Read Her Hero for Free Online Page B

but she felt the rotating bodyguards were becoming disenchanted.
                  “So it’s settled. You, me, park, minus the heavies.” Relieved Stacy leaned over and nabbed the paper from him and bit into her toast, strangely looking forward to such a mundane thing, as a walk through a park.
     
    ***
     
    The sun was shining despite the crisp wind but stacy didn’t care. Her hand was looped in Horatius's arm and she was listening to him talk. They were playing guess who. Childishly people watching and guessing their backgrounds, she was loving it.
                  “No they are definitely not married. Look no ring.” As she squinted she felt his ribs undulate with laughter. When Stacy looked at him he said, “You could try to be a bit more discreet.”
                  “Okay what about him.” They both looked across at a man, who could have been Horatius sitting on a bench, while a young boy swung from monkey bars imploring him to ‘look’.
                  Horatius deviated to a side path that took them away from the young boy and what she assumed was his father.
                  “Hey. You giving up?”
                  He didn’t answer straight away but when he did it was with a deadened tone that chilled her.
                  “Too easy.”
                  “Do you want to fill me in?” Stacy asked.
                  Horatius came to a stop next to a bench secluded by surrounding trees and bushes. It was a wind break so Stacy sat feeling like she had just surrendered to the eye of the storm.
                  “The boys about seven. He worships his dad,” A hollow laugh punched through the stillness, “In about a year the boy will give up asking for his attention. By the age of nine, he will have a better relationship with the cleaner than he does with his father. He will tell himself, not to expect his father at sports day or for the award he worked so hard for. And as time goes on, the boy will run out of excuses for his fathers absence. The apologies and the, ‘I’m working so you can have more opportunities than I did’, will dry up as well. And he will convince himself that he doesn’t care but by now he is fourteen and staying out all night. After all, there is no one parenting him to say otherwise. And now he is selling ecstasy at school but he’s doing so well he decides to ditch school and branch out.”
                  He paused from his distant reiteration as Stacy gasped. A self mocking nod was his only answer then he sat next to her.
                  “Oh yeah. I was in up to my eyes. He’s seventeen now and already been arrested several times, but what does that matter with a rich father to bail him out. Or should I say his father’s lawyer, as old pops is away on business.” He seemed to peter out while an old memory flashed across his eyes.
                  Stacy reached out to his still hand.
                  “What happened then?”
                  “Military school. Totally shit but it was only for a year and it stopped me from going to juvie or jail. Don’t think it was my dad’s idea. He wasn’t interested,” Horatius sat taller and pursed his lips attempting an impersonation, “‘I don’t care what your into. If you want to waste your life, that’s up to you. Just keep it out of the press.’ No it was Anna that asked me to go.”
                  Stacy was insanely jealous of Anna and yet eternally grateful, “Anna?”
                  “The house keeper, to all intents and purposes. Yet so much more. She passed away the year after my father died. But by then I had my shit together.” He smiled slyly “Kind of. Just in time to take over the business and make Anna proud of me.”
                  Stacy was struck by an answering sorrow rutted in loss and