“I come from the kind of dysfunction you can’t even imagine.” She thought about her mother, powerful to a point that standing in her presence made you judge yourself against her. But so physically small. And her father had been a giant; even as a young man he’d been close to three hundred pounds and over six feet tall. For all her fierceness, Shobi would have no chance against him.

No wonder Mom had never wanted her. And all Ashna had ever done was judge her for it. She’d been a person who punished the victim, her own mother.

Dear God, if she threw up in this beautiful suite with Rico watching she would never forgive herself.

Rico came to her and cupped her cheek. “Tell me what happened.”

Where could she even begin?

“My mother never wanted me.”

“Did she say that to you? Did you have a fight?”

She had to laugh at that. How she envied him the innocence of thinking a parent could only say those words in anger, without meaning them. “I grew up hearing my parents fight about how they never wanted me.” If he wanted to understand her, well, he was welcome to wade through the mess that she was. “It’s not just that either. She was forced into a marriage to my father.”

“That’s sad. But not your fault.”

If one more person said that to her she was going to poke their eyes out.

“It is my fault.” She twisted her hair into a bun. “Because without me she would have moved on. She would have left him. But my father . . .” How did you say the words? “My father forced himself on her.” She had no idea when her forehead ended up on his chest, pressed into his sternum, his skin warm and salty against those ugly words.

This is what she’d missed most. Someone she could hold when everything spun.

“You know why I hid you from my family? It was because I couldn’t let them see the lie I was being with you. And I couldn’t open that door and let you see me on the other side either. I didn’t want you to see the real me. I wanted to be what you saw, wanted to know what being wanted without pity felt like.”

He stroked up and down her arms. “What I see is the real you. That was you on the pitch. You in the kitchen.”

“No.” She shook her head so violently, her unpinned bun loosened and slid down her back.

The green of his eyes darkened. “You’re not broken. You’re hurting. You can hurt and be fierce at the same time.” He said those words like someone who knew. Age-old pain was naked in his eyes and something deep inside her grew ravenous.