Looking at Robert now, seeing the suspicion and fear in his eyes, and knowing she had put it there, made her want to kneel before him and beg for forgiveness. She didn’t want to be the one who taught him it wasn’t safe to be so honest and open. She didn’t want hers to be the face that drifted through his mind when he thought of the relationship that had destroyed his faith that the good in the world would win out over the bad.
It was time to finish what she’d started that day at the spring. It was time to throw off the last of her armor and face whatever happened next. Robert might decide the truth she had to tell was too much for him, but at least she would know that she’d had the courage to give this man the trust she should have given him from the start.
She took a deep breath and let everything spill out. She told him about Shane, and how they’d started sleeping together the same night she’d signed him as a client. She told him about their mutual love of kink, Shane’s deep and abiding affection for porn, and the long weekend they’d spent making a video he had sworn would be for their eyes only. She told him how, only a few months later, Shane had used the video to blackmail her into letting him out of their contract, so that he could sign with a more established management company before he went in to negotiate his first record deal.
She explained that Shane had sent the video to her parents anyway, as retribution for the afternoon Marisol had tossed his favorite guitar out a window. She told Robert about the sobbing phone call from her mother that followed, and how she’d driven all night to get to Aqua Caliente to explain, only to have her father meet her at the door and tell her whores weren’t welcome in his house. She told Robert how all of her brothers except one stopped returning her phone calls that same day, honoring her parents’ insistence that Marisol be cut out of the family without bothering to hear her side of the story.
And lastly, she told him about Shane’s anger after his record deal fell through, and the way he blamed Marisol when he had to go back to playing the same gigs he’d been playing when they met.
“He called me, screaming, saying that I’d ruined his life,” she said, her tongue slipping out to dampen her lips as she forced out the rest of the story. “Not long after, I started noticing strange looks from men on the street. It was different than the usual creeps checking me out kind of thing, more…invasive, but I still didn’t put two and two together and realize Shane had put the tapes up for sale until a guy asked for my autograph in the grocery store.”
She swallowed, feeling the cold wash of shame course through her veins the way it had that afternoon. “Then he asked me how much I charged for a blow job, and that’s pretty much what I’ve been dealing with ever since. I’ve tried talking to the police, and DMCA takedowns, but the tapes keep popping back up online. By now, I know they’re probably never going to go away and I… I was just…” She dropped her eyes to the gravel beneath her crossed legs. “I was scared of what you’d think if you knew. I was afraid you wouldn’t want to be with me anymore—personally or professionally.”
Robert didn’t say a word, not a word for so long Marisol was afraid she’d go crazy if he didn’t say something soon. No matter how scared she was to see disgust twisting his features the way it had her father’s, she had to have some clue what he was thinking.
But when she looked up, his head was tipped down, his face hidden by the wide brim of his hat.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, refusing to cry, knowing she didn’t deserve to fall apart. “I should have told you the truth from the beginning, but I was just… I was ashamed. I didn’t want you to hate me.”
Robert finally looked up, but she immediately wished he hadn’t. The hurt in his eyes was brutal, almost enough to knock her back onto the ground. “Is that what you think of me?” he asked in a rough voice. “Do you really think I’m that much of a bastard?”
The tears she’d been fighting began to fall. She couldn’t hold them back, no matter how she tried. “No! I think you’re wonderful,” she sobbed. “Too wonderful for me.”
Robert reached out, capturing her face in both hands, his thumbs digging into her chin. “Stop it. I don’t want to hear you say shit like that again. You are perfect.”
“No, I’m not.” Her face crumpled and her nose started to run. “You haven’t seen all the things I did with him.”
“I don’t care what you did, baby,” he said, the tenderness in his voice making her tears fall faster. “I love who you are. The rest of it is water under the bridge. It doesn’t matter, not even a little bit.”
“Really?” she croaked. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Come here, damn it.” He reached for her and she went into his arms with a sob of relief, knowing she had never been more grateful to be anywhere in her life.
“I’m sorry.” She buried her face against the soft fabric of his shirt, feeling the strength of him beneath it and vowing she would never doubt that strength again. “I did know better, I really did. I just… I let the horrible voices in my head convince me they were right. They were so much louder than the voice telling me that you would understand.”
“Then we’ll have to work on that,” he said, his voice muffled by her hair as he hugged her closer. “We’ll coach that smart voice until it’s louder than all the rest of them.”
“Teach it to shout?” she asked, sniffing as her tears began to subside.
“No, not to shout,” he said, pulling back to look down at her, brushing away the hair stuck to her tear-streaked face. “We’re going to teach it to sing, and it’s going to sound so pretty, that all the ugly voices will have to shut up and listen to it shine.”
“Well, shit,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes again. “Now I’m going to cry again.”
“Then I’ll hold you until you’re done,” he said, cradling her close, rocking her back and forth on the ground as she cried. “And when you are done,” he whispered as she fought to regain control, “we’ll go tell my family that I’m running off to be a country singer, they’ll decide they hate my lousy guts, and you can hold me while I cry.”
She smiled as she swiped her tears away with the backs of her hands. “You’re not going to cry.”
“I might,” he said. “Will you still love me if I cry?”
Her smile faded as she laid her hand on his scruffy cheek and looked up into the most handsome face she’d ever seen, not simply because his outsides were pretty, but because his heart was a true thing of beauty. “I will always love you, Robert Lawson. No matter what.”
“No more running away?” he asked. “Not even when you’re scared?”
She shook her head. “From now on, the only place I’ll run when I’m afraid is straight to you.”
“Sounds perfect.” The last of the worry vanished from his warm brown eyes. “Let’s go do this. We’ll get the hard stuff over all at once.”
He helped her to her feet before glancing back at the four-wheeler now upside down in the ditch.