Stark, stunned silence greeted her news.
‘It wasn’t all bad,’ she said, trying to reassure him. ‘I lost a load of weight, and Toby didn’t suffer for it.’
‘It must have been hell,’ he refuted flatly.
‘At the time, yes—but Toby was worth it. And I turned into slimline Jo, so that was a bonus.’
‘With the way you always refuse cake I assumed you’d dieted.’
‘Not initially. Once I got better the temptation was still there, but I stopped myself. I knew things had to change—for my health and my emotional wellbeing.’ She shook her head and sighed. ‘I fell in love with Toby long before he was born, and that was what made me see that I could eat as many of my mother’s cakes as possible and she’d still never love me. Not as a mother should.’
At his shocked stare, she went on.
‘When I was little I was allowed to eat as much cake as I liked. I thought that was how mums showed their love. Looking back, I can see that it was just her way of keeping me quiet. Carrying Toby, feeling him grow inside me...it changed me. I knew I couldn’t let her have that kind of power over me any more.’
‘And what’s your relationship with her like now?’
‘Challenging... I pop in every month or so, to make sure Dad’s okay. If he’s not comatose he’s happy to see me.’
‘How does Toby get on with them?’
‘I never take him. Maybe when he’s older...’ Her voice trailed off.
‘So what were you going to do in London?’ he asked quietly.
Theseus hadn’t intended to open a Pandora’s box with his innocuous comment about Giles, but now it was open he needed to know it all.
‘I was going to work at a children’s book publishing company.’ She pushed a lock of hair from her face. ‘I loved reading as a child. Anything was possible in the books I read. Good overcame evil. The ugly ducklings became beautiful swans. Anyone could find love. I wanted to work with those books and be a part of the magic.’
And instead she’d ended up working on historical tomes and museum pieces. He could just see her, sitting in her bedroom, forgetting her mother’s cruel indifference and her father’s love affair with the bottle by burying her head in dreams.
‘When I recovered from the morning sickness I went to every publisher I could find in Oxford and offered my services for free until the baby was born—the deal being that if I proved myself they had to consider me when a suitable job came up. Giles took me up on it.’
Theseus shook his head to imagine that he’d once dismissed this woman as ‘wallpaper’. She had more tenacity than anyone he’d ever met.
‘They say fortune favours the brave,’ she continued, ‘and it really does. A week after I’d decided I couldn’t raise Toby in the toxic atmosphere of Brookes Manor and we’d moved into our own flat, Giles called with the offer of a job as copywriter. It came at just the right time too—I was hours away from starting my first shift as a waitress.’
He smiled, although he felt anything but amused. ‘And you were happy there?’
‘Gosh, yes. Very happy. The staff are wonderful. I grew to love it.’
Of course she had. She could have wallowed in self-pity at the destruction of her dreams, but instead she had embraced the cards she’d been dealt, just as she would put on a brave smile when she married into his family and became royalty.
He thought of his grandmother, who’d curtailed her performing career when she’d married his grandfather. The difference was his grandmother had been born a princess and been promised to his grandfather from birth. She’d always known that marriage would mean a limit to what she could do with her career.
He thought of his mother. Had she ever dreamed of being anything other than Lelantos Kalliakis’s wife?
Yes, he thought, remembering the wistful look that had used to come into her eyes when he’d spoken of his naïve childhood plan to become an astronaut. She’d had dreams of something different too. It was the greatest tragedy of his life that he would never know what they had been.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘DO I LOOK all right?’ Jo asked, the second Theseus stepped into the room.
The appreciative gleam that came into his eyes gave her the answer.
When he pulled her into his arms and made to kiss her, she turned her cheek. ‘You’ll smudge my lipstick!’ she chided.