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‘You are.’ I looked down into her eyes. ‘How do you do it, Jenny? How do you walk around with your emotions so close to the surface? So everyone can see exactly what you’re feeling? Aren’t you afraid?’
Her brow furrowed. ‘Afraid of what?’
‘Afraid someone will take advantage of you.’
‘Well, I didn’t have the kind of childhood you had so, no, that has never been my first thought. Though Mum was always telling me I was too soft for my own good, that I needed to be colder, more calculating.’ Her fingers brushed over my chest in a gentle caress. ‘I just...couldn’t. It felt dishonest and wrong.’ Her gaze flicked up to meet mine. ‘She uses men, you know. Manipulates their emotions in order to get access to their money. In fact, now I think about it, she’s more than a little like your father.’
I, too, had thought that. The two of them had seemed well suited. And that made Jenny all the more fascinating. Because while I had tried to make myself like my father, she had done the opposite. She had rebelled.
Like Val. And you always had a sneaking admiration for him.
Yes, that was true. Part of me had loved his blatant opposition. Loved how it had enraged our cold father. It just hadn’t been my choice.
I frowned with a sudden suspicion. ‘Did Catherine ever hurt you? Did she ever try to make you—?’
‘No,’ Jenny murmured firmly, pressing her fingers against my chest as if to emphasise the word. ‘No, she didn’t. But you know she was never very...loving. She didn’t even seem to like me all that much. I used to wonder sometimes if it was because I wasn’t planned, and because my father left her when she found out she was pregnant with me.’ Her gaze dropped from mine, her attention on her hand. ‘There were a few times I wanted to ask her why she didn’t just get rid of me, but I... I never had the courage.’ Jenny let out a soft breath. ‘I think I was afraid of the answer.’
I hadn’t really thought Catherine would have hurt Jenny physically, but I knew she’d hurt her emotionally...that her treatment as a child had left scars. That they weren’t quite as dark as the ones that my father had left on me didn’t matter. What mattered was the pain they’d left, and the fact that I could do something about it.
I had been working hard at Silver Inc, trying to change the culture of fear Domingo had instituted, but sometimes I feared that the damage he’d done was beyond repair. He’d destroyed the few relationships I’d had, after all.
Yet while Valentin was lost to me, Jenny wasn’t.
‘Anyway,’ Jenny went on quietly, ‘she thought I should marry you. That I was stupid for wanting to work at a charity when I could simply seduce you and be your wife.’
Shouldn’t younotbe discussing this? What happened to emotional distance?
No, I couldn’t do love, but I could certainly do friendship. I could certainly do reassurance. And for Jenny I would do just about anything. Besides, apart from anything else, no one had needed me before, and I wanted to hold on to that feeling for as long as I could.
‘Simply seduce me, hmm?’ I murmured, amused despite myself. I wasn’t angry at the confession. ‘Sounds easy.’
She gave me a teasing look from underneath her lashes. ‘It was yesterday.’
I liked how she flirted with me, yet I had a sense that there was more going on, that she wasn’t telling me quite everything.
I reached down and slid a finger beneath her chin, tilting her face up so I could see her, and caught the doubt that flickered in the depths of her deep brown eyes. ‘There’s more, though, isn’t there?’ I said softly. ‘Tell me what worries you.’
‘A lot of things.’ She paused and swallowed. ‘I want to give our child safety and security and stability, like I told you. But this baby wasn’t planned, and I know you wouldn’t ever have married me if I wasn’t pregnant. I just worry that I’m not...successful enough to be your wife. That one day you’ll see it and...’ Her voice had gone husky. ‘I don’t want you to be disappointed in me and I don’t want you to regret marrying me.’
My chest tightened, an ache sitting behind my breastbone. Because I understood. Her childhood had been chaotic and lonely, and of course she wouldn’t want that for our child—I didn’t want that for our child myself.
‘You won’t disappoint me,’ I said huskily. ‘It’s impossible. You were the one bright spot in my life. The only good thing. You never lied to me or tried to manipulate me. You distracted me when I needed it and you made me smile. You always cared, Jenny. You always cared so much. So why would Ieverregret marrying you?’
Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Don’t make me cry, you horrible man. I swore I would never cry in front of you again.’
Ah, yes, that night in the garden. When she’d told me she loved me and I’d said those awful things to her. She’d cried, and even though I’d tried to tell myself I felt nothing, in breaking her I’d broken a part of myself, too.
I stroked her cheek with my thumb, then bent and kissed away the tears. ‘I’m sorry.’ They weren’t words I said often, if at all, but if anyone deserved them it was her. ‘I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you for the past four years, for cutting you off without explanation. And I’m sorry for what I said to you that night. You didn’t deserve it—not any of it. The only excuse I can give was that it was the day when I’d found out Valentin was alive, and I was...not myself.’
Her fingers spread on my chest, a soft warmth sitting on my skin. The endless well of compassion and sympathy that was Jenny’s spirit glowed in her eyes.
And what have you done to deserve it? Nothing. You’ve done nothing.
I hadn’t. I’d forced her to come to Scotland with me. Forced her into accepting marriage. I’d seduced her and then shut her out. Shouted at her. Kicked down her door. I’d been a bastard, and yet all I could see in her eyes was forgiveness.
‘I know you weren’t,’ she said. ‘It made me angry with you for months, but even back then I knew something was wrong. It makes sense now.’
I could feel it twist inside me then, the need to tell her everything. The one thing I’d left out, that I’d let fester inside me like a thorn.
