For a moment she looked as if she was about to smile, but then seemed to change her mind for her face took on a completely different look. Softer. Thoughtful—almost gentle. And that put the fear of God in him like nothing else, because gentleness was alien to him and he didn’t trust it. Very pointedly, he lifted his arm to glance at his watch. ‘Whatever it is, will you please hurry up and tell me because I haven’t got all day?’
‘Roman, I went to visit Olga. I found out where she lives.’
A barrage of feelings hit him. Cold fear, dark dread and anger. But anger was the overriding emotion which made him shoot out his response to her. Because wasn’t it easier to focus on that, rather than confront the sudden blackness which was hovering at the edges of his mind? ‘What the hell did you do that for?’
‘Because I was confused by some of the things you told me.’ She licked her lips. ‘I guess I found it hard to believe that your mother never even wrote back to you.’
‘You think all women are fundamentally good—and mothers in particular?’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘In that case, I pity you your naivety, Zabrina. I lost faith in your sex a long time ago.’
But she shook her head as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Some of the things you said didn’t add up,’ she continued. ‘Why she used to hide away. Why she used to only come to you under cover of darkness. It seemed to me that Olga must have known something and she did. That was another reason why she was sacked.’
Roman’s heart clenched as if some malevolent iron fist were squeezing it tighter and tighter. He wanted to turn and run, or to put his hands to his ears like a child and block out whatever was coming. But that would be the behaviour of a coward, and he was no coward. And hadn’t he weathered the worst of the storm all those years ago? What could possibly be left to hurt him now? ‘What did Olga know?’
She sucked in a deep breath and now he saw the flicker of fear and darkness in her own eyes. ‘Your father used to abuse your mother,’ she said. ‘Mentally and physically.’
‘No!’ The word thundered from his lungs. ‘That is not possible.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I would have known.’ He could hear the break in his voice as he shook his head in denial. ‘I would have protected her.’
‘No, Roman. You would not have known, because your mother wouldn’t have wanted you to know. She wanted to hide her pain and distress from you. She wanted to protect you, which is a mother’s instinct. And how could a small boy possibly save a woman from the wrath of his powerful and autocratic father? That would only have put you in danger and that was the last thing she would have wanted.’
He curled his fingers into his palms so hard that he could feel the deep imprint of his nails, but the sharpness of that didn’t come close to the fierce stabbing of his heart. ‘How could you possibly know what she wanted?’ he raged. ‘Are you the one who is now capable of reading minds?’
‘No. But I have helped many women like your mother at my refuge in Albastase—’
‘Poor women?’ he demanded in disbelief.
‘Yes, poor women—and some rich ones, too. As well as all the others in between. Because abuse knows no age or class boundaries, Roman, and there are victims everywhere. Olga told me that your mother often used to have black eyes. That was why she would read your bedtime story in darkness and why she sometimes ducked out of sight if she saw you walking down the corridor. It was why she had to leave, because she knew she was incapable of being a good and loving mother towards you, if she was constantly being beaten down.’
‘Then why...why didn’t she take me with her?’
Zabrina heard the raw note of anguish in his voice as he whispered out that stark and heartbreaking question and she wanted so much to comfort him. To take him in her arms and hold him. But not now. Not yet. Because didn’t he need to feel this? To really feel it—to have the ugly wound laid wide open after all these years, so he would be able to recover from it at last? Afterwards—maybe once he’d heard the whole story—that would be the time to offer him solace. If he still wanted her. ‘She tried to take you,’ she said simply. ‘But, of course, your father discovered her plans and made sure she was spirited away in his private jet in the dead of night, while you were fast asleep. I don’t know if you can imagine how different those times were, but a waitress from Missouri would have had no clout against one of the most powerful men in the world.’
‘She never got my letters?’ he questioned suddenly.
Zabrina bit her lip, because, oh, how she wished she could sugar-coat this one. But she couldn’t do that either. ‘I don’t think so. I suspect the letters might have been destroyed as soon as you dispatched them,’ she said. ‘But she wrote to you.’
He narrowed his eyes and the flare of hope he was so desperately trying to repress made her heart turn over with love and sorrow.
‘She wrote to you through Olga, but the letters only got through after your father died. I have them.’
There was a long silence while Roman digested this and he could feel the powerful thunder of his heart as he looked at the Princess who stood before him, her green eyes wide with compassion. ‘Why did I never receive them?’ he demanded, but deep in his heart he knew the reason.
‘Olga tried to contact you after your father’s death,’ she said gently. ‘But she was blocked every time. By you.’
He nodded, painfully aware of his own contribution to what had happened. ‘Because the thought of seeing and speaking to her again after all those years was more than I could endure,’ he said slowly, almost as if he had forgotten she was in the room with him. Was that why he did
nothing to conceal the bitter break in his voice? Or because he know that his Princess would understand? ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of reliving...’ He swallowed. ‘Of reliving all that pain.’
‘I realise that,’ Zabrina whispered. ‘And so does she. She knows you were responsible for the anonymous donations paid into her bank account for so many years and she thanks you for your generosity.’
‘I want to hate my father for what he did,’ he said, his voice changing into a rasp. ‘In fact, I do hate him.’
‘Well, don’t,’ she whispered. ‘Just let it go, Roman. For hate brings nothing of value to anyone’s life and you don’t know the truth about his own upbringing, I assume?’
He shook his head. ‘No. No, I don’t. He never wanted to discuss it. He never wanted to discuss anything.’ His father had never talked to him, not properly. It had been like living with an automaton who had demanded increasingly high levels of perfection from his only child. Had he ever felt guilty about the way he’d treated the woman he had married? Could that have been the cause of the unexpected tears he had shed, just before shuddering out his final breath, his hand tightly clutching that of his son? Roman gave a heavy sigh because Zabrina was right. He needed to forgive, or there would be no peace in his own heart. His thoughts cleared and he looked into her clear, bright gaze, his mouth feeling as if it had been crammed full of stones as he asked the question he had been dreading.