‘What?’
‘That you’re fine. You’re obviously not fine; only a sociopath would be.’ She stands up, stands right in front of me, hands on her hips, naked and beautiful and like some kind of defiant angel. ‘To think you’re one thing all your life and then find out you’re not? You must feel an incredible sense of betrayal.’
‘Must I?’ The words are sharper than I intended. I regret that. Cora’s completely right, and none of this is her fault. Nonetheless, I hold my pose, rigid and determined.
‘Yeah.’ She answers my challenge directly. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Feel a sense of betrayal? I couldn’t tell you.’ I drag a hand through my hair. ‘I feel a sense of anger. Blind, all-consuming anger. Like I could strangle Ryan if he wasn’t already dead. I feel angry at everyone and everything, all the time. I hate my brothers—I hate them. I hate that they keep wanting me to stop being mad, like one day I’ll wake up and be “normal” again, like they don’t realise I’ve never felt normal a day in my life.’
Tears fill her eyes. Just a little—enough to dampen them and make my gut twist. But it feels good. Hurting her, pushing her away, it’s the one thing I know I do well, and I do it to everyone who’s ever been in my life, to anyone who looks in danger of caring about me.
‘Even as a kid I was angry. Different. I was never one of them. At least now I know why.’
‘Feeling like you belong is important.’ Her voice is quiet, raw, as though she can ever understand what this feels like. I try to tell myself I’m not angry at Cora, except, shit, I’m angry at everyone right now. Everyone.
‘Speaking from experience?’
She understands. I’m taking it out on her and her look speaks of annoyance, but also patience. It’s such a contradiction, but then that’s Cora. Complex, contradictory, beautiful Cora.
‘Well, yeah. I guess so. As a kid, I was always different. I didn’t have a mum, and my dad was half-loaded most of my life. My clothes often weren’t clean, my tummy rumbled in class, my hair was like a bird’s nest. I learned how to do a lot of stuff really young. I had to, to take care of him and myself. But those early years, when I was little, six or seven, I got teased mercilessly. I had no friends. I still remember that feeling, hiding under a bush at school so no one would see me and call me names.’
My desire to punch something increases. Cora going through that makes me feel enraged.
‘I hate that.’ It’s honest. It feels good to be honest.
‘It’s not the same thing, though,’ she murmurs, putting her hand on my shoulder, her fingertips somehow breathing into my heart, slowing it down, calming it. ‘Your mom turned her back on you. You grew up with that sense of being unwanted, and all the worse because you’d known your mother, you loved her, and so her turning her back on you was an actual choice not to have you in her life.’
She’s pressed her finger to the crux of what hurt so damned bad.
‘You must have missed her,’ she continues, like she has a hotline to my soul.
‘I wasn’t allowed to miss her. Ryan didn’t approve of that.’
She opens her mouth to say something, closes it again, then, after a second, ‘Maybe he thought that was better for you. It’s misguided, but perhaps he thought it would be easier if you just...forgot your mother.’
‘I told you, Ryan wasn’t guided by affection for me. I became his possession and he wanted to control me absolutely. I have no idea why, but that motivated everything he did.’
She mulls this over. ‘He still chose to raise you, to treat you as his own.’
My spine straightens. ‘Yes.’ I can’t argue with her there. I was raised a Hart in every way—he left a third of the business to me in his will; there was no indication I wasn’t one of his children.
‘Why did you and Jagger fight today?’
My heart thumps; her eyes narrow. ‘I don’t even know.’
‘You said they want you to be “normal”. Have you talked to them? Really talked? Told them all this?’
I jerk my face away, looking towards the windows. ‘I’ve told them I need time.’ The words are defensive.
‘It sounds like they’ve given you time.’
I bristle. Cora taking their side? Hell, no.
‘And what have you been doing since you found out?’ She’s relentless.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Look at me.’ A soft challenge. I ignore it at first but slowly lift my head and then stand, so I’m at least several inches taller than her. I don’t know what’s in her eyes. Sympathy. Sorrow. Affection. Fear? Of me?