THE hot water beat on his back. She had bit her lip. Oh, he had wanted to bite it for her—gently, of course. As he pressed her back against the counter and showed her exactly how beautiful she was. Let her see what she did to him.
He was more than willing to do what Matthews had refused to do all those years. He scolded himself. She was vulnerable right now, she had just gotten done telling him what that asshole had done to her and everything she had been through and he rejected her again.
He wasn’t an idiot. He knew she had wanted him to kiss her. He had seen it in her eyes that she was more than interested. Damn, he was as well, so just what was he going to do about it?
“Shit,” he said, and shut the water off.
* * *
NORAH DIDN’T CARE to admit it, but the fact that he hadn’t kissed her had stung. She had spent the last two years being rejected by Clayton, and although she knew Harley wasn’t the same man, a small voice in her head was telling her she wasn’t worth it.
What am I feeling? she asked herself as she washed their plates and set them in the drying tray. Could it all be due to what they had gone through together? The fact that he had saved her life, maybe? Or was it more? Who was she kidding, of course it was more. She braced her hands on either side of the sink and took a deep breath.
If he wasn’t interested in her, then that was just fine. She understood. Maybe he didn’t want to complicate things further by getting involved. Too damn bad. They were going to talk about it. Who knew how much time they had left with everything else going on around them?
Norah turned when she heard Harley come back into the room. She felt her mouth go dry when she looked at him. He was shirtless, and the basketball shorts he wore hung low on a trim waist. His muscles were hard, and a light dusting of hair coated his chest. The look on his face was primal, and it furthered the intensity of the heat she was feeling.
Without saying a word, he strode across the kitchen, and before she knew it his hand was cupping her chin, the other buried in her hair and his mouth was on hers.
The second his lips touched hers, her body switched on. She felt as if she had been living in the dark her entire adulthood, and somebody finally flipped on the freaking light.
His mouth has hard on hers, and she gripped his shoulders like he was a lifeline. She opened and he took what she had to offer.