Billionaire Ransom by Lexy Timms Read Free Book Online

admitted. “How could I not feel guilty? Feel responsible? We did grow up together, for the most part. She’d get yanked out of the group home and sent into foster situations, but she always came back. Craig and I got separated here and there, too, but by the time he and I were fifteen and she was eleven, we were pretty much marked off as far as adoption or finding a permanent situation. I was barely surviving on my own; watching Craig’s back and Lisa’s sometimes felt overwhelming.”
    “I can’t imagine what that was like.”
    Morgan frowned, and shifted so they were facing each other, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze. She wondered if she had pushed at something she shouldn’t have, but he said, “You know, the worst thing about being in the foster system isn’t what you think.”
    “What is it then?”
    “It’s the fucking adoption fairs. They weren’t so bad when you’ve done them a few times. See older kids, like eight and up, already know they’re not going to get picked. Craig and I knew it, and somewhere along the line we started taking the fairs for what they really meant to us.”
    Her hand stroked along his broad chest, her nails scraping his skin lightly. “And what was that?”
    “Free cake and hot dogs,” Morgan laughed. “Well, nothing’s ever really free, but it was free enough.”
    She peered into his face, wishing he would look at her. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean.”
    “You see, the fairs brought in all these couples.” He stared up the ceiling, tracing along the edge where it met the wall. “Have you ever been at the animal shelter? You know how people walk along the cages and pretty much decide right away what dog they want, but they feel like they have to give all the mutts a chance, so they pet them or play with them or whatever?”
    “Yes.” She didn’t like the feeling in her gut. It was worse than when Craig had shown up this morning.
    “That’s what the fairs were like. Those people would come in and they’d look around, and they’d pretty much decide then and there which kid they really wanted, and which they didn’t. But they always had to give every kid a shot, just to ease the guilt about their decision to leave the others.” He shrugged and dropped his eyes to her, staring at her with a hard look on his face. “Craig and I figured it out early. We took it for what it was: A chance to run and play without people getting all pissed at us, and a chance to eat cake or cookies, and drink soda or lemonade or whatever. We had to do the little good-dog trot for the people, smile and say hello and act polite, but that was the price, and we were okay with.”
    A tear escaped from the corner of Katie’s eye.
    “I’m not worth those tears.” Morgan swiped it away in almost an angry motion. “But Lisa, she never understood. She’d always get herself all dolled up and as soon as the people started coming in she’d run at them, eager as hell to make a good impression. To find her family. She never got that she was already too old, or that she was too eager, or that the people who smiled at her might not want her.” Morgan rolled onto his back. “She always hated the kids who got their adoption papers that day, and she would blame herself instead of seeing that it had nothing to do with her—it was never about her.” His voice dropped to a frustrated whisper. “It was just about them , the people who came to pick up a kid, like people go to a shelter to pick up a mutt. It broke her heart every single time. I mean every time. It knocked her self-esteem, what little she had, down in the dirt every fucking time.”
    Katie swallowed hard. “Sometimes life is so cruel.”
    Morgan shrugged, like his moment of vulnerability had to be hidden behind his tough-guy façade. “That’s the system. Craig and I learned to work the system, but Lisa let the system work her. She never thought about what she would do when she turned eighteen and got the