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Dante swore again, feeling the rage that a strong man felt for a bully. They called it coercive control; he called it being a pathetic coward. Lost in her memories, Beatrice didn’t register it.
‘And she tried so hard not to.’ Beatrice brushed away the tears that had spilled from her eyes with an angry hand, recognising that there was an odd sense of relief that she was sharing things she had held close for years.
‘She always had artistic talent. Early on, her teachers noticed it, encouraged it, and she is a brilliant artist. But Edward destroyed her confidence. He’d hold up her drawings and mock…’ Her voice cracked at the painful memories that flooded her head. ‘He made her feel useless. From a bright, bubbly girl she became withdrawn, but worse than all that was that Mum, when I told her, didn’t believe me—not for a long time.’ She sighed and looked at him, sadness behind her forced smile. ‘So, you see, I do say Maya is brilliant a lot, because she is.’
‘Yes, I see that.’ It seemed to Dante that Maya was not the only brilliant Monk female.
Beatrice had been her sister’s champion; there was no trace of envy in her and when he compared it with the resentment he had felt as a child, when he was pushed to the background with all the attention focused on his brother, the heir, he felt ashamed.
He felt a fresh kick of shame when he recalled how irritated he had felt about Beatrice’s closeness to Maya, and his attitude when she became unreasonable, as he had seen it, at any hint of criticism of her sister.
Clearly the events of their childhood had created an unbreakable bond. If he had known, he wouldn’t have wanted to break it, but he hadn’t known, maybe because he had never asked. In fact, he had switched off when she’d spoken of her sister and not bothered to hide his lack of interest.
‘I think the hardest part was feeling so helpless, but then I suppose I was meant to—it’s all about power for creeps like Edward.’
As she stared out of the window it was almost as if she had forgotten he was there. She was saying things he wondered if she had ever said before. It was clear to Dante that Beatrice had not escaped as unscathed as she liked to think.
‘Seeing what he did to Maya and then Mum, with the blasted IVF—he made her feel a failure too. Mum couldn’t give him the family he wanted, his own family, and even though it was affecting her health he kept pushing her to try again and again. Telling her if she was a real wife, a proper wife, she wouldn’t be sabotaging the attempts.’
His deep voice cursing jolted her free of the dark memories.
‘Your mother had IVF?’
She nodded, and he swore. ‘That is why you reacted to the consultation so…extremely. If I had known—’
‘I don’t think my reaction was extreme,’ she rebutted, turning in her seat to face him. ‘And, irrespective of my family history, I don’t think something that personal, that intimate, should be delegated. It is something that is discussed.’
‘I thought your reaction meant that you didn’t really want children. That after the miscarriage, I assumed…’
Her hand went to her stomach, the gesture unconscious. ‘I knew you didn’t want children. You wanted an heir.’
He felt a flash of shame as he found himself thinking about the events in her life that had moulded Beatrice into the woman she was today.
He found this new experience unsettling, as he considered this woman who didn’t carry resentment. Her recount had focused on how her mother’s ill-fated marriage had affected her sister, but the childhood trauma had to have impacted her too.
Men who hurt those in no position to hit back were one of the things in life that made Dante see red. He’d met them; they came in all guises, and he did everything within his power to make sure they did not flourish.
What he saw, and Beatrice did not, was that she had been a victim too, watching her sister and mother suffer and feeling helpless, going to a person who was meant to protect her and being disbelieved.
‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this?’
‘It’s not really my story, it’s Maya’s and…’ She paused, her clear blue eyes meeting his with a directness that made him think she could read his shame. ‘We never reached that point, did we? We were married, but really we were still two people dating.’
He looked about to say something, but he closed his mouth when she added quietly, ‘And in the end, we skipped the bit of getting to know one another and went straight to divorce. We were on fast forward, all intense and…’ She shook her head, suddenly overcome by emotion. He was there, a few feet away; all she had to do was reach out. The sheer craving inside her to seek the physical comfort of his strength was, for a split second, so overwhelming that she began to move towards him.
Then at the critical moment, the pilot’s voice made her snap back.
‘He’s inviting me to…’ Dante paused. ‘You already know?’
‘Go join him,’ she said with encouraging brightness.
He half rose and subsided. ‘No, it’s fine.’
‘I can cope for a few minutes without you.’
‘I know you can—you have been for the last six months—but now you don’t have to.’
