Page 28 of Keeping Her Secrets

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Mustique felt like her entire world stopped at Ash’s words. They reverberated around the room as if he’d shouted them, when, in actuality, he’d merely asked it as if it was a simple question—not the single biggest secret of her life.

He had known all along, and he’d still made love to her as if she was the most special woman in the world. Never in her life had she felt as if she was the most exquisite being to walk the earth. Ash had done that, made her feel things she never had before and Mustique knew she never would with any other man.

“What do you mean?” she hedged, trying to buy time.

Ash sat up and faced her as she pulled away. “Don’t do that. Don’t lie to me or pretend. I don’t care that she is, I just want to know you. Trust me, Mari. I would rather die than hurt you or cause you pain, but I need to understand. Help me?” The plea, and the genuine desire to know her, made her mind up.

She pushed him back to the bed and curled her body into his as a chill hit her skin. “I can’t do this while I look at you. Can you hold me?”

Ash wrapped his arm around her and held her flush to his body, tangling his legs with hers and not letting go. A safety net for when she fell was what he gave her, as if he would always catch her.

Taking a breath, she closed her eyes and let his strong, steady heartbeat calm her frayed nerves. “You know I ended up at the private school in SA. Well, it was exclusive. All the families were white, privileged South Africans with plenty of money. I was already the odd one out; my skin color didn’t fit. I was neither white nor black, and while my parents were doing okay, they weren’t rich like those people.”

“You were bullied?” he asked, and she felt his hands flex on her skin in anger for her treatment.

“I was, until one day when I was fifteen and Ben Rensburg started at the school. His family was richer than God; he was handsome, popular, and, for some reason, he took a shine to me. We began to date and fell in love. I thought his parents liked me, and life was perfect until I got pregnant. Ben was ecstatic when I told him. I was nearly seventeen, and he was eighteen, and we wanted to be a family.”

Mustique felt his lips against her hair, reassuring her, urging her to go on.

Her voice began to wobble as she let the memories of that time wash over her like a tsunami. “We told his family, and they demanded I get an abortion. Ben was horrified, and we said no, that we wanted our child. His parents calmed down, eventually, and it was decided that, with my father traveling a lot for work, I would move in with them.”

Mustique took a steadying breath before she continued. “When I was six months pregnant, Ben, my mom, and his mother came to my scan with me, and we found out it was a girl. My mom was so excited. We had dinner near the beach and laughed and planned what we would call her. Everything was like a dream that day. Then later that night, I was woken by Ben’s mom telling me there had been a home invasion, and my parents had both been killed.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Ash murmured while he kept holding her as a sob escaped her.

Mustique bit out the rest, knowing she needed to finish the story. She couldn’t do it twice. “I was devastated, but I had to keep going, and Ben was wonderful. I gave birth to Leonie three months later, and it was bittersweet. I adored her at first sight. I fell in love and knew I would die to protect her. She was my world.

“I threw myself into caring for her, fed her myself, got up with her, refused help. But Ben began to pull away. I assumed he was overwhelmed by it all. He began to go out with friends more and more, and we were fighting all the time. I became resentful and threatened to leave and take Leonie with me.”

Ash stroked her back, trying to ease the pain, and she let him, wanting the comfort he offered as she told her story for the first and last time. “When Leonie was six months old, Ben convinced me to go with him and his friends to the beach and leave Leonie with his mom. I was unsure, but he insisted, and I loved him and wanted us to work, so I agreed. I kissed my daughter goodbye and we left. After I got in the car, I had this overwhelming feeling to stop, to go to her, but I put it down to separation anxiety and blew it off. We spent the day at the beach. We had a few drinks, swam, he surfed, and we had fun, but, by early afternoon, I had begun to feel lightheaded and wanted to go home.”

The emotion was choking her now as she relived the worst day of her life, tears streaming down her face as she let the familiar feelings of grief and helplessness overwhelm her. “Ben was angry but agreed to drive me home. I passed out, and when I came to, I was in a field and had no clue where I was. I knew something was wrong; my head was fuzzy, and I was nauseous. I passed out again, and the next time I came to it was dark. I walked to the road and realized I was in Durban, miles from where we lived. I somehow got myself back to the house, but the guard wouldn’t let me in. Said he was under instructions not to admit me.

“I begged and screamed until eventually Ben’s father came to the gate. He told me that I was a fool to think they would let their son waste his life on trash like me and that Leonie would be better off without me. He threw some rand at my feet, probably the equivalent of a hundred dollars, and walked away. I grabbed his leg, and he kicked me. I sobbed and begged, but it was no use, I couldn’t get in.”

“Jesus Christ, Mari.”

“I couldn’t believe Ben was in on it. So I waited three days, until he came out of the house, and followed him to the beach. I confronted him, and he admitted he’d drugged me and had known what his parents had planned, but he agreed with them that we were too young to be parents, and this was for the best. He gave me a photo of Leonie and told me she had new parents now who could care for her.

“I think I broke that day, and I still don’t think it’s mended, that place inside me. I’ve never felt pain like it. I collapsed into a ball and sobbed. I don’t think I moved off the beach for a long time, not eating or drinking, just existing in limbo. Eventually, some people offered me food and water, then moved me on. I bummed around for a while, not having a plan or caring if I lived or died. My heart was dead, and I honestly wanted to die too. The only thing that kept me from ending it was the hope that one day I would find her and get her back.”

Tears fell down her cheeks, pain that’d been buried for so long consuming her until she could do nothing but hold onto Ash as wave after wave of grief and pain hit her. He let her cry, her tears soaking his chest. He continued to stroke her back and her hair, and kissed her, murmuring sweet words she couldn’t comprehend.

When she was done and emotionally spent, he spoke. “What happened after?” His voice was gruff as if he was holding his emotions in check.

“I eventually met Roz, and she trained me—saved me really. I found Leonie, but, by then, she was a happy six-year-old with a loving home, and I couldn’t give her that. I knew I couldn’t take her back. I would never hurt her, and she was loved. That gave me a small amount of peace knowing they loved her as much as I did.” Her voice was empty now.

“You kept an eye on her?”

“Yes, I always did, and then I found the threat when I checked on her a few weeks back. The night in the restaurant was her birthday, the one day a year I allow myself to mourn losing her.”

“Do you think Craven knows you’re the girl’s biological mother?”

“She told me when we were alone that she knew who I was and begged me not to take her child.”

Ash snorted angrily. “Her child.”