The Bachelor Meets His Match by Arlene James

Author:Arlene James [James, Arlene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-06-21T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Her legs collapsed unexpectedly. Fortunately, Simone stood close enough to the bed to land on its edge. Hypatia yelped, but Morgan reached her first. She held him off with stiff arms, knowing that if he touched her, she’d give way to the grief that she had buried for so long. It hovered around her now, ready to pounce like a ravenous animal. She had miscarried a tiny baby and had it swept away like so much garbage with no doctor or medical personnel of any kind ever attending her.

“That was just the beginning,” she forged on, her vision narrowing to a foggy pinprick. “He kept me in that same room for weeks, and he told me that he owed money to some men and I had to work it off for him.” She closed her eyes, feeling dizzy. “I was such an idiot. I thought he was helping the other girls there. I didn’t know they were prostitutes until he told me.”

She heard Hypatia’s gasp then, and her vision snapped back into focus. There it was, the revulsion and horror, everything she’d expected to see, everything she’d always felt.

“I was fortunate,” she went on woodenly. “The police came before the men did. They arrested me with the others, but I didn’t care. He’d gotten me a fake ID.” She laughed harshly. “I thought that was so cool. At least my record is under the wrong name, and the cops didn’t know how young I was, so my family didn’t have to know how low I’d sunk. I lived on the street and ate out of garbage cans until after my seventeenth birthday so they wouldn’t know.”

“Oh, Simone,” Hypatia said, “your father would have been happy to have you home under any circumstances.”

“I realize that now,” she admitted, “now that it’s too late. But what of my mother?”

Hypatia blanched and looked away.

“I see you’ve met my mother,” Simone said wryly, “and you must know my sister quite well, too.”

“I like to think so.”

“Responsible, upright, persistent and hardworking, honest to a fault, makes do without complaining, never puts a foot wrong?”

Hypatia smiled. “She is.”

“If you were her, wouldn’t you resent me?” Simone asked.

Hypatia opened her mouth, blinked and sighed.

“She has children now and a happy marriage,” Simone went on. “What could I possibly add to her life but regret and shame? She can’t want that.”

“You’re her sister,” Hypatia said simply.

“Not for a long time,” Simone murmured, sinking down onto the bed. “Just let me rest a little while please.”

A hand skated beneath her bangs to cover her forehead, and she heard Morgan say, “She’s as cold and clammy as a fish.”

That was exactly how she felt, Simone thought, curling into a ball, like a fish out of water. She wanted to sleep and never wake up again. Tears leaked from her shuttered eyes.

“I’m taking her to Brooks,” Morgan stated.

It sounded to Simone as if she was at the bottom of a deep well.

“Lyla Simone,” Hypatia called down to her, “Morgan will look after you, dear.

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