CHAPTER 53

Instinctively, he tightened his arms around her, offering her silent encouragement.

“I hate this,” she said in a broken voice. A statement she’d made multiple times when it came to her weaknesses, as she deemed them.

He rubbed one hand up and down her arm, from shoulder to wrist, before tangling their fingers together, squeezing so she felt the support he offered.

“I hate him,” she whispered. “For what he did to me. To us. Me and Clement. I hate my mother for leaving us with him. I get why she would want out. But why would she leave us, knowing what a monster he was? Sometimes I think I hate her more than even him. How screwed up is that?”

James knew that he was seeing a side of her she hid from the rest of the world. That she was opening up to him when she firmly held back that part of herself from everyone else.

He was humbled and grateful that she’d chosen him. He realized it was due to proximity and the fact he’d forced himself into her bed, but he’d take whatever he could however