‘What did he gamble on?’
She stared past him, her elbows locked tight against her body. ‘In the beginning it was horses, but then it was online roulette. He won occasionally. But mostly he lost. Because that’s how it works. And he lied. All the time. To my mum. To me. To himself.’
The knuckles of her hands were white now.
‘Are they still together?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘He left when I was fourteen. He used to come back sometimes. Let himself in and take whatever he could find. Pawn it or sell it...’
Her voice faded, but he didn’t need to hear more to hear the deeper truth: that her father had robbed her of more than just possessions. He’d taken her trust.
Anger raged inside him—an anger that was separate from and yet mixed in with his own. Anger at the bad fathers of the world and the lies they told...the lies they forced others to tell. And with himself too, for making her lie. For pressing against the bruise.
‘Every time he made the same promise. “This is the last time.” But it never was. He can’t help himself. He doesn’t want to help himself. And he won’t let anyone else help him either.’
He stared down at her, stricken, understanding that sense of powerlessness, and then without any kind of conscious intent to do so, he reached out and took her hands. ‘You were a child.’
She shook her head again. ‘I didn’t do enough. Look at what you’re doing for your father.’
His chest tightened as she looked up at him, her face quivering.
‘I should have tried harder...’ she said. ‘Tried to make him listen—’
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her the truth. To tell her that he wasn’t who she thought he was. That he was lying to Andreas not out of love but in revenge. To get back at the father who had disowned him. The father he had met only twice in his life.
Only he couldn’t do it.
He felt his cowardice in the pit of his stomach as his hands tightened around hers.
‘I doubt he would have listened,’ he said, gentling his voice so that she wouldn’t hear his bitterness and pain. ‘He didn’t listen to anything your mother had to say.’
There was a small silence. ‘She didn’t say anything.’ Her shoulders flexed beneath a weight he hadn’t known she was carrying. ‘She couldn’t. She had a stroke when I was thirteen and it affected her speech.’
Shock blotted out his own painful memories. But if her father had left when she was fourteen—
‘Who took care of her?’
But even before she spoke, he knew the answer.
‘I did,’ she whispered. ‘We had some help, but then I left school when I was sixteen and we managed just fine.’ Her eyes were shining now, with unshed tears not of pity but of pride. ‘Only then she had another stroke, a year ago, and now she’s in a home because she needs specialist care. And I need her to be safe.’
And that was why she was here. With him.
The muscles of his face contracted. ‘She’ll always be safe. Because she’s got you.’
He tried to smile, but the brightness in her eyes made it suddenly impossible to do anything but pull her against him as the tears she had been holding back started to fall.
She was so young—too young to have gone through all of that—and he hated it that it had happened. Once again, he found himself hating all bad fathers. Hating himself most of all.
His arms tightened around her. ‘And you’ve got me.’
‘But that’s the point. I don’t have you.’ She tilted her tear-stained face up to meet his. ‘You want this to work. You want us to look like a couple, but that’s not going to be enough. We have to be a couple. Maybe not a “for ever” couple, who love each other and want to spend their lives together, but this has to be more than just playing dress-up.’
‘I get that—’
But she was shaking her head.
‘No, you don’t. You think you can just give me clothes and a ring and that’s your part done. Then it’s on me to convince people. All you have to do is get the bill. And you can’t forget even for a moment that you’re paying, because deep down you think having money makes you a better person. But if you can’t forget it, if you don’t see me as your equal, then everyone—including your father—is going to know we’re faking it.’