Chapter 36

THIRTY-SIX

I t's been a week since the accident, and I've been on bed rest. It's driving me crazy, but Kage won't let me ignore the doctors' orders. The reporters out front have only tripled, and the news stories run every hour. My interview is highlighted despite other things happening in the world.

Good, let them be reminded every day.

Speculation has already started about the truth, and secrets are beginning to be dug up, everyone wanting to know what I meant. The police are still searching for who did this, and Kage hates that, so the guards in the house have doubled. I can barely pee without a man in a suit busting in to check I'm alive.

It's constricting and annoying but also strangely sweet.

I haven't cried since the day I came back from the hospital. Tears are useless anyway. They won't change anything, but Kage watches me like he's waiting for me to crack again. I don't blame him, I was a mess that day, but I pulled myself together—or so I thought.

I answer the phone without looking, a rookie mistake, and a voice I never wanted to hear flows into my ears. "Hello, Fallon."

My heart stills, and when I speak, I'd like to say my voice is strong and confident, but it's small. I'm still a little girl wishing for her mother to love and protect her.

"Mother." I pause, swallowing my pain. It's all on the surface, since I'm never able to escape it, especially recently. "You never call."

I haven't seen or spoken to my mother since my father's funeral. She got drunk and caused a scene after the reading of the will and disappeared into thin air once more, barely sparing her teenage daughter a look. Maybe she was scared of what she would see.

She took off when I was young, leaving me alone with him. She said she was done with his lifestyle—the drugs, the alcohol, and the women. She never wanted a child, but she had me and despised me for it since the moment I was born. She hated the way my father doted on me and loved me when he didn't love her. If only she knew the truth, that his love crossed lines. I would have done anything for him to love me less and her more.

I would have run away with her if she asked, even if she hated me for the rest of my life, but she didn't care about me enough to even say goodbye back then. To her, I was a reminder of what she endured in the name of love and fame. She wanted a fresh start—one that didn't include me.

"Yes, well, I saw about your accident." She waits, but I don't speak. My heart flies for a moment until she talks again. "You shouldn't have reacted to it like that." Whatever was left of my childish heart hoping my mother would suddenly care plummets and crashes.

I go ice cold all over, refusing to let her hurt me once more.

I can't keep giving her that power. She never loved me, so why am I always hoping she will?

"Well?" she prompts when I don't speak. "I have seen you speaking about your father. Let it be, Fallon. Don't bring up the past?—"

"They brought it up first," I snap, refusing to be cowed. I won't let her chastise me like I'm a naughty child. She gave up the right to have a say in my life a long time ago.

She's just a stranger with a familiar face.

"Fallon— "

"No, you do not get to call and tell me what to do. We both know you are scared—scared of what I'll say, scared it will ruin whatever perfect life you have built without me. I'm betting a mother abandoning her child wouldn't read well, would it? If you don't like the truth, Mother, then you shouldn't have abandoned your child to that monster," I snarl, refusing to sugarcoat it like I normally would. All those years of pain lace my tone, making me bitter and angry.

"Enough!" she yells. There she is, the true version of my mother. She could never disguise her hatred for me. "Apologize to me right now."

My laugh is bitter and slightly manic. "You want me to apologize? To you?" I laugh even harder, until tears fill my eyes, before I swallow it back, gasping through it. "You want me to say sorry? To you? If I was ever going to apologize to someone, it wouldn't be you. It would be me. I'm crueler to myself more than anyone else. I rip myself apart to fit into little boxes. I starve myself. I medicate myself. I drink and numb myself. I don't even meet my own eyes in the mirror out of fear of what I'll see and feel. I have never said anything nice about myself. I hear your voice and I foolishly hope for the love you should have freely given. I hurt myself over and over trying to earn it. If there was ever an apology owed, it's to me, not you—never you. You abandoned me. You didn't care then, so don't start now. This is my life, and you have nothing to do with it. You made that perfectly clear." Breathing heavily, I tilt my chin up as if she can see me. "I will never apologize for what I'll do next. If you don't like the truth, Mother, then you shouldn't have been such a terrible person."

She didn't say goodbye back then, so she doesn't get one now. I hang up without another word.

I'm panting, but my shoulders are loose and my heart is less heavy, less burdened. I've carried that pain, that fury, in my heart for so long, hating her while she didn't even care, and I kept telling myself I'm not good enough to be loved.

I was wrong.

Kage taught me that. As if my thoughts summon him, arms slip around my waist and a chin rests on my shoulder .

"How much did you hear?" I ask.

"Everything," he admits, kissing on my shoulder. "How do you feel?"

"Better," I answer without shame. Kage would never judge me.

He has become my guide, my protector, my lover, and my home.

I should care that he manipulated it this way, but I don't because I'm beginning to understand he was right. I need him, and he needs me. We were meant to be. It doesn't matter how it started.

"And?" he prompts, interrupting my thoughts.

"And?" I repeat, my brows drawing together in a frown, not understanding.

"Are you going to apologize to yourself?" he asks.

"Oh." I blow out a breath, unsure what to say. I always feel raw and exposed with him. He has this ability to see too deeply and understand too much. It's unnerving as well as endearing. Anyone else might just let it slide and tell me it's okay.

Not Kage.

Taking my silence for denial, he takes matters into his own hands.

Turning me, he forces me to meet my gaze in the mirror in my dressing room, where I was when I took the call. My eyes meet his in the reflection before returning to my icy ones.

"Apologize, right now, to you—to the child, the teenager, and the woman. Apologize for not loving her enough. This body keeps you alive. It saved you. This mouth and throat sing songs that transport people. These eyes . . . they saved me. Apologize, Fallon."

"I—" I swallow as I stare into my eyes. He waits, not letting me escape. "I'm sorry for not loving you enough. I'm sorry for believing everything they said. I'm sorry for hating the shape of you, the color of you, the size of you when you kept me alive and housed my heart and soul. I'm sorry for loving everyone else more than you when you are all I have."

"Good girl." His hand slides softly across my hair. "You did so well." His mouth meets my ear. "Now show it how sorry you are. I'll help." He lowers to his knees behind me, and my eyes widen. He slides his hands up my skirt until my panties are exposed .

I gasp, trying to turn, but his hands keep me in place, my eyes on our reflection as his lips move across my ass, leaving soft, devastating kisses. "Look at how beautiful you are."

I have no choice but to run my eyes over my body, trying to see what he sees. I'm beautiful, enough people have told me, but as his voice whispers against skin, I start to believe it. I start to understand that I can use it for my pleasure.

I can love it for me, not what it can bring me.

His hands glide up my inner thighs, parting them so his mouth can brush over my panty-clad pussy, making me whimper. "This world would fall if they heard you like that. You should be worshiped like a goddess. You are untouchable. You are beautiful. You are kind and soft, hard and crazy. You are talented and beautiful. You are everything. Don't you see?"

"Kage," I whisper as he tugs off my panties. I help him, lifting my sore leg, and he lays a kiss there as he exposes not just my body, but my soul. He looks at my fears, worries, and insecurities, and he kisses them, calling them beautiful even when I couldn't.

"You are so worth loving. Don't you see how you captivate this world and everyone in it? How you captivate me? One meeting and I knew you were someone important, someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life trying to live up to. Your soul might be filled with scars, but light gets in and melts the ice, and I will be your light. I will be your poet, your warrior, your king, and your clown. I will be whatever you need because I love you. I love you enough for both of us."

All I can do is stare into his eyes, seeing what he sees. His voice drowns out the one inside me that constantly tells me I'm not enough and never will be because for the first time, I realize I am.

I deserve to be loved.

I deserve to be happy.

He smiles against my inner thigh and places a kiss there before turning his head and pressing one to my clit. His hands part my ass to give him more room as his tongue darts out to taste me.

It's time to stop breaking my own heart, so instead, I hand it over to him, knowing he will keep it safe for me. He will meticulously seal those cracks left by others and my own hands. Kage will love me even when I can't love myself.

"If you ever forget, just look into my eyes and see how much I love you . . . see you the way I do. I will love you when you forget to. I will remind you when you're lost," he promises, meeting my eyes. "I will be right here with you every time, until you love yourself the way I love you."

He shows me without words. His tongue traces across my folds as I watch myself in the mirror. My cheeks heat with a blush that spreads down my chest, lighting up my skin like a ruby is trapped inside. I watch my ocean eyes darken and melt, and I watch the way my lips part. My skin heats under his touch as his tongue slips inside me and fucks me. I moan, rocking into his touch. My hands slide across my body, reclaiming it and memorizing the way my soft skin feels under my caress.

I enhance my own desire, using his mouth to get where I want. Right now, it's not about him, but me. His tongue presses against my clit as pleasure washes through me. My eyes want to close, but I force them to stay open and watch the beauty of my desire.

When I reach the precipice, I allow myself to fall over the edge and into his waiting arms.

I come in his mouth as he hums, licking up my desire until I'm shaking and leaning heavily into his hold to stay upright. He places a soft kiss on my sensitive clit and moves back.

"Look at how much power you hold inside your body. Look at your magnificence."

Panting, I look down as he moves to kneel at my side, gazing up at me.

"Let them hate you, Fallon, let them be jealous, but don't you ever do it again. Look them in the eye so they know you are more than they could ever imagine. Smile and remind yourself of this moment, of me on my knees, looking up at my goddess."

Reaching down, I slide my hand into his dark hair and watch the way his eyes close in bliss. How could I ever hate myself when he loves me? When my body, heart, and soul make this man weak? I might have days where I still fight the darkness, but I know he'll be right here with me.

Lowering to my knees, I tug his mouth to mine and kiss him, telling him everything I can't speak.

He's my stage, and I sing my song with my lips.