His eyes move down. After a moment, he lifts them to look at me. I see a vulnerability I never thought I’d see in Tom.
“I know how you feel because when I was thirteen years old, my father committed suicide.”
“Oh God, Tom, I’m so sorry.” I grab his hand, squeezing it.
With what’s happened with Dex, it’s still so raw. And knowing what it felt like to lose my mother, my heart aches for Tom.
His fingers curl around my hand. “With Dex and how you lost your mom…how the press portrayed it…you and I have a lot more in common than you realize.”
“Not a great thing to have in common though,” I say, fingers tugging on my lip.
He takes my hand from my mouth. Holding both my hands, he laces our fingers together. I turn my body into his, his leg positioned between mine, putting us face-to-face.
He shakes his head. “No, it’s not. But there is more to you and me than just that. I just need you to know that I understand how you felt when you were younger after you lost your mom. The press attention…” His gaze digs into the carpet beneath my feet. “My dad wasn’t famous in the sense like your mom, but my family’s name is…recognizable. And the way he died made the press very interested in us.”
His family name?
“Your family name? Carter?” I say, confused, trying to think of recognizable Carters. I don’t get past President Carter, but there’s no way Tom’s related to him. I think.
He gives me a regretful smile. “No, Ly…Carter isn’t actually my surname. It’s my middle name. My surname is Segal.”
I give him a look of confusion. “Segal? You mean, like the whiskey you hate?”
“Yeah, Firecracker, like the whiskey I hate. Thing is…that whiskey I hate technically belongs to me. Well, the company does. My full name is Thomas Carter Segal, the Fourth.”
Hold the fucking phone.
He’s Thomas Segal? Isn’t Thomas Segal dead? Didn’t he die, like, a few hundred years ago?
Don’t be so fucking stupid, Lyla. Of course he’s not that Thomas Segal. He must be his great-great grandson or something.
Holy shit.
Okay. We need to pause for a moment.
To put this into perspective, Tom telling me that he’s Thomas Segal IV is pretty much like him telling me that he’s Jack Daniels’s great-great grandkid.
Jack, Jim, Johnnie, and Thomas—four of the biggest names in whiskey.
And I’ve been sleeping with Thomas.
Well, fuck a duck.
“Okay,” I squeak. “How did I not know this? How does everyone not know this? Because you are famous for being in TMS. Come to think of it, why are you in TMS when you own Segal whiskey? And why do you hate the whiskey you own? And-and…” I’m running out of steam.
He lets out a soft laugh. “That’s a lot of questions, Firecracker.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just confused.” Taking a hand back, I rub my head.
“I know. It’s confusing, and I’m sorry I wasn’t upfront with you from the beginning.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. You didn’t owe me your family history because you were sleeping with me.”
“Yes, I did.”
Lifting his head, he stares at me, and the force of his gaze hits me straight in the heart.
“There was more to us than just sex from the start. We both knew it. I just chose to ignore it for a long time, whereas you were brave and faced up to it.”
He rests against the sofa, his head tipped back on the rest.
His words have me riveted and following him. Kicking off my shoes, I climb up on the sofa, sitting close to his side with my legs tucked under my bum, my thighs pressed against his. My eyes are on his face, desperate to learn all about him.
He tilts his head my way, sorry eyes on mine. “You deserved to know everything about me from the start, what you were getting into, and I’m sorry I held back like I did.” He drags a hand through his hair. “My past isn’t a warm and fuzzy story, and it’s not one I share. The only people who know my past are Jake and Den. And Jonny, who took it to the grave with him. I only told them once TMS started getting big because they had a right to know the baggage I carry. My past is the kind of news the tabloids love. Fortunately, no one’s ever dug far enough into me to discover it, and I’ve made sure it stays that way. Being the womanizing, bass-playing member of the band keeps people’s interest in me to that level. Who I’m screwing that day gets old after a while. People lose interest.”
He reaches over and brushes my bangs off my forehead. “Do you remember what I said to you when we were at the piano that day?”
The frontline isn’t somewhere I want to be. I like things easy, simple. I get to play, do what I love, get the rewards from it with marginal cost to myself.
“Yes.” I nod.
“I did like things simple. I didn’t want to be on the frontline…but I do with you.” He takes my hand again. “I don’t want easy if it means I can’t have you. You’re important to me. More important than anyone ever has been. I want you to know me…the real me. I want you to understand me, my life up to this point.”
My eyes close on his words. I feel him move nearer, then, his hand cups my jaw.
I open my eyes. “You’re important to me, too, Tom. I want to understand you. That’s why I’m here, why I’m listening.”
His fingers draw a path across my jaw and down my neck. “As you’ve probably guessed, my great-great grandfather was the patriarch of Segal whiskey. His name was Jean-Pierre Segal. He came over to the U.S. from France in the mid-eighteen hundreds.”