Free Dirty Boss: A Second Chance Romance by Alex Riley

in his life; his political career and power. I learned to accept him for who he was and ignore him most of the time just like I ignored his affairs with under aged girls.”
    There, Emily’s eyes went as round as saucers but she did not utter a word, she drew closer to him and curled into his arms, looking up at him. He was encouraged to continue despite the pain of reliving those years ago.
    “They always came and went so I didn’t allow myself to think much of it. Until he raped our sixteen-year-old maid when I was sixteen and got her pregnant. When she wouldn’t get rid of the baby, he attempted to poison her and the baby and when that did not work fast enough, he tried to kill her with his own hands. I caught him in the act and called the police. My testimony sent him to jail forever.” He said the last as if he was confessing his guilt to a clergy and Emily held him tightly.
    “I am so sorry, so sorry.” She was sobbing into his shirt, crying for him. She hadn’t heard the most of it. It was the first time he had talked to anybody about those days twelve years ago and he felt lighter already for sharing it with her.
    Emily was listening to Ryan with her heart instead of her ears. She felt sympathy for the young boy that he had been, who lost his youth to the events that forever shaped his future. She couldn’t believe that he had gone through so much. The loss of her parents was nothing compared to his experience.
    “Jasmine, our maid was almost dead by the time help got to her.” he continued. “She was hospitalized for the whole of her term. My father’s case was in court by then and I switch between the police station, the hospital to see Jasmine. As if to thwart me, Jasmine didn’t carry up to term but gave birth to the cutest baby in the universe after which she died. It was the most gruesome seven hours of my life but it was worth it. I named her Claire.” He said the last part with pride and she had no doubt that he had loved the girl that was born of his woes.
    She smiled her pride at him.
    “With my father gone, I was an unwilling father by seventeen but I had Claire and for her sake, I quickly learnt to be responsible. My father had put his manager in charge of his businesses and I learned the business from him only to discover that my heart was not into it. My baby was the one who discovered that I loved photography and encouraged me to go for it,” he said with a fond smile.
    Emily’s tears dried at the happy turn of the story. She wondered how a seventeen-year-old had coped with a baby but Ryan obviously did. He spoke of ‘his Claire’ in such fond terms that she wanted to meet the girl. Claire would be around eleven by now, she quickly calculated.
    “Me and Claire, we were all we had for the longest time. I lived for her, she saved me from descending into a pit of darkness that would have swallowed me forever. She was light and she taught me to play in the sunshine once again. She died forty-five days, three hours and sixteen minutes ago.”
    Emily leaned out of his chest. She didn’t know what to say. Now she understood the forlorn look in his eyes. The sunshine had indeed been removed from his life. The drying tears welled up in her eyes again and she was not even aware when they began to fall. Ryan was crying too.
    “What…?” she couldn’t complete the question.
    “She was weak from birth, Down syndrome.” He explained with tears in his eyes, correctly guessing her question.
    There was absolutely no telling the pain that Ryan must have been through. To have never loved or been loved was not new to him but he had found love in the eyes of a little girl and lost it. She bawled like a baby, she would have curled up and died if it were her. She simply wouldn’t have been able to survive the painful experience. This man was strong for someone so young. How the hell did he draw breath after his daughter’s death? She couldn’t think, she just went into his arms again, simply