Free All In (The Blackstone Affair, Part 2) by Raine Miller Page A

started speaking again. “I’d never felt
so calm as I did on that day. I got up and knew what I would do. I
waited until Daddy went to work. I felt bad for doing it at his
house but knew that my mom would never forgive me for doing it at
hers. I wrote them goodbye letters and set them out on my bed. Then
I took a handful of sleeping pills I’d stolen from my mom’s stash,
got in the bathtub, and cut my wrist open.”
    “No.” My heart compressed in a painful grip
and all I could do was hold on to her, feel her warm body, and be
grateful she was with me now. Imagining her at the point of taking
her life, at such a young age, and feeling she had no other options
was very sobering. I knew how I felt about Brynne but this scared
the shit out of me.
    “But I sucked at that too. I got sleepy and
didn’t really cut deep enough to bleed out, or so I was told later.
The pills I took were the far worse danger. Daddy found me in time.
He came home for lunch to check on me. He said a weird vibe was
shadowing him the whole morning and he just came home. He saved
me.” Brynne shuddered slightly and turned her head a little more to
rest her cheek on my chest.
    Thank you, Tom Bennett . “I’m so glad
you sucked at it,” I whispered. “My girl can’t be brill at
everything.” I tried to lighten the mood a little but this was not
a conversation for steering. My role was to listen, so I kissed her
hair again and put my hand over her heart. “When I speak to your
father I’m going to thank him,” I whispered.
    “I woke up in a psychiatric hospital. My
mother’s first words were that I’d had a miscarriage and had done
something very stupid and selfish, and that the doctors had to put
me on a suicide watch. She didn’t handle things well. I know I
embarrassed her. And now that I’m older I can only imagine what I
put my parents through, but she didn’t seem to want to face what I
had done either. Mom went on and on about what a blessing it was to
have the pregnancy out of the way, like this was her biggest
concern. Our relationship is not easy. She disapproves of most
everything I do.”
    Brynne sighed again into my chest. I just
kept touching to reassure myself she was indeed here. My girl was
telling me her deepest secrets, in a hot bath, naked in my arms
after some really mind-blowing shagging. I didn’t have any
complaints. Well, maybe a few but I wouldn’t voice them to Brynne.
I continued pulling warm water over her arms and breasts, and
thought about how much I didn’t approve of her mum. What mother
would say such a thing to her daughter after a suicide attempt?
    “When it was all over my parents sent me to
a nice place in the New Mexico desert. It took time but I got
better and eventually learned how to deal with my past. Not
faultlessly, but I managed to make some decent progress I suppose.
I discovered my interest in art and grew up.”
    Brynne paused again in her story, almost
like she was gauging how I was accepting her news and if I was
shocked or horrified by her now. She worried far too much. I picked
up her wrist with the scars and kissed right over the jagged marks.
Little slices of white marring the otherwise perfect skin with its
translucent sheen, the blue of her veins showing from underneath.
The idea of her cutting into that skin made me very sad for what
she had borne.
    I had a sudden epiphany—Brynne had done her
attempt at around the same time I was in that Afghan prison about
to be—
    She entwined her fingers with mine and drew
me out of my thoughts, bringing our hands right up to her mouth and
holding them there with her lips. Brynne was kissing m y hand
this time. I felt warmth flush all throughout my body and tried to
hold onto the wonderfulness of the sensation while it lasted
because her gesture made me far too emotional to speak.
    “I never knew that my dad went to Senator
Oakley and basically blackmailed him. He was livid that he’d nearly
lost me and blamed Lance Oakley for