Never Enough (27 page)
At the same time, structure had been what kept both she and Miles on track. He was the kind of kid who needed it and she was the kind of parent who gave it.
This storm between them began to build again. Their energy changing, intensifying. It dizzied her, tempted her to let herself fall into that supercharged thing between them.
His gaze roved over her features with such longing, such aching need, that she felt it to her core. To be looked at that way by a man like Adrian Brown had been a far-off fantasy only a short time before, and now her reality had turned inside out and he’d filled everything she didn’t know needed filling until he was there.
“Look, I know it’s hard to allow me in. I know you had a life before I came along. I upset the order of things and you love order so fucking much you’re torn between me and it.”
“Is that what you think?” She turned to look at him, trying not to allow that gorgeous face to steal her wits. She was weak, damn it all. Weak for him.
“How can I know what to think, Gillian? You keep your past locked up in a vault so all I can do is guess. Tell me something. Let me in. I won’t judge you. I just want to know you.”
Wretched, sweet man.
“You’re an amazing mother. I mean that. I watch you with Miles and I know that despite the fact that I wasn’t around for his early years, he had you and that helps. A lot.”
She exhaled, charmed no matter how hard she tried not to be.
“What was your mother like? Was she a good example?”
Well now, he just went from zero to fifty in a second, didn’t he? But he was right, she did need to share more, even if little by little.
“My mother was beautiful when she was a young woman. Talented. She wanted to be a dancer but she just didn’t have the training.” And she’d let that limit her until she died.
Adrian watched her, not speaking, but listening.
“So when my sister and I were growing up she always found a few quid extra here and there to pay for lessons for us. Tina had dance and singing lessons. She had a right lovely voice, she did.” But no real discipline.
“And you? Piano?”
Gillian nodded. “Yes.” She smiled. Those hours had been the best of her week, every week. Once her fingers brushed the keys it hadn’t mattered where she lived or what idiot her mother had gotten mixed up with this time.
“Was she a good mom then?”
Startled out of her memories, Gillian opted for honesty. “No. No, she wasn’t. She never should have had children.”
He paled a little. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “It happened a long time ago.”
“And your dad? Was he around?”
“No. And that was a good thing. My mother was a drunk.” Gillian’s laugh was without humor. “She also loved pills, and when we moved here, found crack cocaine to her liking as well. She also loved men who were easy to anger, hard to rouse when it came to work or any positive activity like cleaning up.”
“Christ. Did they hurt you too?”
“Here and there. I got good at staying out as much as I could. Got quick and nimble.” One of them had tried to break her fingers for fun. Because he’d known she loved the piano and he wanted to steal it from her.
Candace had hit him over the head with a bottle and they’d shoved him out the door. Mother-daughter bonding in Candace’s book.
“There’s not much worse in the world than a man who brutalizes women and children.”
“True. But to my mother, those were the best kinds of men. I used to think she wanted to fix them. But I don’t know if that’s the case anymore. I think perhaps it just got her off. The danger. The drama. Candace loved drama and with the men she chose, she got plenty.”
“Your sister . . .” He shook his head, she knew, probably uncomfortable.
“It’s all right. To be curious about her.” Gillian shrugged.
“It’s just . . . I feel like an asshole for not remembering her, even after you showed me pictures. And then I feel like an asshole for feeling like an asshole because I’d never in a million years forget you. Your voice, the way your skin feels, the way your hair smells. You’re indelible.”
She swallowed back a knot of emotion at his words. At the way he gave her compliments that seemed to burrow deep and barb in her heart.
“You befuddle me.”
His grin was sideways. A little crooked. A lot sexy.
“I do? How so?” He underlined this with a little head toss, artfully tousling his hair around his face, totally aware of his effect.
“Stop it.” She blushed, shaking her head. “You’re incorrigible, you know that?”
“I do. Erin told me once it was one of my best qualities. Take a compliment, Gillian. God knows you need a few, and I certainly don’t have to lie because you’re one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known.”
“Thank you. I feel very much the same way about you.”
The cockeyed grin changed a little. For a moment he looked like a sweet little boy.
“I like to hear that. A lot.”
“My sister was a lot like my mother. They wanted to be loved so much they forgot themselves. The same love of addictions and shitty men. Present company excluded.”
“Why do you think she never told me or tried to get money from me? I mean, you say she was like your mom. And how come you didn’t call her Mum?”
“I did when I was little. She wanted me to call her Candace. And then when we moved here she wanted to be Mommy or Candy.” She withheld her shudder. “My gran was a mum. I’m a mum. Once I was ten or so, I knew she wasn’t a mum. She sure as hell wasn’t a mommy, though Tina called her Mommy. They were close. Ran together.”
“Was that hard for you?”
“You’re going to think me a monster, but I was just glad not to be part of it. I always hoped they’d find in each other what neither found from anyone else.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t what my mother wanted or expected. I’d say something like how she did all she could with what she had, but that’s a lie. She was lazy and self-centered and she had a great, gaping hole inside that she never filled. It made being around her painful. I preferred my books and my music and later, once we moved to the States, my gran.”
Gillian looked to where her hand lay in Adrian’s. He’d filled something inside her. His gaze met hers and she was glad she’d shared. Felt better for it. He made her want to let him in. Which scared her even as it thrilled her.
“As for why she never used Miles to blackmail you? I don’t know for sure. Using him to manipulate you would have not been out of her behavioral patterns. She was manipulative, and when you were with her she still had her looks and she wasn’t afraid to use them to get what she wanted. But she never did that where he was concerned. I like to think that she loved Miles in her own way. And that he was the one thing she felt like she’d done right. She signed the papers and left me alone to raise him. I’d have given her money, she knew that. I’d have done anything for him. But instead of using it, she respected it.”
He couldn’t know what that meant.
“The way we grew up . . . skint, we call it. You grow up with nothing like we did and it shapes you. For good or for ill, it frames everything in some way or other. My sister was a mess. I can’t deny it. But she wasn’t all bad. How we came up sent me one way and her another. Miles is my anchor in a way my piano never could have been. I weathered a storm and survived it. She just sort of got battered over and over until she couldn’t anymore. She never stopped being a victim.
“Our mother didn’t have those scruples. I paid her many times to keep away from Miles and out of our lives. I’d do it again.” Hated tears fell and she brushed her hands over her face.
Most men would have changed the subject or made quick assurances to a woman as she sort of fell apart. Instead, he did exactly what she needed. He listened to her, his gaze on her steady and filled with more emotion than she could process just then.
He let her get herself together and then continued to listen as she spoke again.
“So, I choose to believe that my sister did not use Miles because she loved him and it was what she could give him. And for that, I’ll love her until the day I die.”
Adrian got her then. Understood the steadfast determination of hers to be independent and make her own way. Each word had come from her because she’d chosen to share herself with him. And what she’d revealed only dragged him under deeper.
Gillian Forrester was the perfect woman. So much control and discipline. She’d risen above a shitty childhood and built something not only for herself but their son too.
She understood family in the same way he did. When she said family was important, it was through the way she mothered, the way she’d stayed close with her grandmother, even the way she’d described her sister.
He’d liked a lot of women. Maybe even could have loved a few. And none of them had been what this one was.
He leaned closer, brushing his lips over hers with aching tenderness. The soft sigh she gave him in response undid him to his foundations.
“You’re a mum, all right. Thank you for loving our son so much.”
“Stop it now!” Flustered but affectionate, she glared his way. “As for loving him, well, of course. How could you do anything but?”
Easy, he leaned in and kissed each corner of her mouth before sitting back. “Yes. And thank you for that too.”
“What about your parents?”
He drew in a deep breath, as if measuring his words. “It wasn’t anything like your situation. They just weren’t around much. My mother loved my father powerfully. So much that she sort of forgot anyone else existed. He liked that. Being the center of her world.
“We weren’t abused or anything. It was just that they had not much left for us. He was busy. On the road a lot for his job. I’ve told you how much more Brody was a father to me than the one I had. I worry that I’ll be a shitty father. I travel a lot too. Less now than I did even a year ago. But I don’t want to be an absentee dad any more than I was already.”
“Oh no.” She shook her head. “Don’t. Please. You’re brilliant with Miles. You listen to him. You care about him. You want to ensure his well-being. You see him as much as you can. The best thing is that he knows it. Brody was your example and he’s an amazing father. As for your travel, Miles is getting older; perhaps you can take him with you when you go from time to time. He’d love that.”
“I want to take you both. I want to show you the world. I want to give it to you because I can and because you deserve it. Don’t you see? It means something that you’re here for Adrian. The guy who is trying to be a good dad. The guy who is head-over-heels gone for you. I can be that guy with so few people.”
She exhaled and he caught the battle on her features. He knew most likely torn between knowing he was telling the truth and feeling like she was using him.
He laughed. “Oh, English, remind me to play cards with you some day. Strip poker would be quite fun.”
“Am I that obvious?”
He took her hand, the one she’d squeezed his with, entangling his fingers with hers and kissing it. “You wear everything you feel on your face. That wasn’t always true, so I feel as if we’re moving forward.”
14
Adrian sailed past his lunkhead of a brother and toward the end zone. He still had to avoid Todd, who lurked just ahead, wearing a smirk.
Ben then approached from Todd’s left and tackled him.
Rennie cheered him on from the sidelines, Erin calling out jeers for Ben and laughing at Todd.
Gillian and Miles were there too. That part was the best of all.
Gillian had shown up on his doorstep with Miles, as she’d promised, just a few hours before. Had given up her Thanksgiving plans with her friends to be with him and his family, and to give that to Miles too.
And in doing so, she’d only made him want her more.
She sat at a nearby table looking feminine and beautiful in a knit cap and gloves, her coat buttoned up smartly.
Elise sat on one side and Ella to the other. Both women—well, hell, all of them—had gone out of their way to befriend Gillian. Erin was relentless anyway; Gillian couldn’t resist any more than the rest of them could.
Miles had declined to take part in the game. Adrian had tried to convince him how much fun it would be and his son had raised one brow, indicated the size of the men playing, and had reiterated his no-thank-you.
Given that the game had broken out into two outrageously vicious fouls between Adrian and Brody once and Ben and Cope another time along with the tackle that had Todd limping, Miles did appear to have a point.
Though Adrian had noticed the more-than-friendly lingering pat on the ass Ben had given Todd when he helped him up.
’Course, he noticed this from the end zone. Ha!
“Are they like this every year?” Gillian asked, sipping some hot apple cider. This game of theirs was something Adrian had described as a
fun
thing he and his friends did every year. Fun. Hm. “Adrian assured Miles that it was just about pulling the flag things off the belt. This looks a lot more like full contact to me.”
fun
thing he and his friends did every year. Fun. Hm. “Adrian assured Miles that it was just about pulling the flag things off the belt. This looks a lot more like full contact to me.”
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