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“Climax without you? Aye, but ’tis not the reason—”
“Stop. I know you need me to break your curse.” Her flushed face mottles as fresh tears threaten.
’Tis not all I need her for. Caring is reckless, yet I do. I cannot leave her in such pain. “We require one another. Why does that upset you?”
With a desperate push, she tries to wriggle away. I anchor my elbows beside her, spreading her legs wider with my knees and rendering her immobile.
I have suspicions about her childhood. “Tell me about your mother.”
“You don’t care.”
“You have no notion how I feel, Olivia. Tell me.”
“You want to lay me bare? Fine. My mother didn’t love me. She always called me ugly. Fat. Unlovable. She wanted me to be invisible.”
The thought horrifies me. Parenting has changed much since the Dark Ages, but I always knew my mother loved me and my father was proud. “That cannot be. You are perfect.”
She scoffs. “When I was seven, I was picked to play the lead in our school play. Mom always browbeat me to be average, but I didn’t want to be like everyone else. She loved the theater. I thought she’d be so proud to see me onstage. I practiced for days, giving up playtime, TV, even sleep.
“After the first performance, the other kids’ mothers brought them roses and hugged them. I really hoped…” Olivia swallows and shuts her eyes. “She told me I was making a spectacle of myself. I quit the next day.”
I scowl. Young Olivia craved her mother’s approval and received none. “You cried.”
“Mom took care of me and protected me because she was obligated to—and she never let me forget that.”
How could any woman with a heart treat her own daughter so coldly? “You looked to her for love. When she did not provide it, you felt rejected. Lacking. Like a burden.”
Olivia says naught, but I need not hear her reply. Little wonder she was eager to embrace her long-absent father.
Which only makes my next words more difficult. “Meeting Richard Gray was a dream fulfilled.”
“Finding him is the reason I moved to London, and you were rude to him, even dismissing his suggestions to keep me safe.”
“I do not trust strangers.”
“I usually don’t, either, but he’s my dad.”
Who has been naught like a father. “Do you think me incapable of protecting you?”
“In the human world, no. The magical one? What do either of us know about Mathias?”
“My cottage has magical protections. The book is hidden and locked. Until we discover its secrets, it is useless. Believe me, I know.”
“But my father—”
“Is someone you know not despite your blood ties.” When she opens her mouth to object, I lay my finger over her lips. “He hid from the Anarki, but do you not think it odd that he never once felt safe enough, not merely to write you, but to seek you out?”
She looks away. So that occurred to her. Good. I wish not to shatter her dreams. But I also will not have her crushed, especially if her father only seeks her for his own purposes.
“We don’t know exactly what happened,” Olivia argues. “And I need to.”
Though I am not accustomed to relenting, I fear that until she hears Gray’s side of the story, trouble will brew.
I sigh. “All right.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Olivia
