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Jack nodded. He had nothing to hide. He’d avoided admitting how much he needed her because need made you vulnerable. But he’d tell her if that was what she wanted to know. It would be a chance to press his case to stay together, because despite her wariness, the current of attraction was stronger than ever between them. She couldn’t deny it. Nor could she keep blindly denying that their baby’s best future was with both of them.
He’d been biding his time, not wanting to pressure her.
‘Tell me about your past, Jack, your childhood. I know nothing about your background except what I read in the press. Doesn’t that strike you as absurd?’
‘You want to know about my childhood?’
The idea sideswiped him. It was something he never discussed, part of his life he’d sealed away in a locked compartment. He’d been so sure Elisabeth would ask about their marriage or their future.
‘Yes, I do.’
She regarded him steadily and Jack wondered what she saw. He was used to masking his thoughts and feelings. But this was no business negotiation. This was his wife and, he discovered, it grew increasingly difficult to keep up his guard around her. He didn’twantto, he realised. He wanted that strong connection between them without impediments.
Once that thought would have stunned him. Now he simply recognised it and refused to let it faze him.
Jack reached for his water glass and downed it in one.
‘I was born in Brisbane. Only child to parents who were only children themselves.’
‘You had no cousins or aunts and uncles?’ Was that sympathy? ‘I can’t imagine that.’
‘No, I don’t imagine you can.’
She’d been an only child until her father remarried and had a son, and though she seemed to have little contact these days with her immediate family, Jack knew she had a soft spot for her young half brother and her extended family was large. There were uncles, aunts and cousins scattered throughout England and Europe. She seemed on good terms with them all.
Elisabeth’s warmth and ability to maintain genuine friendships had been part of what had attracted him. He’d seen it as counteracting the deficit in his own life. Genuine relationships had been in short supply and he valued that about her.
‘Were you close to your parents?’
A bitter laugh hovered on his lips but reading her concern, Jack bit it back.
‘Not close. My paternal grandmother raised me from an early age.’
‘I see.’ Her hands pleated together on the table. ‘So your parents weren’t able to support you? That must have been...difficult.’
Jack’s lungs squeezed as if clamped in a vice. But the pain wasn’t for himself. He’d put the past behind him. The pain he felt was for this caring woman, tiptoeing through this minefield, her expression revealing her dismay. She really did have a soft heart.
Elisabeth deserved more than one line answers. She was right, she deserved the full picture. Or as much as she needed to understand where he came from. Sharing too much would only distress her and that was the last thing Jack wanted.
He covered her tightly folded hands with one of his.
‘On paper my parents were perfectly able to support me. My mother didn’t work and my father ran a very successful building company. They had enough money to send me to a private boarding school and for them to take luxury vacations wherever they chose.’
Not that they’d taken him. As often as not they hadn’t vacationed with each other.
He read the question in Elisabeth’s eyes.
‘My parents weren’t reliable,’ he said finally. ‘Half the time they forgot I existed. They were caught up in their own affairs and I do mean affairs. Both were selfish and volatile, ruled by emotion. I have no idea whether they married for what passed for love, or whether she married him for his money and he married her for her body. From as early as I can remember they were at each other’s throats.’ The husky laugh did escape then. ‘Literally. There was one night when I thought he’d kill her.’
Elisabeth gasped, her hands turning to clasp his. ‘Was she all right?’
Jack nodded. He hadn’t been going to share that particular memory but it had slipped out as he looked into her earnest gaze.
‘My mother was fine, better than fine. She loved driving him to the edge until he couldn’t take any more and he admitted how much he needed her. He was the same, taking other lovers too, but taunting her about it until their anger exploded into passion. It was twisted, I realised later. But as a kid I thought love between a man and a woman was as much about inflicting pain as needing each other. It definitely wasn’t about fidelity or tenderness.’
‘Oh, Jack. I don’t know what to say.’
‘There’s nothingtosay. It’s over. It has been since their car crashed on the way home from a party. Neither were wearing seat belts and both had been drinking. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d been arguing too.’
