But she was going to have to give him an answer first. An answer that would expose all her insecurities. Which was probably why she hadn’t told him in the first place.
But the truth was, she’d already told him the reason; he just hadn’t been listening. So now she would have to tell him again.
‘I couldn’t get past what happened to my mother with your father. Accepting your money felt like I was making the same mistake. She persuaded herself she loved him. But I’m not sure she ever really did. What she loved was the security his money provided. I don’t want to sell myself short the way she did.’
‘This deal, this marriage, hasn’t got a damn thing to do with what happened all those years ago. We already established that.’ The edge in his voice sharpened.
‘Yes, it does. I won’t compromise myself like that. I can’t.’
‘So you expect me to compromise my integrity instead,’ he shot back.
‘What?’ she asked, because she was confused now as well as heartsore. She hadn’t meant to cause an argument. And she certainly didn’t want to infuriate him. But she couldn’t budge on this. She’d tried and she just couldn’t; her pride wouldn’t allow her to accept the money. ‘I don’t... I don’t understand.’
‘Really?’ he said, thrusting his fingers through his hair. ‘Then let me explain. You don’t want to be like your mother, but you’re happy to make me into my father. To have me exploit you the way my father exploited her and hundreds of other women. The way he exploited my own mother. If you don’t want to be like her, what makes you think I want to be like him?’
It didn’t make any sense. This had nothing to do with his father. Far from it. But from his tortured expression it was obvious it mattered to him.
‘But you’re not exploiting me, Dominic,’ she said, as patiently and gently as she could—she needed to defuse this situation and make him see sense. ‘I want to be here. I signed that contract and went through with the ceremony earlier in full knowledge of the facts. I just don’t want the money. It’s too much. You’re not responsible for what happened to my mother. They were the grown-ups, not you.’
‘Mon Dieu. How do you know what I am responsible for when you don’t even know what happened that night?’
The growled admission struck her like a blow. Bringing back the memories she had never really confronted. And the words her mother had whispered before dragging her out of bed in the middle of the night, her cheek bruised and her eyes wet with tears, returned.
‘Something terrible’s happened, baby. Pierre’s very angry with me and Dominic. We have to leave.’
‘What are you saying, Dominic?’ A horrible thought curdled in the pit of her stomach. Had something happened between her mother and Dominic? The thought had never even occurred to her. Because it would be ludicrous and paranoid—but a stifling coating of jealousy joined the snakes writhing in her belly, regardless.
Which only disturbed her more. Imagine being jealous of a dead woman. A woman who was her own mother.
He swore and turned away from her, striding to the open-plan kitchen and pulling a beer out of the fridge. He snapped off the cap against the countertop and gulped down half the bottle.
She followed him, her insides churning. A part of her had always wondered what had happened to turn Pierre against her mother. But it couldn’t be this, could it?
‘Did Pierre catch you together?’ she asked.
Had her mother seduced a sixteen-year-old boy? The thought was so appalling she knew she would never be able to get past it. She had clung to that last modicum of respect for her mother for so long—through the drug addiction, the endless affairs with increasingly inappropriate men. But this would destroy the last of it. And be worse than anything she’d been forced to witness her mother do in the years after that night.
‘Is that why he hit her?’ she asked. ‘Why he kicked us out? Did you and my mother have a relationship?’
But as she steeled herself against hearing the worst, Dominic choked on the beer and the bottle slammed down on the countertop.
‘What the...? Are you...? How do you say it in English?’ he said, the frustration hitting boiling point. ‘Are you insane?’ he managed. ‘Of course I didn’t have a relationship with Monique.’
The stabbing pain in Ally’s belly unlocked. Oh, thank God. Her mother hadn’t done the unthinkable and seduced a child.
‘I was only sixteen and your mother was in her thirties, stunningly beautiful and in love with my father. Even I was never that precocious,’ he said, sounding so shocked she felt pretty foolish for even thinking it might have been a possibility, let alone actually asking him. But she was still glad she had. She never wanted that ugly picture in her head ever again. And now at least it was gone... But if that wasn’t what had caused his father to hit her mother, what had? And why would Dominic feel responsible?
‘But you were there, when Pierre hit her?’ she asked. He must have been. Because her mother had mentioned him and he had just implied as much. ‘Do you know why he hurt her? Why he turned on her?’
His gaze became shuttered, but not before she caught the flash of something that looked like regret.
He braced his hands against the countertop and dropped his head. She could see the tension in the rigid line of his shoulder blades, and hear the deep sigh as his chest released.
‘There was no reason,’ he said, but she could hear the bitterness that he couldn’t disguise. ‘My father never needed a reason. His temper was volatile and easily roused. I think your mother made some innocuous comment about their engagement. And he exploded.’
‘I see.’ Ally’s chest deflated, his agonised words, the description of what he’d witnessed, having the hideous ring of truth. ‘So he had offered her marriage?’ she whispered.
Dominic’s head lifted, and he nodded. ‘Of course, it was how my father liked to operate. Dangle the carrot and then apply the stick.’