“I don’t want to go back there when I’m so done with it, withhim. But I can’t leave it behind. Or it’s hard to, I guess. Maybe that’s one reason your plans are shaking me up so much.”
“Who, Fontana?”
She closed her eyes, realizing it was now or never. “My father.”
He let go of a long, aggrieved sigh. “Oh, sweetheart.”
The story poured out as he patiently listened, his compassion traveling across the field separatingthem.
Her father’s drinking, his rage, his abuse. The ankle Fontana broke running from him that hadn’t healed properly. The final straw—when he threatened Hannah. The police, the competency hearing. The monthly reports from the institution she insisted upon receiving.
Proof she no longer had to look over her shoulder. Even though, with his threats, she did.
But she kept that to herself.
They sat in silence when she finished, their muted breaths the only sound. She couldn’t say why she’d chosen Campbell True, of all people, to tell her story. Possibly because he knew what neglect was like.
And because he’d shared his mess of a past with her.
Finally, softly, he said, “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why people have children when they’re incapable of being parents. The damage they leave behind is horrendous.”
“We didn’t exactly win the lottery there, did we?”
“No.” The tone that came across the line was biting. “Do you…want to talk more about it? Since I don’t have those sea-blue eyes of yours to lose myself in, I should be able to focus.”
She shook her head, though he couldn’t see it. This was enough. A big step—or a huge mistake. Time would tell.
Debating, Fontana slid deep beneath the covers, her T-shirt riding high on her belly. She palmed the pulsing thump beneath her breastbone and wondered how far he’d go to comfort her.
“On to a brighter topic,” he said to fill the silence and lighten the mood. “Guess who’s coming in this weekend? Says it’s to work on this exhibit I have in Philly next year, tour Justin’s gallery, that sort of thing, but I think you better hang on to your fiancé if you want to keep him.”
“Dix?” Fontana slapped her feet onto the mattress with a shriek. “Oh myGod, he likes Jaime! My prayers have been answered.”
“You prayed about Jaime meeting a man?”
“Of course.”Men. She rolled her eyes and tucked the phone tighter against her cheek. “So that’s why he wants to go shopping.”
“You lost me.”
“He’ll want a date outfit. And new underwear. He’s obsessed with the stuff. He was really unhappy with mine, so unhappy I now have a drawer full of lacy nothings and—” Fontana pulled the receiver back as a dull whack sounded in her ear.
“Shit. Sorry,” he called, sounding like he was standing at the end of a tunnel. “Dropped the phone.”
Fontana pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to keep from giggling. But another part of her reacted to the hoarseness in his voice, channeling into what he was possibly thinking as a burst of heat zoomed from her brain to her clit.
Go on, chicken, ask. “Atlanta, hey, do you, um, know how to do this?”
“The friend thing? Not really, but I’m trying.”
She slid her hand down her body—breast, tummy, hipbone. “No, the phone thing.”
Silence. A full twenty seconds before he replied, “You trying to get me to fall out of the bed this time?”
She laughed softly, lifted her bottom, and worked her panties off. “The thing you did with your fingers.” She touched herself then, not waiting for him.
He could have gone into radio with that voice—deep, with this gritty edge. She focused on it as a familiar tingle snaked up her spine. She could probably come if he were reading a weather forecast, but if he started talking dirty, she was agoner. “You curled them inside me or something. I’ve tried to recreate it, but…I…can’t quite.”
“Fontana, are you touching yourself?”
