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He didn’t deny it, although he looked as though he would give anything to, and there was some small comfort to be taken from that, too.
But then a horrid thought stole into her mind. ‘Is that why you kissed me? After you’d assured me that everything would be platonic between us?’
‘No!’ he refuted instantly, a little too loudly for comfort. ‘No. That isn’t what happened. I kissed you because I wanted to. More than that, I couldn’t stop myself. But I didn’t intend to. I didn’t plan it.’
‘And that’s where the problem lies, isn’t it?’ Effie smiled, but it was a weak, bitter smile. ‘Because I don’t believe you. I can’t believe you. You could have told me at any time that Nell’s existence had changed me from being your “buffer” to being your dirty little mistress, but you never did.’
He blanched at her words. Of course he did. Because she’d chosen them deliberately to really hit her point home. To hurt him. Anywhere near the amount he’d hurt her.
‘You’re the one who said I wasn’t like him,’ Tak said darkly. Thickly.
She wanted to stop but she found she couldn’t. She had to ram the knife in a little bit deeper. ‘That was when I thought I knew you. Now I know better.’
For the longest time he stood and stared at her. And she wished she had even an inkling of what he was thinking.
‘You were right,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I am nothing like him. I never was. It was just something my mother said to keep a desperate ten-year-old in line. But you’re also right that I should have been more honest with you. I just never thought I would meet a woman who got under my skin as you do. And by the time I realised that you had it was too late to explain it all.’
‘It would never have been too late,’ Effie choked out. ‘If it had come from you. Not some stranger. Not someone who wanted to cut me down. I’ve had enough of that throughout my life. If you had really cared for me you would have protected me from it happening again.’
‘I tried to warn you that I’m not a good man.’
She felt buffeted and fragile. Pushed and pulled between hating him and...and something else which she didn’t care to acknowledge.
‘That’s bull. You are a good man, Tak.’
It felt as though the words were being torn from her mouth. She felt compelled to tell him the truth, yet simultaneously she didn’t want to leave herself any more vulnerable and exposed than she already was.
‘I should never have said what I did. It was a low blow, and whatever has happened you don’t deserve that. You’re an incredible doctor, you care about your patients, and you go above and beyond. Every time. You’re an amazing brother—Hetti says so all the time. You practically raised your siblings without your mother. Sometimes for your mother. And you took care of her, too.’
He shook his head, and it was the terrible, tormented expression stalking the darkness of his eyes which really twisted inside her chest. Making her struggle for air.
‘Tak...?’
‘I wanted her dead,’ he whispered at last. So quietly that for a moment she almost missed it.
When she heard him, she didn’t answer. Her mind scrabbled around for something to say, the right thing to say, that might possibly ease some of that agony on his face.
But nothing came, and the more his eyes raked over her face, wretched, bloodless, the more her brain shut down, leaving her terrified that she might say the wrong thing and somehow make it worse.
In the end Effie did the only thing she could. She reached out and took his big hand in her two smaller ones, hating the way his body jerked as she did so. As if he didn’t trust her, when all she wanted was to be there for him.
And then, finally, he
started to speak again. ‘That’s why I let her push me all those years. Why I couldn’t just tell her outright to stay out of my business and my life, to shove her idea of an arranged marriage. I hated her, and I wanted her dead, and I’ve felt guilty for it all this time.’
A gurgling, maniacal laugh bubbled in her throat and it was all she could do to stuff it back down. This was all so horribly familiar.
‘You think you’re the only one who has wanted a parent dead?’ she asked at length. ‘Do you have any idea how many times I wished my mother would die? That she would drink herself into oblivion? Drown her failing liver until it finally gave out?’
‘Well, I imagined mine might overdose on those pills of hers. Then maybe my father would come home, but I wasn’t betting on it. At the very least I figured my siblings would be taken in by other members of the family. Even foster care would have been better.’
‘I understand where you were coming from, but it wouldn’t have been,’ Effie blurted out before she could stop herself. ‘You have no idea how bad it is. Plus, you’d have been split up. Your siblings ripped away from you.’
‘I didn’t realise that back then.’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘It’s only since you came along and opened up to me that I’ve realised how good we really had it. How lucky we were not to have had your childhood.’
Effie shook her head. ‘I’m not saying that. I would never say that. It’s subjective. In some ways I only had myself to look out for. You had siblings to take care of. But then you were never alone and I was. It’s different.’
‘All I knew was that the more of a victim she was, the more stupid stunts she pulled to try to win him back. And the more of the monster it brought out in me.’
