Taming the Storm (The Storm #3)(82)
Author: Samantha Towle

Well, fuck a duck.

“Okay,” I squeak. “How did I not know this? How does everyone not know this? Because you are famous for being in TMS. Come to think of it, why are you in TMS when you own Segal whiskey? And why do you hate the whiskey you own? And-and…” I’m running out of steam.

He lets out a soft laugh. “That’s a lot of questions, Firecracker.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just confused.” Taking a hand back, I rub my head.

“I know. It’s confusing, and I’m sorry I wasn’t upfront with you from the beginning.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. You didn’t owe me your family history because you were sleeping with me.”

“Yes, I did.”

Lifting his head, he stares at me, and the force of his gaze hits me straight in the heart.

“There was more to us than just sex from the start. We both knew it. I just chose to ignore it for a long time, whereas you were brave and faced up to it.”

He rests against the sofa, his head tipped back on the rest.

His words have me riveted and following him. Kicking off my shoes, I climb up on the sofa, sitting close to his side with my legs tucked under my bum, my thighs pressed against his. My eyes are on his face, desperate to learn all about him.

He tilts his head my way, sorry eyes on mine. “You deserved to know everything about me from the start, what you were getting into, and I’m sorry I held back like I did.” He drags a hand through his hair. “My past isn’t a warm and fuzzy story, and it’s not one I share. The only people who know my past are Jake and Den. And Jonny, who took it to the grave with him. I only told them once TMS started getting big because they had a right to know the baggage I carry. My past is the kind of news the tabloids love. Fortunately, no one’s ever dug far enough into me to discover it, and I’ve made sure it stays that way. Being the womanizing, bass-playing member of the band keeps people’s interest in me to that level. Who I’m screwing that day gets old after a while. People lose interest.”

He reaches over and brushes my bangs off my forehead. “Do you remember what I said to you when we were at the piano that day?”

The frontline isn’t somewhere I want to be. I like things easy, simple. I get to play, do what I love, get the rewards from it with marginal cost to myself.

“Yes.” I nod.

“I did like things simple. I didn’t want to be on the frontline…but I do with you.” He takes my hand again. “I don’t want easy if it means I can’t have you. You’re important to me. More important than anyone ever has been. I want you to know me…the real me. I want you to understand me, my life up to this point.”

My eyes close on his words. I feel him move nearer, then, his hand cups my jaw.

I open my eyes. “You’re important to me, too, Tom. I want to understand you. That’s why I’m here, why I’m listening.”

His fingers draw a path across my jaw and down my neck. “As you’ve probably guessed, my great-great grandfather was the patriarch of Segal whiskey. His name was Jean-Pierre Segal. He came over to the U.S. from France in the mid-eighteen hundreds.”

Tom’s French…kind of…

Holy wow.

He just went even higher on the hotness scale.

“Jean-Pierre settled in Danville, Kentucky where he met my great-great grandmother, Sarah Thomas.”

Kentucky. I remember how on edge Tom was while we were at that festival in Kentucky.

“Sarah’s father, John Carter Thomas, had died that previous year and left her the farm she grew up on. She and Jean-Pierre married, and he took over running the farm. They farmed corn, and he decided to start producing a whiskey from it called bourbon that had become popular. Some farmers were making good money off it, and my grandfather needed to make money as Sarah was pregnant with my great-grandfather. He was born a week before they successfully distilled the first batch of Segal whiskey. They decided to name my great-grandfather, Thomas, after Sarah’s family name, and, Carter, for his middle like her fathers. Jean-Pierre named the whiskey after his son. And that’s how Thomas Segal whiskey was born.” He lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t even know why I told you all that. It’s not really relevant to the details of my shitty life.”

Leaning close, I press my forehead to his. “Everything about you is relevant. It all matters. I want to know everything about you.”

His fingers skim my cheeks. “Have I ever told you how amazing you are?”

“Not lately.” I smile.

He traces his finger over my lips. “Well, you are amazing. You’re the best person I’ve ever known.”

I settle back, resting my shoulder against the sofa, ready to hear the rest of his story.

“So, you know my dad was Thomas, the Third.” He’s referring to his tattoo. “Dad took over running the company when my grandpa no longer could. My dad was the head of the company, the exec chairman, and his younger brother, my Uncle Joe, was CEO. I was primed for taking over one day. My whole life was spent in Danville, Kentucky”—I hear the Southern in his accent at that moment—“being groomed for the day I would take over the company. I was to graduate high school, go to an Ivy League school, and then take on a job at Segal’s and learn the business. My life was mapped out. Then, everything changed when I was thirteen.”

I’m just about to ask about his Southern accent, what happened to it, when his eyes meet mine. The pain I see in them feels like it’s my own. It’s that strong.

“When I was thirteen, my dad discovered that my mom was having an affair. She had been for quite some time with…my Uncle Joe. My dad caught them together.”

Seeing the direction this story is going, I move closer, sensing that Tom needs me near right now.

“Everything fell apart. Mom moved out of our home and in with Joe. She wanted to take us with her, but I wouldn’t leave my dad. Heather, my younger sister by five years, didn’t really grasp what was happening, and she wanted to be with Mom. So, Heather went with Mom, and I stayed with Dad. I was always closer to him.” He sighs. “It hit him bad. He’d not only lost his wife, but he lost his brother, and he was being forced to continue running a company with him. He was drinking more and more. Everything was a fucking mess. I was a kid, trying to hold everything together. At that point, I thought that things couldn’t get worse, but I was wrong.