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‘A child is not a nest of birds,’ I ground out. ‘And I didn’t feel anything for those birds.’
‘But you feel something for me, don’t you? And for our baby?’
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to.
‘Oh, Con,’ she murmured, her voice hoarse. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this?’
‘I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want you to see...’ I gritted my teeth. ‘I didn’t want you to see Domingo when you looked at me.’
‘And I don’t.’ She closed the distance between us, so small, yet indomitable. ‘I never have. Do you know what I see when I look at you, Constantine Silvera? I see the man I’ve loved for as long as I can remember.’
I could see that love in her eyes. It shone so bright. She didn’t hide it. She didn’t control it. It radiated from her like heat from the sun.
That love was her light, and I couldn’t dim it. I couldn’t bear to be the one who made it go dark. And I would. At some point in time, I would.
I was too much like my father and I knew it. I’d always known it.
The pain inside me turned to agony, but I crushed it. Pain had been a constant in my life anyway. It was nothing new.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, my voice frozen all the way through. ‘I cannot risk it. I cannot risk you.’
‘What does that mean?’
The pain had gone now. There was only the ice settling around my heart and it was a relief, so I let it. It was the only way I could survive the decision I had to make, and I knew it.
‘It means you have to leave. Go back to London. Go back to your life. I will arrange a flight for you. You can be home by tomorrow night.’
She was staring at me now as if I was a total stranger. ‘Go home? But for how long? What about the wedding?’
‘How long? For ever, Jenny,’ I said gently. ‘Because there will be no wedding. I cannot marry you.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jenny
ISTAREDINTOCon’s beautiful hard face, looking for some sign that he didn’t mean what he’d said, even that this was some elaborate joke. But it was clear that he did mean it. He meant every word.
Pain collected inside me, tears in my eyes already from the evidence of a destroyed boyhood all around us in the rocks and coins and weapons and toys. A collection of things a little boy would have loved. A little boy who’d have kept them in a shoebox under his bed or in his closet. His favourite rocks and a coin or two. A wooden sword and a mechanical toy. A plastic soldier...
A combination of rare and common, priceless and worthless, and all kept behind a locked door in a vault, as if they were the most precious things on the earth. It broke my heart.
Con broke my heart.
He had lost so much, and although he was the successful CEO of one of Europe’s biggest companies, at heart he was still a lonely little boy. A little boy who surrounded himself with things because it was easier to love a thing than a person.
I ached for that boy. Because I knew him. That boy was like me. The kid who felt everything so deeply, whose emotions were big and painful and raw. Who cared so much and who wanted more than anything on earth to love and to be loved in return.
That boy thought his emotions were dangerous, thoughthewas dangerous.
He wasn’t, though, I knew that. All his life he’d been protecting people, protecting me, and he hadn’t done that because he didn’t care.
He cared too much, that was his problem. And he didn’t know how to handle it.
But I did. I could help him. I could show him how.
I ignored what he’d said about me leaving and him not marrying me, and said, ‘So you’d believe your psychopathic father over me?’ I didn’t try to hide the growing anger in my voice. ‘Is that what you’re saying? He told you that you were like him and so you believe him.’
Con’s obsidian gaze glittered, sharp and unyielding. ‘You think it was just what he said? I have always battled to stay in control—’
