Broken by Lauren Layne Read Free Book Online

expecting an old dude in a smoking jacket?” he asks gruffly.
    Actually, yes.
I absolutely wasn’t expecting Paul to be Harry Langdon’s late-in-life son. Very late in life, if Harry’s as old as he seems in the pictures.
    But of course I’ll tell Paul no such thing. I take another tentative step forward, noting the way he tenses as I approach. He really is like a wounded animal, which would make me feel sorry for him if I didn’t suspect that he’s using his injuries to justify being a manipulative son of a bitch.
    Well, if he wants to play games…
    My Chanel cross-body purse is still slung over my shoulder, and I fish around for my wallet as I close in on him.
    He turns completely so his back is fully to me, and now he’s trapped between me and the desk, with nothing but late afternoon shadows to hide him.
    I pause, waiting. Common courtesy demands that he turn around. He doesn’t. I shift to the side, but he shifts with me, still keeping his back to me.
    Seriously?
This is beyond childish.
    I move to the other side, and he moves again.
    “Maybe when we’re done with this activity, we can play Chutes and Ladders or Candy Land,” I say sweetly, even as I glare at his back. “Assuming, of course, that those don’t exceed your maturity levels.”
    “Those should be fine,” he says, his tone just as pleasant. “I don’t need working legs to play board games.”
    I feel a stab of pity. Maybe I’m being too hard on him. That, and I need to remember why I’m here. I’m supposed to help him mend so that
I
can start to mend. So I can prove to myself that I’m not some sort of monster.
    I see my hand on his elbow before I realize I’ve moved, and I know he’s not expecting the touch, because even as he tenses up, I’ve pulled him around to face me. Not all the way, but it’s enough. I stifle my gasp, but barely.
    I was warned that Paul Langdon was crippled. I came prepared for that. But in all of our email conversations, Harry Langdon seems to have forgotten to mention the ragged scars running along the right side of his son’s face.
    Everything makes brutal sense now: why he’s been hiding in the shadows, why the hostility and bitterness roll off him in waves.
    He throws my arm off with a curse, and I expect him to turn away from me. Maybe even push me back.
    Instead, he faces me fully, letting me see him head-on, and the way his eyes betray nothing—not even wariness—almost breaks my heart. It’s like I can actually
see
him shut off his human side.
    We stare at each other for several seconds, both of us barely illuminated by the last bit of daylight coming in through the window. His eyes are a fierce color of light blue that looks almost gray, especially when framed by thick lashes. His hair’s too short to get a good sense of its color, but it’s somewhere between blond and brown.
    Finally my eyes land on his scars. Now that I’m prepared for them, they’re not as bad as I originally thought. Three raised lines run down the right side of his face, the shortest going from just below the outer edge of his eyebrow to the top of his cheekbone, as though it—whatever
it
was—just missed taking out his eye. The second is longer, running from the hair near his temple to the middle of his cheek. The last is the longest and ugliest, intersecting the other two as it runs from the corner of his eye, stopping just short of his lip. The straight lines of his lips are unmarred, but his mouth might as well be disfigured too, because I doubt he’s used it to smile in a long, long time.
    Finally,
finally
I let my eyes meet his, my stomach feeling a little jerky when his gaze locks onto mine. He lifts his eyebrows as though to say,
Well?
It’s clear he’s been through this scrutiny before and knows what to expect.
    I’m guessing most people try to pretend nothing’s amiss. The kind ones likely express pity—maybe even ask gentle questions under the idiotic misconception that he’d want to talk about it