Leon cleared his throat. ‘Does he have a name?’
She shook her head. ‘You’ll have to give him one.’
He didn’t want to do that. He couldn’t.
Memory washed over him. He’d held a tiny puppy like this only once before years ago. It had been small and fragile like this one. It had been his...but only for a little while.
He stilled as past and present blurred and the reality of their future hit hard. He didn’t know if he could do this. Any of this.
‘Leon? Don’t you like him?’
He huffed out a hard-caught breath. Of course he liked him. How could he not?
‘What is it?’ she asked softly. ‘Leon?’ Her eyes suddenly filled. ‘Did I do the wrong thing?’
‘No,’ he muttered quickly. She was so sweet, she didn’t realise. ‘No.’
‘Then what is it?’ She wasn’t just sweet, she was astute. She saw right through him.
And he couldn’t bear that. ‘It’s not important,’ he snapped, needing to shut her down.
‘If it’s not important, it won’t matter if you tell me, will it?’
He almost smiled at her simple logic, but he was stuck, unable to escape the most painful of memories. ‘You don’t want my poor-little-rich-boy sob story.’
‘Yes—’
‘It is what it is,’ he interrupted awkwardly. ‘I can’t change it.’
He didn’t want questions, didn’t want to remember. His mouth was dry and he felt too big to be holding something so small. He didn’t want to hold it close. He didn’t want to feel. He needed time to think. But Ettie kept looking at him with those beseeching sea-green eyes and when she did that he couldn’t seem to think at all.
‘Leon—’
‘My neighbour gave me a puppy,’ he growled before she could say anything else in that husky, sweet voice. She was so frustratingly curious. ‘But my mother got rid of it after a few weeks.’
‘Got rid of it?’ Ettie frowned. ‘You don’t mean—’
‘Yeah, I do mean.’ The words just fell out. A bald, uncontrollable burn of memory. The disappearance. The shocking silence and the absolute emptiness inside him. ‘They weren’t interested in me—I was their tick-the-box baby. They were busy with their careers. Their affairs. They just wanted a trophy and heir. They didn’t want the actual child. The actual child was...’ He broke off, tearing his gaze from Ettie to focus on the small dog that had nestled so easily into his arms. It was so trusting. But he hadn’t been able to protect that first puppy...
He dragged in a harsh breath. He shouldn’t have said anything, but now he’d started, ripping open that old wound so it oozed poison and pus. He couldn’t stop the truth of it spewing out.
‘One child was more than enough for my mother to handle and, as I was a child of privilege, it was her duty to educate me on my duty and ensure I wasn’t spoiled.’
‘Not spoiled?’ Ettie echoed softly.
He looked back into her expressive face and watched as understanding dawned.
‘She was cruel?’ she said.
Leon couldn’t bear the sympathy in her eyes. Why had he said anything? He hated remembering how weak he’d once been. He never wanted anyone to have power over him again. Not physical. Not emotional. Not contractual. Never again would he be that vulnerable. That powerless.
‘Leon...’
‘I was extremely fortunate.’ He tried to plug the information leak, tried to squash all that horror back in the depths of his ribcage. ‘I had the best education.’
Never show weakness. Never admit to failure. Always fight.
‘But she hurt you. Not just your puppy. She hurt you.’
So many times, in so many small ways. He froze but was still unable to think, unable to hold back that pressure bursting within him.
Ettie stepped closer. ‘She hit you?’
‘Too obvious.’ The words escaped, heedless of his battle to keep silent. ‘She’d force me to shower in freezing water. Five minutes. Reciting equations, verbs, some poem. Whatever lesson I needed to be drilled in. I had to say it aloud over and over again. That was one of the many...’ He paused, drawing in a hard breath. ‘Just little things she did to...’
‘Torture you.’
‘Toughen me up.’ He grimaced. ‘Cold showers, barefoot runs in the frost, two hours locked in a dark cupboard if I answered back or worse...all things that left no physical mark, but would teach me to control myself. Not cry. Not show weakness.’
Not anger. Not love either. Not any emotions. He’d learned calm instead—to close down, stay still, breathe, think. Except he couldn’t do any of that now with the way Ettie was looking at him.
‘It worked,’ he said, stubbornly rejecting what he saw in her eyes. ‘I grew resilience. Definitely gained independence. Didn’t rely on anyone else for anything.’
‘You couldn’t tell your father?’
The last sliver of Leon’s heart shrivelled. ‘He knew.’ And he’d done nothing.
‘You couldn’t tell anyone else?’
There hadn’t been anyone else. There’d never been any physical marks left on him. But he had the feeling his old neighbour at their summer house suspected. That was why she’d given him that puppy. Calix had been the runt of the litter, just like this little guy.
His mother had relented too easily—said yes to that nice old neighbour. She’d said yes so swiftly, bubbling with faux gratitude. He should’ve known it was too good to last. He was to perform. He was to lead. He was to remain in charge of everything. The loss she then subjected him to was to build his fight—the puppy was a mere tool for him to learn pain and to protect himself from feeling it again. Never to lose again.
It hurts when important things are taken from you. The dog isn’t important. Our company is.
He’d never trusted again either.
‘That’s why you were happy to go away to school,’ Ettie whispered.
‘It was a relief.’ Leon wanted nothing more than to freeze back up inside. ‘But she’d hit me in other ways. When you’re told something over and over and over, you begin to believe it, especially when the person telling you is supposed to b
e your protector.’ She’d shut him off from everyone. Her words echoed in his head.
‘They only want to be friends because of your money. They want to use you. But you haven’t done anything to deserve what you have. You don’t deserve it.’
He realised far too late that he’d said it all aloud. Ettie’s expression was appalled. He turned away, unable to look at her any more. If he didn’t look at her he might get himself back under control.
‘My mother was determined to make me strong enough, good enough to take over the specific challenges of a multimillion-dollar empire. To become the tough, decisive boss I’d need to be. I tried hard to please her.’ To please both his parents. He’d tried for so long. ‘Eventually I realised I was never going to. Nothing would make her happy. So I decided that I’d never be the heir they’d worked so diligently to raise. Not by going off the rails—that would have pleased her, I think. It would have proven that I was as “weak” as she’d said I was. So no drugs, no booze-fuelled parties, no threesomes...’ He almost smiled. ‘I turned my back on that “duty” and rejected the inheritance they offered. I’ll never work for the company, or take charge of it. Instead I worked alone and earned more, just to spite her. I worked every holiday and left home the second I was old enough.’
‘To make your own way.’
He’d pushed to the top relentlessly—taken huge risks, worked insane hours. Because he didn’t want a cent of his parents’ money. Didn’t want the ‘glory’ of running their empire. After all, he’d not deserved it—so he’d built his own.
He didn’t need them. He didn’t need anyone.
Now he carried the sleeping puppy back to the box and saw the small bed Ettie had got for it inside. He carefully put the puppy in. Why had he said anything? He never talked to anyone about this. Bracing himself against the silence, he turned back and saw her face. His body tightened.