Bella’s eyes filled with sympathy, her hand resumed its wanderings and his chest contracted. ‘How awful,’ she breathed.
Well, yes, it had been, thought Will, but weirdly enough it didn’t feel as awful right now as it used to.
‘It wasn’t the best afternoon I’ve ever had,’ he muttered, slightly baffled by the fact that his brain seemed to be more interested in the feel of the woman lying beside him than the memories and ghosts that had haunted him for years. ‘And it wasn’t the last time my father was unfaithful to my mother,’ he added, offloading a bit more and feeling something inside him lighten a little.
Caroline had been on to something, he thought, his mind briefly visiting the conversation he’d had with his aunt that afternoon in the bank. If he’d known unburdening himself would feel like this he’d have told someone years ago. It was seriously good to finally let the truth out. At least, some of it.
‘So what did she do about it?’
A familiar twinge of guilt that he hadn’t done more to help jabbed him in the stomach. ‘Absolutely nothing. Just grinned and bore it. And suffered pretty much every minute of her life.’
Bella frowned. ‘So why didn’t she divorce him or something?’
Will sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. ‘I told her to. On countless occasions. But unlike my father she believed in her vows.’ He shrugged as if it couldn’t matter less. ‘And then she had a stroke and it was all over anyway.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly and something in her voice made his chest squeeze.
‘Yes, well, it was a long time ago.’
‘Was that when you went to the Cayman Islands?’
He nodded briefly. ‘And why. I had to get away.’
‘Because you couldn’t forgive him?’
And because he couldn’t forgive himself. For any of it. ‘Exactly,’ he muttered thinking there were limits to what he was prepared to offload.
Bella blinked and stared at Will. Though she’d wanted him to open up to her, she hadn’t expected any of this.
She hadn’t expected to have her heartstrings tugged at the thought of a ten-year-old boy huddled in a cupboard, in all likelihood terrified and hungry and confused while his father got up close and personal with a family friend on the drawing-room sofa.
She hadn’t expected to burn with anger at the selfishness of Will’s father instead of lust.
And she hadn’t expected to ache with compassion instead of desire.
But she was. And it was highly unsettling because she didn’t want to be feeling any of this. To be honest, she’d assumed Will’s aversion to commitment had had something to do with a failed relationship and if she’d known that probing was going to result in this kind of conversation she’d never have asked.
Not at all comfortable with the heart-wrenching emotions rolling around inside her, Bella determinedly pushed them to one side and focused on the bafflement that was battering her brain.
‘But I thought your parents had the love affair of the century,’ she said, lifting her eyes to his and feeling her heart squeeze at his rigid expression despite telling it not to.
‘That’s what everyone thinks. But the reality was actually something quite different. They weren’t a one-off either,’ Will added.
Huh? ‘What on earth do you mean?’ she said cautiously, not at all sure she wanted to know.
‘It’s a pack of lies, Bella,’ he said. ‘The whole damn lot of it. The men in my family are incapable of keeping their marriage vows much beyond the wedding night. Sometimes not even until then.’
She opened her mouth. Then closed it as she struggled to process the implications of what he was saying, but it was almost too great to comprehend. She didn’t know where to start. ‘But the collection … ?’
‘Founded on the spoils of infidelity.’
‘What?’ She felt her eyes widen and her eyebrows shoot up. ‘All of it?’
‘Most of it.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ she breathed, as one by one her illusions of the Hawksley family’s romantic affair with jewellery crashed to the floor and shattered.
‘Nevertheless, it’s true. I’m sorry to disillusion you,’ he said gruffly.