It wasn’t exactly what she needed to hear—no one had ever managed to offer Bea that—but it was enough. Enough for now to stave off her basic insecurities, to make her feel that he really did want her with him. He wasn’t looking for an excuse to push her away; he wasn’t counting down the minutes until she could leave. And even though he had Ellen to help with Danica, he still wanted Bea to be a part of their lives. For now.
‘What is that song you sing to her?’ Ares asked later that same night, when Bea was almost asleep. Her eyes were heavy and it took her mind a moment to wade back from the drugging proximity of sleep. Her body felt as though it was glowing, pleasure spreading through her limbs as the way he’d made her feel earlier set her pulse racing.
She hadn’t been back to the guest room since the first night they’d made love. They hadn’t discussed it; this had simply evolved out of a mutual need to be together at night, a desire to hold and touch, to wake up and reach for one another, satiating themselves over and over...
‘Which song?’ she asked sleepily. She flicked a glance to the bedside table. It had just passed midnight. Not terribly late but, given the way they were spending their nights, she was snatching sleep wherever she could find it.
His own voice was low and deep, so that when he hummed the familiar tune to Bea it sounded somehow mystical and different. She caught her breath, unused to hearing the song from anyone else.
‘It’s called “Calon Lân”,’ she murmured, turning in the bed so she could face him, resting her head on the pillow. ‘It’s Welsh.’
‘You speak Welsh?’
‘No.’ Sadness etched her smile. She’d never told another soul why she knew that song, and yet the words bubbled through her now, pulling her towards him. ‘I used to hum it as a girl—just a few lines, all that I could remember. For a long time, I didn’t consciously know where it had come from, nor why I sang it. My adoptive dad, Ronnie, recognised the tune and played the full song for me.’
‘Where did you learn it?’
Her heart skipped a beat. A pain that was almost too raw to speak of sliced through her. But Bea was nothing if not brave; confronting pain head-on was something she’d had to do enough times to be able to face it now.
‘It’s the only memory I have of my birth mother,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s not even a memory,’ she corrected, ‘so much as a fog. A haze. If I think on it too hard it’s like trying to catch soap in the bath—slippery and impossible. I can’t remember what she looked like, and I can’t remember anything about my life before...before I came to live with Ronnie and Alice—’ her voice was rushed ‘—but I know she used to sing the song to me. She must have done it often, because it’s kind of imprinted inside of me. And when I sing it I can feel her arms around me. I know that sounds strange.’
He shook his head once, just enough to disabuse her of that idea. ‘Memory is a funny thing.’
‘Yes.’ She bit down on her lip. ‘When I heard Danica crying, the words just came out of me. It’s always comforted me, the song, and I thought it might do the same for her.’
‘It appears to work wonders.’
She nodded, pressing her palm to his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
‘What happened to your birth parents?’
She realised she’d been afraid of this question. No one had ever asked it. Amy and Clare had always instinctively understood that it was a no-go area. It was an almost impossible thing to reveal, because it was like admitting to someone that you just weren’t very lovable.
‘They didn’t want me.’ The words burned their way through her heart. She clamped her lips together in an attempt to stem any more.
A crease formed between his brows as he analysed that statement. ‘For what reason?’
And there he’d found the crux of the matter. She laughed uneasily, flipping onto her back and staring at the ceiling. ‘I was a difficult child, I guess.’
She couldn’t look at him, so didn’t see his reaction.
‘It’s fine,’ she lied. ‘They did the right thing and gave me away, obviously expecting I’d end up with a family more capable of caring for me.’
The silence that fell was barbed. ‘And did you?’
Another question she’d never been asked, but this time because Amy and Clare had been able to see the truth for themselves. ‘I grew up with everything you could want.’ Her voice had a practised tone to it—the same one she’d used whenever people had enthused about how ‘lucky’ she was to have rock royalty for a dad and a bona fide supermodel as a mum.
‘Why do I suspect that’s not true?’
Damn him! She didn’t want to talk about this. ‘Are you kidding? Who wouldn’t want to be raised by a couple of celebrities?’
‘Lots of people,’ he answered simply. ‘And definitely you.’
Her throat thickened with emotion.
‘You hate attention,’ he said gently. ‘And yet, given their fame, I imagine you received more than your fair share.’
His perceptiveness knocked her off-balance, so she turned her face to his, her eyes wide.