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‘I’m not here about the wedding. I’m not here to talk about us. This is about me. There’s something I have to tell you about me.’ She took in the roughness of his jaw and the shadows beneath his eyes. ‘You didn’t sleep last night either.’
‘Did you really think I would? Just say what you have to say, Avery.’ The chill in his voice was less than encouraging but somehow she forced the words out.
‘I have to tell you about my father. I should have told you before, but it’s not something I’ve ever discussed with anyone.’ And it felt terrifying to discuss it now but he was already sitting up. Paying attention.
‘What about your father?’
She could hear the splash of water from the fountain that formed the centrepiece in the courtyard beneath them. ‘He didn’t leave, Mal. He didn’t walk out on me or abandon me. He wasn’t a high-powered businessman frequently out of town, which is what I used to tell my school friends.’ One by one she sliced through the lies she’d created over the years and watched them fall, leaving only the truth. ‘I’m not afraid of marriage because my own parents’ marriage failed. That isn’t what happened.’ She’d come this far but, even so, saying those last words felt hard. She waited for him to say something. To prompt her in some way, but he didn’t.
He just watched and waited and in the end she turned away slightly because saying this was hard enough without saying it while looking at him.
‘The man who fathered me was never part of my life. Or part of my mother’s life.’
‘He was a one-night stand? Your mother became pregnant by accident?’
‘It wasn’t an accident.’ Did she sound bitter? She was amazed that, after so many years, she could have an emotion left on the topic. ‘My mother doesn’t have accidents. Everything she does in life is calculated. She plans everything. She controls everything. Her relationship with my father played out exactly the way she wanted it to play out.’
‘And he was fine with that? He made her pregnant and wasn’t interested in being part of your life?’
‘That’s right.’ The condemnation in his voice made her nervous about telling him the rest. She paused, trying to find words that didn’t make it seem quite so cold and clinical. ‘But it wasn’t the way you’re imagining it. My mother didn’t have a relationship with anyone. I don’t know my father’s name.’
‘He was a stranger?’
‘In a manner of speaking. I may not know his name, but I do know his clinic code.’
‘Clinic code?’ He looked confused and she couldn’t blame him for that. It was hardly the first thing that came to mind when discussing someone’s parentage.
‘My mother used donated sperm.’ It was easier to say than she’d thought it would be, given that she’d never said it before.
‘Donor sperm? She had infertility issues?’
‘No. No infertility issues. Just man issues. She wanted to cut the “man” part out of the deal.’ She glanced at him, looking for shock, disgust, any of the emotions she’d anticipated seeing, but there was nothing.
‘She struggled to trust men so when she chose to have a child of her own, she chose to have one alone?’
If only. Avery felt her throat thicken. ‘That wasn’t it, either. I truly wish it were. At least then I would have known I was loved by at least one of my parents. But the truth is I was another of my mother’s social statements. She wanted to prove that a woman doesn’t need a man for anything, not even to produce a baby, although obviously that wasn’t what she told them in the clinic. She was determined to prove that she could do it all by herself, and she did. The trouble was, she forgot that her experiment was permanent. Once she’d proved her point, she was stuck with me. Not that she let that interfere with her lifestyle, you understand.’
As Mal rose to his feet, she backed away with a quick shake of her head.
‘Don’t speak. I n-need to finish this now or I won’t ever say it,’ she stammered. ‘I’ve never said it before and it’s …
hard because I’m used to being a confident person and I am confident in my work, just not about this.’
‘Avery—’
‘My childhood was nothing like yours. It was nothing like anyone’s.
Your family was close and tight-knit. You had two parents, cousins, uncles and aunts. Even when you disagreed, you were a unit. And yes, I’m sure there were huge pressures, but you shared those pressures. I’m sure that being a Prince must occasionally have been lonely but even when you were lonely you knew there were people around you who loved you. You knew who you were and what was expected of you. You belonged.’
He opened his mouth, but then caught her desperate look and closed it again.
Avery’s mouth was dry. ‘I didn’t have that. On the outside my family looked fine. Single mother. No biggie. Loads of people have that, right? I hid the truth about my father because I thought it was so shaming that my mother couldn’t sustain a relationship for long enough even for a single bout of sex, but what really affected me wasn’t the fact that I didn’t have a father, but the fact that I didn’t have a mother, either. All I had was a woman who taught me how to be a version of her.’
‘Avery—’
‘Most of the time I hated her.’ It was the first time she’d ever admitted that. ‘There was no affection because she saw that as weakness. No involvement in my life. We spent mealtimes together, during which she talked about her work and about how lucky we were to have avoided that complex relationship trauma. And I vowed I wasn’t going to be like that. I vowed that my relationships would be normal, but she’d done her job well and the only thing that was ever in my head at the start of a relationship was, How will this end? She taught me how to live alone. She didn’t tell me how to live with other people. And it never really mattered. Until I met you.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ His tone was raw and this time when he pulled her into his arms she didn’t resist. ‘All that time we spent together—all the times I brought up the subject of your father and you never once mentioned it.’
