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For a moment she processed that nugget. Maybe he genuinely didn’t.
From what she’d learnt of this man, he would not hesitate to take advantage of another excuse to bash her—so, anticipating his scathing reaction, she lifted her chin and said, ‘She was a dancer—for a revue in Paris that was in the same building where I now dance. It had a different name when she was there and the show was...of its time.’
‘What does that mean?’ he drawled derisively. ‘Not so much skin?’
Sylvie cursed herself for being honest. Why couldn’t she just have said her mother had been a nurse, or a secretary? Because, her conscience answered her, her mother would never have hidden her true self. And neither would Sylvie.
‘Something like that. It was more in the line of vintage burlesque.’
‘And how did your father meet her? He doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who frequents such establishments.’
Sylvie pushed down the hurt as she recalled sparkling memories full of joy—her father laughing and swinging her mother around in their back garden. She smiled sweetly and said, ‘Just goes to show that you can’t always judge a book by its cover.’
Arkim had the grace to tilt his glass towards her slightly and say, ‘Touché.’
She played with her champagne glass, which was still half full. She grudgingly explained, ‘He was in Paris on a business trip and went with some of his clients to the show. He saw my mother...asked her out afterwards...that was it.’
Sylvie would never reveal the true romance of her parents’ love story to this cynical man, but the fact was that her father had fallen for Cécile Devereux at first sight—a coup de foudre—and had wooed her for over a month before her mother had finally deigned to go out with him—an English businessman a million miles removed from the glamorous Cécile Devereux’s life. Yet she’d fallen in love with him too. And they’d been happy. Ecstatically.
Familiar emotion and vulnerability rose up inside Sylvie now and she knew she didn’t want Arkim to probe any further into her precious memories.
She took a sip of champagne and looked at him. ‘What about your parents?’
Arkim’s expression immediately darkened. It was visible even in the flickering light of the dozens of candles and lanterns.
‘As you’ve pointed out—you know very well who my father is.’
Sylvie flushed when she recalled throwing that in Arkim’s face in her father’s study. She refused to cower, though. This man had judged her from the moment he’d laid eyes on her.
She thought of how he was doing everything he could to distance himself from his parent and she was doing everything to follow in her mother’s footsteps. The opposite sides of one coin.
‘I don’t know about your mother—were they married?’
His look could have sliced through steel. Clearly this wasn’t a subject he relished, and it buoyed her up to see him lose that icy control he seemed to wield so effortlessly. It reminded her of how she’d wanted to shatter it when she’d first met him. Well, it had shattered all right—taking her with it.
Arkim’s tone was harsh. ‘She died in childbirth, and, no, they weren’t married. My father doesn’t do marriage. He’s too eager to hang on to his fortune and keep his bedroom door revolving.’
Sylvie didn’t like the little dart of sympathy she felt to hear that his mother had died before he’d even known her. She moved away from that kernel of information. ‘So, you grew up in America?’
His mouth tightened. ‘Yes. And in England, in a series of boarding schools. During holidays in LA I was a captive audience for my father’s debauched lifestyle.’
Sylvie winced inwardly. There was another link in the chain to understanding this man’s prejudices.
Hesitantly she said, ‘You’ve never been close, then?’
Arkim’s voice could have chilled ice. ‘I haven’t seen him since I was a teenager.’
Sylvie sucked in a breath.
Before she could think how to respond, Arkim inserted mockingly, ‘Living with him taught me a valuable lesson from an early age: that life isn’t some fairytale.’
The extent of his cynicism mocked Sylvie’s tender memories of her own parents. ‘Most people don’t experience what you did.’
His eyes glittered like black jewels. He looked completely relaxed, but she could sense the tension in his form.
The question was burning her up inside. ‘Is that one of the reasons why you agreed to marry Sophie? Because you don’t believe real marriages can exist?’
‘Do you?’ he parried.
