How to Trap a Tycoon(78)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

He opened his mouth to speak, realized he had no idea what to say, and closed it once again.

"A couple of weeks before my eighteenth birthday," she said softly, still not looking at him, "I got beaten up really bad by a, uh … by a client," she euphemized. "The cops responding to the call took me to the hospital, and I met a social worker named Alice Donohue there who, God knows why, took a liking to me. She helped me out a lot, Lucas. Got me into some good programs, helped me get straightened out. It wasn’t easy for me or her. But Alice stuck with me, so I stuck with me, too."

"Where is she now?" he asked quietly, a bit roughly, still trying to digest all this unpalatable information.

"She, uh … she died," Edie said. "A few years ago. She had breast cancer, and they didn’t catch it until it was too late. It wasn’t fair," she said a little more softly. "She saved my life, but nobody could save hers." She swallowed with obvious difficulty before adding, "I promised her before she died that I’d—"

When her voice broke off, Lucas encouraged her, "That you’d what?"

"That I’d, um … that I’d live a good life for her," Edie concluded quietly. "So that’s what I’ve been trying to do. What I’m going to keep doing. I’m going to live a good life. For Alice . And for me."

Lucas shook his head slowly and wondered what on earth he could possibly say that might brighten her dark memories or lighten her burden. But there were no words that could possibly convey the tumult of emotions tumbling around inside him. He could only imagine the ones that must be tumbling around inside her. The thought that Edie, who was so decent and good and kind, had lived through that kind of hell… The knowledge that she had descended to such immeasurable depths, only to rise so high above them… The realization that she had witnessed so much badness and darkness and could still cloak herself in so much goodness and light…

It took a remarkable person to do that.

And all along, Lucas had been thinking what an easy life she must have had. He’d been convinced she’d never seen the rank underbelly of the beast. He’d been so sure he knew more about the bitterness of life and the grimness of reality than she did. But life didn’t have to be bitter, and reality didn’t have to be grim. Oh, certainly, it could be and had been for both of them. But Edie had put hers behind her, had risen above it, had gotten on with her life.

Edie, he thought, had dealt with it.

Lucas, however, clearly had not. Oh, he had almost convinced himself that he had. He had been so sure that by winning scholarships to college and achieving academic honors, by writing celebrated stories for a celebrated magazine like Man’s Life, by geographically distancing himself from the place where he had grown up, by emotionally distancing himself from his sister and what few friends he’d ever had… By doing all those things, Lucas had been so sure he was dealing with it. But he still pulled out the distasteful memories of his past and relished their bitterness. He nurtured the wounds and savored the hopelessness, relived the torment and revived the pain.

Hell, he wasn’t dealing with it, he thought now. He was succumbing to it. Little by little, a bit more with every passing day. By reliving his past, he prevented himself from enjoying his present. And he certainly kept himself from ever planning for a decent future. He had a long way to go before he could finally say he’d dealt with it. Of course, it would help if he had someone there with him who might show him the way, a person who had traveled the path already and knew what to watch out for. A person who might not mind if, eventually, he took her hand and helped her, too.

Right now, however, he had no idea what to say to that person. So he just remained silent and waited for a cue from her.

"After Alice died," Edie finally went on, "I got it into my head that I wanted to find out where I came from. Where I really came from. So I started looking for my biological mother."

"And how’s that going?" Lucas asked, grateful for the change of subject, fully aware, however, that what he and Edie had just shared was in no way finished.

"It’s going," she told him. "The laws are kind of tricky, and it takes time, but…" She shrugged. "I’m hopeful."

So what else is new? he thought.

As grateful as he had been for the change of subject, he was surprised to hear himself pipe up suddenly, "That’s why you don’t want men touching you, isn’t it, Edie? Because you were mistreated so often by your … clients."

She seemed as surprised as he—and certainly no more thrilled—by the return to their earlier conversation, but she nodded in agreement. "Among others, yes."

Lucas decided not to ask about those others. Not just because he could, unfortunately, imagine all too well, and not because he didn’t want her to relive memories she was clearly unwilling to revisit. But because there was another question he wanted to ask her so much more.

"Edie, will you let me touch you?"

Her eyes flew open wide, darkened by her obvious panic at hearing the question. "No," she told him immediately, adamantly.

He didn’t make a move toward her, but he opened his hand, palm up, and began to slowly extend it forward. "Just let me come over there and put my hand in yours, that’s all."

She shook her head vehemently enough to send her blond curls flying. "No, Lucas."

"Then let me put my palm over yours."

"No."

"Then fingertip to fingertip."

"No."

"Then—"

"No."

This time he was the one to sigh. "Then will you come over here and touch me?" he asked.

Her eyes seemed to brighten some then, but he saw quickly that it wasn’t due to any lightening of her spirit. It was due to the tears that had sprung up out of nowhere. She didn’t answer him right away, only continued to gaze at him in silence, her eyes filling deeper and deeper. Then, very slowly, she shook her head again. The motion caused one fat tear to spill over and glide down her cheek, and something inside Lucas twisted tight at seeing it.

"Edie, just touch me," he said softly. "You know I won’t hurt you. You know that."

"Rationally, I suppose I do know that," she conceded softly. "But it’s not my rational mind you have to convince, Lucas. It’s the scared, strung-out seventeen-year-old girl who’s still living inside me."

"Then bring her out," he said eagerly, "and let me talk to her. Let me touch her."

Edie uttered a soft, strangled sound at that. "I wish I could. But she’s buried way too deep inside me. You’ll never get to her. You’ll never convince her."