Always A Pleasure [Book 2]

Twenty-Six

It was the night before Christmas and Harrison lay with Katherine in his arms in their bed. They had dinner with Katherine's cousin Christine and her family that evening, and it made Harrison wonder what it might have been like to grow up in such a loving family. There was good food and laughter and the kids' excitement over opening presents. Harrison had never experienced anything like it before.

As a child, he hated having to leave his boarding school in France to go home for Christmas because of his father. And by the time he was old enough, he made the decision of not going home for Christmas, instead just staying at the mostly empty school with the other outcasts, pretending that the holiday meant fuck-all to them.

Harrison learned to not care. Even through his adulthood, he didn't celebrate. It was just another day to him. But this year, Katherine truly made it special.

"Thank you for coming with me to Christine and Aaron's. I know it's probably not what you had in mind when thinking about celebrating Christmas," Katherine told him as she lazily swirled her finger in patterns on his chest as he held her.

"It wasn't what I had in mind when thinking about celebrating Christmas. But not for the reasons you're thinking," Harrison told her with a smirk on his lips.

"What do you mean?" She asked, pulling up to look him in the eyes.

"Mon ange, I stopped celebrating Christmas when I was sixteen," he confessed his truth.

"What?" She gaped, looking at him in disbelief.

"The way you grew up, ma belle fille— after your mum died, that's the same way I grew up," he continued to confess.

"Harrison," she breathed heavily as her eyebrows knit together in absolute concern.

"My father... he was abusive. Physically, verbally, mentally..." he confessed, looking up into her eyes, "to me as well as my sisters."

"Oh, Harrison," Katherine whimpered, dropping down against his body to wrap her arms tightly around his torso, "I'm so sorry."

"It was all I knew as a child. But I mean... it wasn't constant. My father spent a lot of time at the office, you know, building his empire. He wasn't around all that often. And my mother wasn't any better. My sisters and I were mostly raised by nannies. But the trauma from what our parents did to us is ever-present in our lives even now," Harrison explained and he felt her arms tighten around him again. It actually helped push back the anxiety inside of him.

There was something about her laying on his chest, squeezing him that truly calmed him. He couldn't believe how the words seemed to be rolling off of his tongue so easily. He never talked about this, about his childhood — even with his therapist, much to her disappointment.

"You stopped celebrating Christmas when you were sixteen..." He heard Katherine's tiny voice after a bout of silence.

"Mm. I uh..." Harrison said, chuckling under his breath as he remembered a conversation he and Katherine had not so long ago.

"What?" She asked, pulling up to look in his eyes.

"You wonder why I speak French so fluently?" He asked as a smirk turned up his lips.

"Yes," she answered immediately, smirking back at him in anticipation.

"Remember when you asked if I summered in France and I told you that I did everything but summer in France?" He asked and watched her nod her head.

"When I was twelve, my father shipped me off to boarding school in the French Alps," he explained.

"Oh, wow," she exclaimed as her eyes went wide in realization.