The admission rocks me. Slipping my hand between her thighs, I cup her pussy. “Your first orgasm was because of me?”
“All of them,” she purrs seductively. “I’ve only fantasized about you, Kian.”
Satisfaction fills my veins.
I’ve owned her long before I saw her.
Fisting my shirt, she continues and I rub her thigh as I listen.
“Before I knew it, I was coming here daily for a glimpse of you. It became a ritual. No matter how hard I tried to stop, I couldn’t. I told myself you’d eventually stop showing up, while praying you didn’t. I had this fantasy of having my own meet-cute moment like in the movies. You’d notice me from afar, our eyes would lock, and you’d feel the same rush I felt. Itwas stupid.” A soft laugh escapes her lips as she shrugs. “I was an awkward, daydreaming teen lusting after a man out of my league. Watching you from afar was all I was ever going to have.”
Regret carves a hole inside my chest the more I listen to her. I should’ve seen her. “What happened next?”
“Then I met Nathan.” Sadness dulls her eyes as a faraway look washes over her. Her voice goes from dreamy to hurt in a flash. “I thought we were strangers when we met the first time. He was easy to talk to and friendly, gaining my trust. I didn’t know until yesterday that he only approached me because he caught me watching you. I couldn’t be mad at him because I had done the same to him. I saw you two arguing and realized you were brothers. I wanted to be closer to you and learn more about you, so I purposely ran into him again. I felt guilty because I genuinely considered him a friend. I can’t believe he would use me this way. I deserved it. Karma got me.”
“No, you didn’t deserve it,” I vehemently say, brushing the tears away. Nathan doesn’t deserve her sorrow. I force her eyes on me as I erase her doubts. “He preyed on you, Iris. Unlike you, his intentions were malicious and selfish. If you were using him, you would’ve dumped him the second we met. Yet you stayed loyal to him, and you were going to push me away just to help him. He took advantage of you, not the other way around.”
“I never wanted to lose him,” she sobs. “He was my closest friend.”
“I know.”
“I still don’t think he’s a bad person. He brought me out of my shell. He stood by me when mydadugot sick. Nobody can fake that. He’s just broken, Kian. I’ve seen the pain and the anger he hides from ever since you left home. It’s made him toxic. A part of me thought I could bring you two together because he’s wrong about you hating him.”
Everything she says is bloody true, proving how well she knows me. Iris is wise beyond her years.
“I never left my home. I was kicked to the curb.”
She jerks back in horror. “What do you mean?”
“I’m Rakesh Singhania’s bastard son from an affair he had with another woman,” I reveal, a truth I haven’t told a single soul. Big blue eyes go round in astonishment, while Iris’s mouth parts in an O. “I knew he hated my existence while I grew up in that house, but I never understood why. I was eight or nine when I overheard him yelling at my grandfather that he was raising a snake in his house. I didn’t understand why he said it until he caught me eavesdropping in the hallway and happily told me I was his illegitimate son. The one he didn’t want but was forced to raise because of my grandfather. That my whore of a mother left me at his door. They didn’t want to cause a scandal. I wish he had dumped me after I was born instead. That fate would’ve been kinder than having me live in a house where I was constantly reminded of how unwanted I was.”
“Why did he wait until you were older?” Iris asks in a trembling voice, eyes glistening as she rubs my arm to comfort me. The soft touch feels good.
“Mydadupassed away a few months before my eighteenth birthday. Rakesh found the opportunity he had been waiting for to finally get rid of me. I didn’t even fight him. I was suffocating and slowly dying under his roof.” Leaning my head against the tree, I sigh. “My only light in that family was Nathan and my grandfather. I never told my brother the truth because I didn’t want to destroy his world, so I cut him off completely. Besides, he wasn’t treated the way I was.”
A hesitant shadow flashes in her pupils before she probes further. “Did your father ever hurt you?”
I know what she’s asking.
“He didn’t physically abuse me in any shape or form.”
She heaves a relieved sigh, as though the possibility of my suffering brings her pain.
“However, he did shove or push me aside in a way that sent the clear message I was unwanted. I was never to step in his path or be in his sight.”
“What about Aunty Rita?”
“She couldn’t stand me either. I was a constant reminder of her husband’s adultery. I had a nanny who raised me. Nathan was too young to understand his parents’ behavior toward me. By the time he got older, I had learned to act like everything was fine.”
“Is this why you’re so private?”
“It’s all I know, Rainbow.”
Her eyes shimmer with unshed wetness. Caressing my jaw, she whispers morosely, “I am so sorry for what you’ve been through, love. You were just a kid. It wasn’t your fault. Tell me you know that.”
“I’ve made my peace with it a long time ago,” I reply honestly. “Kicking me out from under his thumb was the one good thing he did to me.”
“Yeah, he did. Look at how much you’ve achieved. You made the best out of a terrible hand fate dealt you.” Kissing me softly, she says, “I’m proud of the man you’ve become. Whoever didn’t appreciate you, it’s their loss.”
