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“No,” she agreed, cutting a piece of chicken and lifting it to her mouth. It was delicious, buttery and cheesy inside, crumbed crisp on the outside.
“So you were experienced? Worldly?”
Her lips twisted with self-deprecation. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“Then what would you say?” He asked in exasperation, reaching for the serving spoon and dishing his own meal out.
She sighed. It was no secret. They’d talked about this back then, but it had all been so different. Conversation had been easy and natural, it had flowed as though they had been best friends for years. Now she felt like every word was weighted, every question an interrogation, and there was a world of mistrust between them.
“I’d had a boyfriend in high school – if you could call him that,” she said slowly, reaching for her wine glass and cradling it in her palm without lifting it to her lips. “He was older,” she said tentatively.
He seized on the ambivalent, guilty tone in her voice. “Much older?”
She nodded slowly. “He was thirty.”
“thirty?” his brows lifted. “And you were?”
“Sixteen.” She swallowed.
“Jesucristo,” he swore angrily. “He was old enough to be your father.”
“Yes,” she admitted with a soft shift of her body, uncrossing and then crossing her legs beneath the table. “But I didn’t care. He was unlike anyone I’d ever met. Smart and funny and sophisticated and so interested in me.” She grimaced. “I was an idiot. I fell for his lies completely.”
“What happened?” Xavier asked, the question strangely urgent.
Ellie could remember the bitterness of the day with clarity. “He lost interest after we slept together,” she said stiffly. “He dropped me home the next morning and didn’t even say he’d call me.” Her face was pale, her eyes showing remembered hurts. “My parents were livid. They couldn’t believe I’d spent all night out. My dad threatened to press charges but I was sixteen. Our being together wasn’t criminal. It was just… criminally stupid.”
“Yes,” Xavier agreed, the word bit from between his teeth.
“Apparently I have terrible taste in men,” she said in a watery attempt at humour. He didn’t find it amusing. He was all ice and stone, staring at her, waiting for her to speak.
But what more was there to say? On a small sigh, she pressed her fork into a crispy piece of potato.
“From then on, any boy that I so much as talked to, my parents presumed I was sleeping with. They were so embarrassed by my actions and convinced I had chronically ‘loose morals’. So when I came home pregnant and refusing to tell them who the father of the baby was, they weren’t exactly surprised. Nor were they in any mood to be sympathic and supportive.”
“So they kicked you out,” he surmised grimly.
She nodded, that painful weekend one she didn’t like to revisit.
“And now? What part do they play in your life? In my son’s life?”
“None.” She sipped her wine. “Nell and I don’t speak to them. They couldn’t forgive me for getting pregnant and refusing to have an abortion, and they couldn’t forgive Nell for supporting my decisions.”
His face was like iron, all harsh angles and planes, strong and fierce. “They wanted you to terminate?”
“Yes. Or even put him up for adoption. And I thought about that. I really did.” She lowered her gaze, feeling anxious at the very idea now. “But the moment I felt Josh move in my tummy, I knew he was my baby. That I’d keep him no matter what.”
His eyes were narrowed as they rested on her face, his bitterness impossible to miss.
“I was twenty years old and terrified. But I knew I would love our baby with all my heart, and I did. I have. I do.”
Xavier was very quiet while these statements met his ears, and then he nodded. “I believe you love him.” He said finally. “I think you are a good mother and that he’s very attached to you. It’s the only reason I’m seeking to marry you rather than eviscerate you in family court and take him away.”
Now it was Ellie who flinched, his words like lashes of burning rope against the base of her spine. “You’d never succeed,” she said with more bravado than she felt. Her insides were quivering. She was a mess. She remembered the threat of the ambassador, talk of the embassy, and knew he had every gun in his arsenal to do exactly as he’d threatened.
His smile was grim, a cynical gash that did nothing to soften the vice-like grip of disapproval on his handsome face. “If I had died in that accident,” he said, the words calm despite their alarming content, “would you have told my parents about the child?”
She startled, thinking of Maria and Roberto with renewed anxiety. “How would I know who your parents were?” She asked, dropping her hands to her lap and fidgeting them there.
