Looking up into Ram’s eyes, she twisted her lips.
‘But I was scared to give all this up. So I settled for a man who was paid to marry me and a marriage that’s made me feel trapped and humiliated for thirty years.’
She bit her lip.
‘I’m sorry, darling, for acting so selfishly, and for blaming you.’
Ram couldn’t breathe.
His mother was apologising.
For so long he’d been so angry with her. Never to her face, because despite everything—the hysterics, the way she lashed out at him when she was upset—he loved her desperately. Instead he’d deliberately, repeatedly, and publicly scorned the very idea of becoming a husband and a father.
And he’d done that to punish her. For giving him a ‘father’ like Guy, for making choices that had taken away his choices, even though she’d been little more than a child herself.
‘Don’t,’ he whispered. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘It was. It is.’ Reaching out, Pandora gently stroked his face. ‘And I can’t change the past. But I don’t want you to repeat my mistakes. Promise me, Ramsay, that you won’t do what Guy and I did. Relationships can’t be forced. There has to be love.’
‘I know.’
He spoke mechanically, but inside he felt hollow, for he knew his mother was right. Relationships couldn’t be forced—and yet wasn’t that exactly what he’d done to Nola? Right from the start he’d been intent on having his own way—overriding her at every turn, kidnapping her at the airport, pressuring her to get married.
He’d even ‘persuaded’ her into announcing their engagement tonight, despite knowing that she was nervous about taking that step.
His breath felt like lead in his throat. Whatever he might like to believe, the facts were undeniable. Nola wasn’t marrying him through choice or love. Just like his mother, for her it would be a marriage of convenience. A marriage of duty.
Gazing into his mother’s tear-stained face, he made up his mind.
He’d never wanted anything more than to give his child a secure home, a future, a name. But he couldn’t marry Nola.
Now all he needed to do was find her and tell her that as soon as possible.
* * *
Glancing up, Nola saw Ram striding down the stairs towards her. Her heart gave a lurch. He didn’t look as if news of his engagement had been joyfully received.
Standing up, she walked towards him—but before she had a chance to speak Ram was by her side, grabbing her hand, towing her after him, his grip on her hand mirroring the vice of confusion and fear squeezing her heart.
‘What did they say?’ she managed as he wrenched open the door, standing to one side to let her pass through it.
‘Nothing,’ he said curtly. ‘I didn’t tell them.’
She gazed at him in confusion.
‘So what are we doing?’
‘There’s been a change of plan. We’re leaving now!’
Five minutes later they were heading down the drive towards the main road. Cars were still arriving at the house, but even though Ram must have noticed them, he said nothing.
Several times she was on the verge of asking him to stop the car and tell her what had happened. But, glancing at his set, still profile, she knew that he was either incapable of telling her or unwilling. All she could do was watch and wait.
She was so busy watching him that she didn’t even notice when they drove past Stanmore. In fact it wasn’t until he stopped the car in front of a large Art Deco–style house that she finally became aware of anything other than the terrible rigidity of his body.
He had switched off the engine and was out of the car and striding round to her door, yanking it open before she even had a chance to take off her seatbelt.
‘This way!’