Soft, warm hands covered mine on the tortilla maker’s handle. Not Damon’s this time, but Bella’s.
“And there’s your next step, darling,” she said.
I turned to face Bella. “What?”
She tsked, thumb coming up to wipe beneath each eye. “These girls need you,” she murmured. “You have a chance to help some of them.”
“But—” I shook my head. “I don’t know where to begin. I’m not . . . an expert on social progress. I don’t make policy. I’m just a girl who happened to live through a common experience.”
“That’s why,” Damon whispered. “Because you understand. You don’t need to create a policy or to drive forward social progress. You just need to share your past.”
“But so many have gone through so much worse.”
“No.” Belle cupped my cheeks for a moment before letting go. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to minimize the trauma you went through because you think someone else had it worse. Your trauma doesn’t have to be quantified to be real.”
“I—”
My words faltered. I didn’t know what to say to that. She was right, of course, I wouldn’t dare tell another person to not be hurt just because someone else might have been hurt more.
“I know your parents failed you,” Belle murmured, “and I’m so sorry for that. I also know I’m meddling in your life when we’ve just begun to know each other and that you have every right to tell me to go to Hell—”
“Belle, I wouldn’t—”
“I know,” she murmured. “Because I see the way you look at my son. I saw the way you looked through his camera lens, your pain piercing my heart when Damon showed me that photograph all those years ago. I see the shadows in your eyes and the way you lift your chin to keep moving forward. You’re a good person, Eden.”
Damon slipped his arm around my shoulders just when my lips parted, readying to argue or protest or . . . I don’t know, do something to discount how much those words meant. “I love you,” he murmured. “And this is how real parents act. They support, they love without restriction.” A kiss to my temple. “Because you’re worthy of love, baby. So worthy.”
“Yes,” Belle said softly “You are, sweetie. Without qualification.”
“I don’t—” I broke off, eyes drifting away, so many emotions knotting in my stomach, so much of my past wanting to jump forward and deny the words. But then I saw that Diego was leaning against the doorframe, eyes soft, but expression gentle.
“She’s right,” he murmured.
I sucked in a long, slow breath. Released it.
But then my lips curved, tucked what they were telling me safely inside my heart and said, “Words a woman loves to hear.”
Diego nodded at Damon. “Take notes, son.”
Damon chuckled. “I am. Believe me, I am.”
Diego came over to us, gently squeezing my arm. “You’re welcome here, welcome to stay as long as you need. Honestly, working from home is a treat—”
“You say that now.”
“No,” Belle said. “He says it because his team is thrilled to not have him underfoot, and he can have a beer at three in the afternoon.”
Diego didn’t refute this, just headed to the fridge and extracted a bottle. I glanced at the clock, and the rest of my melancholy faded . . . because it was three minutes after three in the afternoon.
“Clockwork,” Belle murmured.
I grinned then felt my eyes burn again. They were just so wonderful and different from what I’d grown up with. It was almost like being in a dream or a movie scene. I was going to wake up or the director would call cut, and I’d be right back to where I was before.
And all of this wonderful would be gone.
Damon tugged me a little closer and I rested my head on his shoulder. “I guess, I never dreamed that your family might be like this.”
“Meddling?” Belle asked lightly, nudging us aside and going to work on the tortillas. At this rate, we’d be making enough to start our own line of them.
“Lovely,” I said, nuzzling into his chest. “Accepting.” I inhaled. “I should have known because Damon is so special, but I never even began to hope that I might be able to be part of something so wonderful.”
Belle continued to crank through the dough. “Part of why I care, sweetie, is because your love for my son is so bright in your eyes.” Her eyes drifted to mine. “And the other is because you’re absolutely wonderful and deserve it.”
Words. Just words.
But they wove their way into my heart as effectively as Damon had, as effectively as his parents had, and instead of tying me up, instead of dragging me down to Earth by the ankles, they lifted me up. They gave me courage and the wings to soar.
I could do this.
I could make a difference.
“I have a chance here,” I whispered, more to myself than the room at large. “And I’m not going to waste it.”
Nineteen
Damon
Eden was in my parents’ living room, a camera opposite her, Maggie, her publicist, hovering nearby, and she was speaking to the primetime anchorwoman, when the news hit.
I noticed Maggie first, or rather the cell phone that kept vibrating in her hand, her eyes repeatedly flicking down at it, her face growing increasingly pale.
Then I saw the producer of the segment do the same, her eyes growing wide.
And finally, my cell began to buzz.
Colleen.
That fucking asshole.
Along with that sentiment, she’d sent a link to a story with the headline, Emails Leaked Show that Grant Seagurio Hired PI to Expose Eden Larsen’s Past.
“What the fuck?” I exclaimed, interrupting Eden’s announcement that she’d just partnered with several organizations and was starting her own to look into the problem of child marriage here and abroad.
At least my interruption hadn’t been while she was discussing her past.
Still, it was jarring enough that both Eden and the news anchor’s heads whipped in my direction. Eden took one glance
