Page 74 of Prudence
“I’m fine, just tired.”
“You sound upset. Can I come in?”
“Of course, you can,” I replied, then realised I looked dishevelled after falling asleep in my clothes, so added. “Just give me a minute.” Sitting upright, I quickly ran to the adjoining bathroom to gargle some mouthwash and fix my appearance. “You can come in now,” I called as I returned to the bed. The door opened and Derek stepped inside.
He surveyed me intently, his gaze etched in concern. “You look like you’ve been crying. What happened?”
It suddenly felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. A tension crackled between us, and my conversation with Aunt Nell made me even more desperate for him. I didn’t want to waste another second after all the time we’d already lost. My heart screamed at me to tell him I loved him. The urgency built like a drumming pulse beneath my skin. My brain, on the other hand, held the words under a tight leash. I’d been putting off telling him about Aunt Nell, but the time had come for him to know. He deserved my honesty, especially since I’d never given it to him when we were younger.
“I had an argument with my aunt,” I revealed, and Derek came to sit by me on the edge of the bed.
“Okay, well, I’m sure it wasn’t—”
“No,” I cut him off. “It wasbad. So bad that I don’t think I want her in my life any longer.” My throat wobbled with emotion as Derek took my hands into his, his warm, strong palms soothing some of the ache in my chest.
He caught my gaze, some kind of indecision warring behind his eyes before he asked, “Was the argument about my dad?”
Just like that, the bed dropped out from under me. I was freefalling. How did he … What the …
Blinking, I stared at him in shock. “You know?”
His fingers tightened around mine as he confessed, “I overheard you speaking with my father after he collapsed at Gigi’s party.”
“You’ve known since the party? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Derek’s shoulders seemed to deflate. He looked away for a moment before bringing his attention back to me. “I was going to, but then the more I thought about it, the more I decided it wasn’t important anymore. Whatever your reasons for keeping things from me in the past, I know they weren’t malicious. It’s not in your nature to be cruel. So long as you’re honest with me from now on I don’t care about things you didn’t tell me before.”
“You should care. I could be a terrible person.” I was shaking with the adrenaline of a two-decade old secret finally being exposed.
Derek’s gaze softened as he let go of my hands to move deeper onto the bed. “Milly, you couldn’t be a terrible person even if you tried. I see how you are, how you live for others. If you made a selfish choice, I know that it was ultimately to protect someone else.” He had no idea how close he was to the truth because the whole reason I’d kept him at a distance was to protect Aunt Nell’s feelings. But I wasn’t entirely unselfish. If I were, I never would’ve allowed myself to become friends withhim back then. I would’ve stayed away from him completely in solidarity with my aunt, but I hadn’t. I was unable to resist his draw, the connection that always sparked to life in his presence.
Derek reached out as though to pull me into his arms, but I shifted back. His face fell, and my chest constricted. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to hold me, I was just feeling dizzy headed with the revelation and needed a moment to untangle my thoughts.
Derek exhaled and ran a hand over his jaw. “My mam was the one to tell me everything in the end. It turned out Dad had told her all about his relationship with your aunt, how she got pregnant and wanted him to marry her, his refusal and promise to care for her and the baby regardless. I didn’t bring it up with Dad because he’s still unwell as he waits for his surgery, and I didn’t want to cause him stress. Mam said he still has a lot of guilt and regret over it all.”
I barely moved as I listened to him speak. It almost felt surreal for Derek to know about the thing I’d always been too afraid to tell him, too worried it would tarnish the love and respect he had for his father.
My throat was dry. “My aunt told me the story that day when she and my parents came home and found us in the kitchen together.”
“I remember. It was obvious she didn’t like me much.”
My heart clenched at the thought of him seeing how my aunt disliked him so immediately. What must he have thought? He’d been nothing but polite, and yet she’d acted like he was the most unsavoury individual she’d ever laid eyes on. It must’ve been really confusing to him at the time.
I cleared my throat. “I never wanted to tell you because her version painted your father in such a poor light, and I didn’t want it to affect your relationship with him. Aunt Nell told me that your dad had been cruel, that he’d callously told her toget rid of the baby and that he wanted nothing to do with her anymore. But that wasn’t what happened at all. I know that now because I’ve heard your dad’s account of it. Aunt Nell omitted certain details on purpose because she saw how I looked at you. At the time, I’d thought it was because she feared you were just like your dad, and that you’d do the same thing to me as he’d done to her, but that wasn’t it at all.”
Derek’s brows furrowed. “It wasn’t?”
“She claims it was because she resented Padraig for refusing to marry her, and she couldn’t stand the thought of me being with you and becoming a part of the family he created after he left her. It beggars belief, but she still holds that grudge even to this day. It’s one of the reasons we fought when I confronted her about lying. When I was a teenager, she made me promise not to get involved with you, and at the time, I made that promise. I thought she’d insisted on it out of love for me, but I think ultimately it was all about control. She saw me as her little protégé, and she wanted to be the one making all the big decisions about my life. She felt an ownership over me as her niece and goddaughter, and she didn’t want me getting involved with anyone she didn’t approve of, in this case you and your family.”
“Is that why you said no when I asked you to be my girlfriend?” A tender expression softened his face, and I recalled the night when he’d kissed me for the first and only time during our friendship.
I nodded, emotion clutching me. “I thought I could be your friend and still remain loyal to the promise I made her, but I fell for you anyway. That day on the beach when you thought I rejected your proposal because I didn’t love you back or because I thought we were too young and it wasn’t a prudent choice? Derek, that was so far from the truth. You had my entire heart, but I didn’t feel like I could say yes because I feared hurting myaunt. She was doing so much for me at the time, offering to host me in London, pay for my college education. I felt I owed her a debt of gratitude, and I … I guess that was the entire point. She did all those things to keep me under her control.” My voice caught as my eyes flickered back and forth between his. “I broke your heart that day. I know I did. I’d never felt so shattered than when I watched you walk away from me, believing I didn’t love you back.”
“You did break my heart,” Derek confessed, his jaw flickering as he swallowed. “But it wasn’t your fault. You thought you were doing the right thing.”
The gentle forgiveness in his eyes almost ruined me. Wetness pooled beneath my cheeks. Propelled by a sudden need to be close to him, I crawled into his arms and settled between his thighs, wrapping my arms around his waist and hugging him tightly while Derek sat with his back resting against the headboard.
Gazing up at him, I lifted my hand to cup his jaw. His arms tightened around me, and my stomach flipped when he pressed a tender kiss to my temple. “I don’t think I ever fell out of love with you,” I confessed, and his eyes darkened as he listened to me. “No other man has ever made me feel like you do,” I whispered, and the next thing I knew, his lips were crashing down on mine. A soft sigh escaped me because I’d missed kissing him. Derek emitted a rough sound as he lifted me from between his thighs, never breaking the kiss as he climbed on top of me while sliding his tongue between my lips.
