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‘Are you finished eating?’ she asked as she stood up. ‘Because I’d like to continue this conversation in private.’
The waiting staff was at a discreet distance, but even so she didn’t want to have this conversation with them in earshot.
‘I’m not going to change my mind,’ he said, but followed her and stepped away from the table.
‘Let’s walk,’ she murmured.
She strolled past the torches flickering in the warm island breeze and onto the soft, sandy beach. The sound of the waves lapping lazily against the shore and the soft green glow of phosphorescence shimmering on the surface of the sea seemed impossibly romantic, almost as romantic as the feel of him, tall and indomitable, and so guarded beside her.
The silence stretched out between them as she tried to figure out how best to approach the conversation.
He hated talking about his emotional needs. She got that. She suspected it was because he had spent so much of his life denying he even had any. She’d learnt enough about his dysfunctional relationship with his father, and his lack of a relationship with his mother, to understand why that might be. But she needed him to trust her—as a mother as well as a wife. And to do that he had to forgive her, all the way, for the mistake she’d made in not telling him about Ruby.
And to dothathe had to understand a lot more about why she’d made that decision. He hadn’t asked her for an explanation and she was beginning to realise he probably never would. Because it would mean straying into an emotional landscape he had no experience—and no desire—to navigate. So she would have to make this move, for both of them.
‘Can we talk openly?’ she said at last.
‘I suppose so,’ he said, but she could hear the edge in his voice.
She had to let her own guard down, to let him see she hadscars too. It was way past time she told him the truth she had recently discovered, about why she hadn’t told him about Ruby much sooner. That her silence hadn’t just been a result of that naive girl’s insecurity, but also her broken relationship with her own father.
‘I just want you to know that I know exactly what it feels like to have a father who’s an absolute jerk...’ she began.
Brandon saw the familiar compassion darken Lacey’s eyes. And he recoiled against it instinctively. How had they ended up talking about his father?
‘Mine walked out when Milly and I were still too young to remember him,’ she added gently, the quiet, pragmatic tone somehow all the more powerful because it was so carefully devoid of sentiment. ‘And he never returned,’ she continued. ‘We discovered after Mum died that he had another family. Sons he was proud of, a wife he loved when we contacted him after my mother’s funeral. He didn’t want to know us—which I guess was why my mum avoided conversations about him when we were kids. But she had always made it clear to us his failings were not ours. That just because he couldn’t love us it didn’t make us less than. Something I realised recently, I had always struggled to accept.’
She sighed. ‘I’m just incredibly sad you never had that from your own mum. Having two selfish bastards for parents was really bad luck.’
He stared at her, the strange pulsing in his chest turning into something disturbing. He hadn’t asked about her past for two specific reasons—it would increase the intimacy between them, and he had no desire to reveal more of his own. But something about the way she spoke of her father, without bitterness, without regret, seemed incredibly brave.
‘How old were you both, when your mother died?’ he asked, curious about something he had tried hard not to care about.
‘Milly was fifteen, I had just turned eighteen.’
‘That must have been tough,’ he said, remembering her as she had been at nineteen—eager and erudite, ambitious and smart, and already on a fast track within Cade Inc’s internship programme. Of course, he hadn’t realised at the time she was still a teenager, and had assumed she was several years older because of her confidence when she’d flirted with him.
But why hadn’t he ever confronted his own culpability that night? Why hadn’t he ever considered how vulnerable she had been?
She shrugged. ‘Luckily, social services were happy to declare me as Milly’s guardian. And I already had the internship at Cade Inc lined up.’
‘Which I destroyed for you,’ he said abruptly.
He had tried to get over his resentment about her refusal to tell him about Ruby when she became pregnant. But the truth was, he’d been happy to dismiss his own actions. And he had never once asked about her circumstances. Had never considered she was the sole breadwinner for her and her sister. Had never felt any guilt about the fact he’d left her pregnant and jobless as a direct result of his own carelessness.
Why had he never checked up on her to make absolutely sure there had been no consequences?
‘That was a mistake,’ she said, giving him leeway he now knew he didn’t deserve. ‘You didn’t destroy my career on purpose.’
‘Dammit, Lacey, you were a virgin and only nineteen. I knew the condom had failed and yet I never contacted you to be sure you were okay.’
She blinked, clearly taken aback by his outburst, which only made him feel like more of a bastard.
‘If it hadn’t split, we wouldn’t have Ruby, so I’d say it’s a moot point.’
‘Even so, I owe you an apology,’ he said tightly, finally saying what he should have said when he’d first discovered Ruby’s existence.
‘Okay.’ She nodded slowly, her eyes glowing with an emotion he didn’t really understand...and wasn’t sure he wanted to understand. ‘Apology accepted, but it doesn’t mean much if you can’t forgive me.’ She turned towards him in the moonlight, the breeze blowing in her hair and making it dance around her face. She looked so young and earnest...and brave in that moment, he felt something shift and break open inside him.
