Page 37 of Marry Me…Maybe?
She narrowed her eyes. ‘It adds to the excitement.’
‘It’s a good job, since I’m such a surly bastard. Hugo used to tease me mercilessly about it. He was the smart, funny one – and incredibly brave. He knew he wasn’t going to be around that long but he never let it get him down. I was always the grumpy one.’
‘He sounds amazing.’
‘He was. I still miss him.’
‘Of course you do – that’s only natural.’ She dropped her gaze to where her hand played against his chest.
‘How long has it been since you saw your mother?’ he asked bluntly, clearly wanting to turn the conversation away from him and back to her.
A cold chill swept through her body at the mention of her. ‘I don’t know. A long time.’
‘Will you ever go and see her?’
She shrugged. ‘What’s the point? She doesn’t want to see me.As my father so unsubtly pointed out, many a time, if she loved me at all she wouldn’t have tried to kill herself. Twice.’
He put his hand over hers in shock, then squeezed it in sympathy. ‘Jeez, Emily, and I thought my mother was hard work.’
‘She’s a pussycat in comparison to mine. You know, the first time she tried to commit suicide was on my thirteenth birthday. I came home early, excited about the party she was meant to be throwing for me, and found her in the bath with her wrists cut. She’d left a note addressed to my brother, telling him she loved him. I got nothing. Not even a passing mention. She didn’t even love me enough to say goodbye. I decided at that point that she may as well be dead, so that’s what I tell people.’
His hand tightened on hers. ‘You can’t blame yourself. Clearly, she was having some mental health struggles.’
She flicked her gaze to meet his. ‘It’s telling that she chose my birthday as the day she wanted to die, though. I was a bit – challenging when I was younger. I was particularly obnoxious as a tween. I think I drove her mad. Literally.’
She gave a cynical laugh, which he frowned at.
‘Although fairly recently a friend of the family let slip that my mum seemed to become very depressed soon after my brother was born and she found out my dad was having an affair,’ she continued, flopping back down next to him on the bed, suddenly exhausted from all the confessing. ‘I guess the combination of all those things together must have tipped her over the edge.’
‘It’s never just one thing,’ he said, sliding an arm under her neck and pulling her into a hug against his body.
‘My father wouldn’t let me talk about it,’ she said to his chest, her voice sounding loud in the ear pressed against him. ‘It was as if it hadn’t happened. Any time I mentioned it, or got upset, he’d shut me down. He had no idea how to handle it, so he didn’t. I think he’s bitter about it because he believes she deliberately hid her depressionfrom him before he married her. He feels duped, or something – landed with a defective wife. At least that’s how he justifies locking her away.’
‘You were very young to have to deal with all that,’ he said, his voice rumbling through the wall of his chest.
‘Yeah, I guess. After her first attempt my father wouldn’t let her see me and my brother and she tried to commit suicide again a couple of months later. That’s when he had her committed. Very quietly, of course. He told any friends who asked that she’d left him to go and live with a lover in Italy and didn’t want to have contact with any of us again.’
Theo let out a huff of sympathetic disbelief.
‘It’s amazing how easily people believed she’d just run off with a lover to another country without a word. I guess the friends she had weren’t that close to her. Or maybe she’d annoyed them all by flirting with their husbands. According to my father, she was quite the seductress in her day. No wonder he hates the way I live my life. I’m sure he thinks that sex is the essence of pure evil and it’s going to be my downfall – even though his own affair probably contributed to my mother’s attempted suicides.’
‘Is he single now?’
‘Ha! No. He found himself a meek and pliant mistress soon after my mother “ran away” and he’s gradually moved her into his life. In fact, he’s never admitted it but I suspect she was the woman he had the affair with before. Anyway, everyone assumes she’s his wife and my mother now. I can’t stand her.’
‘So you haven’t seen any of your family for a long time, then?’
She shook her head, walking her fingers up from his belly button to his chest and back down again. ‘No. You should see the way my father looks at me, Theo – like he’s watching for the warning signs that my mother displayed and is worried I’m going to spontaneously go crazy on him. That’s why I never see him anymore. I can’t stand the look in his eyes. When I was young, people used to tell me I was just like my mother all the time. Even down to her mannerisms. No wonder he can’t bear to be around me.’
‘He’s wrong to treat you like that,’ Theo said forcefully.
She lifted her head to look him in the eye and gave him a grateful smile.
‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m fine. I have a job I love, good friends and a life I enjoy living.’
She tried not to think about how it could all fall down around her ears soon, if the producers of her show had their way and replaced her with Daisy Dunlop. Rolling on top of him, she kissed him long and deeply to take her mind off it.
It would all be fine.
