Finding Glory. Sara Arden

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       CHAPTER THREE

      SEEING REED AGAIN up close and personal had gone better and worse than Gina had hoped. Better because after his initial anger, he seemed willing. Worse, because...

      Because he still made her heart flutter like a stupid butterfly and she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She wanted to stop. Gina wanted to push him and all of her stupid hopes and resurrected teen desires out of her head. Two days had passed, and she still couldn’t stop. Maybe she was the addict.

      She almost hadn’t recognized him at first. His thin features had filled in and it was obvious he was taking much better care of his body. He was bigger, stronger, a hunger inside him striving to get out and obvious in his every action. He looked like the GQ model version of Reed Hollingsworth with perfect hair, a perfect suit, but his eyes were the same. In those depths was the familiar hopeful kid she’d known.

      Once upon a time, she’d wished it had been her that he wanted and while good sense told her that it was just the leftovers of a high school infatuation, her body didn’t know the difference. The hard planes of his powerful body in that suit that had been tailor-made for him, the determined set to his jaw and the ferocity of his expression conveyed that now, there was nothing he wanted that he couldn’t have. Gina found that kind of confidence and power titillating, as much as she hated to admit it.

      But he wasn’t a fairy-tale prince on a valiant steed. He was an addict. That didn’t change. He could manage his addiction, but there was no magic cure to free him from the curse. And if there was, it certainly wasn’t her. He’d picked Crystal, not Gina. No, he was no hero.

      Though she realized he wasn’t the villain she’d thought he’d become, either.

      She knew that she’d agree to whatever Reed wanted if it meant that she could keep Amanda Jane. And she would never just let her go with a stranger. When it was distilled down to its most basic, Reed was a stranger to them both. Amanda Jane played on the floor with a myriad of secondhand toys. She had a doll in an evening gown riding a fire truck. That was her current obsession. She said she wanted to be a firefighter when she grew up and apparently, she planned on doing it in sparkles.

      Which was just fine with Gina. Gina made it a point to tell her that with enough hard work, she could do anything—be anything.

      Amanda Jane sang a little song to herself quietly and rather than distract Gina from her studies, it soothed her.

      No, what distracted her was seeing Reed Hollingsworth.

      Gina had always wondered what happened to Reed. If he’d taken the same path that Crystal had, he’d have been in prison or dead. Then her economics class had been assigned an article about rags-to-riches businessman Reed Hollingsworth.

      And the article had pissed her off.

      How dare he sit there on his velvet throne looking down on the rest of them while she struggled to feed and clothe his daughter? Crystal may have been fine with no help from Reed, but Gina wasn’t. He had a responsibility to his daughter. If he didn’t want to physically parent, fine. But he could contribute financially. It was the least he could do. The man made millions of dollars a year. Twelve grand a year plus a college education for his daughter wasn’t going to beggar him.

      Gina was torn between anger, regret and betrayal. These washed over her all at once and she imagined if the emotions had colors, they’d look like a mess of spilled ink after they’d roiled around inside of her. At the end of the day, there was no discernible difference between them.

      She was so tired. She’d just come off a twenty-four-hour shift and she had to study for a test the next day, but she needed to spend some time with Amanda Jane, too. The girl was just getting over the latest bout of bronchitis. Amanda Jane had a weak immune system, but they were lucky that was her only problem considering Crystal’s mistreatment of herself while she was pregnant.

      Gina sighed and put her head down on the table. She wished she could learn by osmosis, then maybe banging her head against things would actually serve a purpose.

      “Are you tired, Gina-bee?” Amanda Jane asked her in a small, scratchy voice.

      She smiled. Crystal had called her Gina-bee when she was tiny. It reminded her of the person her sister had been and the hope she had for the person and mother she hoped she could be again. “Yes, darling.”

      “Maybe it’s nap time.”

      “But you don’t like naps.”

      “No.” Amanda shook her head earnestly. “But you like them. So, maybe we should have one.”

      “I’m fine, honey. I have to study for this test.”

      “Tests are dumb.”

      Tests made Gina feel dumb sometimes. She smiled again. “No, they’re good. This test means I can go to my next class and then I can be Doctor Gina.”

      “And Doctor Gina means no more EMT Gina,” Amanda Jane recited with her.

      “You got it, kiddo.” She stared back down at the paper, trying to make sense of the words as they danced over the page, but she didn’t see any of them. All she could see was Reed’s thin face.

      Maybe because Amanda Jane looked so much like him. Or as he had as a boy, before things had gotten so bad.

      He’d been so beautiful to her then, so tragic. With a face like an angel and a heart so СКАЧАТЬ