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‘How did it go?’ he couldn’t help himself from asking.
She looked sad and happy at the same time. Both caused a shifting sensation in his chest. Her beautiful amber eyes were glistening with tears, but the smile across her lips was sure.
‘Good. It was...’ she sighed ‘...good. And I wanted to thank you.’
‘Why?’ Loukis replied, genuinely confused.
‘I wouldn’t have made that phone call had it not been for what you said, what you did, for Annabelle today.’
He felt the invisible tendrils wound tight around his heart begin to unfurl, even as he would call them back.
‘I did only as you suggested,’ he dismissed.
‘But you gave her, you gave me, the space within which we could find...peace. Safety. I want you to know that.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Please don’t dismiss this,’ she asked.
His jaw clenched, anger and something like fear rearing their heads at her words. He stood and started to stalk towards the bathroom.
‘Wait. Please?’
He stopped, but refused to turn, bracing himself for what he knew was to come.
‘I think... I think that it might be what you are doing too.’
He rounded on her then. ‘One conversation with your mother convinces you that you know me? That you know my—’ He cut himself off before he could release the word he refused to admit to.
‘Pain? The pain of being ignored by a parent? Of being rejected?’
‘I wasn’t ignored by my mother, Célia. She chose to leave. She chose to accept the money my father offered her in exchange for sole custody.’
‘What?’ she asked, horror dawning in her eyes as her hand flew to her mouth as if to stifle a gasp.
‘Ten million euros. That was the price my mother accepted to be free of me. I had no culpability in that whatsoever. It was not my doing, my offer, or my suggestion.’ Because there was no financial amount that would have made him reject his mother. No matter what highs or lows she had inflicted on him. That was the weakness he feared. That was the bitter truth he’d realised about himself that day. That he would have done anything to keep her with him. Anything. And Meredith had done nothing.
‘No. You’re right. It wasn’t your doing, Loukis.’
‘I know that. I just said—’
‘Do you?’
It infuriated him that she was so calm. She could have been talking about the weather. Her gentle words were tearing gaping holes in his heart and she sat there poised and perfect.
‘Do you really?’ she asked again. ‘Or, deep down, do you blame yourself?’
‘What do you want me to say, Célia? You want me to say that I didn’t learn, at the age of fifteen, my value was ten million euros? That it didn’t hurt to be sold to my father in exchange for her freedom? To admit that I wasn’t enough to keep her?’
The words were ripped from his throat, burning and tearing at the soft flesh, making his tone guttural and harsh, even to his own ears.
‘No. I want you to admit that you do deserve more. That you are worthy of her love.’
That you are worthy of mine, his greedy, desperate inner voice filled in the silence between her words.
‘You might not be ready to and that’s okay. But I want you to know that I think you are. Worthy. Of that, of more than what you have limited yourself to.’
He turned back towards the bathroom, his jaw clenched so hard, he feared he might crack a tooth. His fists balled where they hung at his sides, the pulse raging through his blood so loud it blocked out the sound of her leaving the bed and coming up behind him, so that when he felt her hand on his shoulder he flinched.
