Wild in Love by Bella Andre & Jennifer Skully

Author:Bella Andre & Jennifer Skully [Andre, Bella & Skully, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
Publisher: Bella Andre & Jennifer Skully
Published: 2018-04-08T18:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Daniel held her tight for long minutes, absorbing her sobs until they softened into sniffles.

“Hey, look at me.” He kept his voice gentle as he tipped up Tasha’s chin. She’d stopped crying, but her lashes were still damp, the rims of her eyes reddened.

“I didn’t mean to cry all over you,” she said in a voice still thick with tears. “I just needed to tell you the whole truth, with nothing left out.”

The pain of what she’d experienced clenched in his gut. Yet he was grateful that she’d finally given him her trust, confided her deepest secrets. Each of the Mavericks knew just how deep into the darkness family secrets could drag you if you let them.

“Your guilt, your belief in your culpability—those aren’t the truth,” he said. “You’re not to blame, Tasha. Not for any of it.”

She blinked, slowly, finally looking up. “It is the truth, Daniel. Everything I told you.”

“Not the part where you load the blame on yourself, taking responsibility for not seeing through your father’s lies.”

His heart hurt for the loss of her illusions about her family. Hell, it made his chest tight just to skirt around the issue of possible bumps in the road between his mother and father, so he could understand how much her family’s long con must have devastated her. But to blame herself? He couldn’t accept that. He wouldn’t accept it.

“We’re not the products of our parents, with no ability to change. We don’t need to live with their stigma. And we don’t ever have to be like them. We can be better than they are and rise above our circumstances.”

Every one of his friends had come from a hell created by their parents. That’s why his mom and dad had taken them in. And still, the Mavericks had risen far above their backgrounds—and their bad genes, as Tasha had called it—not just in terms of money, but in their integrity, their loyalty, their kindness toward others.

“You wanted to see only the good in your dad.” He cupped her cheek, stroking her skin with his thumb, the contact necessary to his entire being. “That’s natural, even admirable. Children are born having faith that their parents will take care of them, watch out for them, love them. But if your parents blow it—that’s not your fault.”

“Can’t you see how weak I was?” she insisted. “Living in la-la land where everyone is good and no one ever does anything simply for their own gain and at the expense of others.”

“My mother always looks for the good in people,” he countered, “and she’s the farthest thing from weak.”

“I didn’t mean—”

He laid his finger on her lips, reminding himself of her sweet taste, how good she felt in his arms. “I know you didn’t mean anything against her. I’m trying to show you that it’s okay to give people a chance instead of judging them too quickly. Mom believes you have to see the good in people and everything around you. Or life is just misery.

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