The words rammed into her chest, destroying her defences in one fell swoop.
He knew how she felt about him?Howdid he know? But, worse, was that why he felt guilty? Because he didn’t feel the same?
‘How did you know that I’ve fallen in love with you?’ she asked, the words forced out through the crushing weight on her chest.
He let out a harsh laugh, then touched a thumb to her cheek, slid it down to cup her chin. His touch was electric as always, the shudder of response she couldn’t control only making the ache worse.
‘You’re so damn transparent, Eleanor. It’s been obvious for a while.’
She tugged her head free, determined to hold back the tears scouring the backs of her eyes. The apologetic look on his face somehow worse than the guilt.
‘What did you mean, I wouldn’t love you if I knew?’ she asked, trying desperately to shore up her defences again, to get through this and do at least some good.
You knew he didn’t love you. Don’t make a scene.
He swore softly, dropped his head back, the sinews tightening in his neck as he struggled with demons she couldn’t see. But at last he spoke. ‘Damn, I guess I owe you this much before I tell you the truth.’
What truth? What was he talking about?
But before the questions had even registered he launched into a strained monologue, the tone brittle with anger and frustration, but also a grim self-loathing. But as he talked, she began to understand what had been done to that little boy all those years ago, to make him so scared to love. And so scared to rely on anyone but himself.
‘I was eight, nearly nine, the first time my father used me as cover to go screw one of his mistresses...’
Alex said the words he’d held inside for so long. Weird, then, that saying them now, to her, a woman whose respect he wanted but knew he could never deserve, felt like tearing a plaster from a fresh wound. He couldn’t look at her, though, with those wide blue eyes with the genetic mutation full of compassion he didn’t deserve. So instead he stared at the concrete wall of the parking garage as the car chilled around them, not unlike his heart.
‘That first time he made me sit in the truck. Even though it was winter. I didn’t understand what was going on. He’d told me he was taking me to meet up with some of his friends. I’d been excited. I loved Pop’s pals, they always treated me like one of the guys. But instead of going to the pool hall where he hung out when he was busy avoiding his paternal responsibilities, he drove out of the neighbourhood to a house I didn’t know. I was sitting in that truck for what felt like hours, but could only have been about twenty minutes. He came out and started making out with her on the porch. I asked him who she was when he got back into the truck, and he socked me.’
He breathed in, still feeling the pain of that back-handed slap even now, because it had signalled the end of his childhood.
‘It was the first time he ever hit me. But it wasn’t the last.’
‘Alex, I’m so sorry,’ she said, but he couldn’t look at her still. Because he knew she would feel sympathy for that kid. But he knew he couldn’t trade on her pity any longer. ‘He sounds like a cruel and selfish man,’ she added.
‘Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.’ He let out a hollow chuckle—hell, she still had no idea she was sitting beside a man who had exactly the same weaknesses. Maybe he didn’t screw around, but he’d lied to her, for days, had kept a secret he had no right to keep so he could continue to use her. And how was that any different?
‘He used women, then discarded them,’ he continued, the bitterness tempered now by the brutal echo of self-disgust. ‘And I kept that secret for him, always. He got into the habit of taking me with him, made me sit in the parlour while he was banging them upstairs. I could hear them. Going at it. And that somehow made it so much worse. I’d much rather be outside in the truck, freezing my butt off, than have to listen to it, but he got mad when I asked.’ He let out another brittle laugh. ‘You know what he said to me?’
She shook her head, her eyes so wide with concern now he only felt more ashamed.
‘“How am I gonna explain you getting pneumonia to your bitch of a mom?”’
He sighed, the horror of that bitter, brutal comment still too fresh.
‘They all thought he was a great guy. A great dad. That he loved them. That he loved her. But it was all just an act. She found out the truth though, when he died of a heart attack in another woman’s bed.’
He shivered, not from the chill in the car, but from the memory of his mother’s face when she’d arrived just after the paramedics, holding Mia in her arms. Frantic, scared, devastated. And then the truth had dawned on her.
‘She saw me standing in the parlour with the woman he’d been screwing, who was in hysterics. She looked right through me...’ He huffed out a breath, rolled his fist against the knot in his chest, that was still there after all these years. ‘And I knew then she would never forgive me.’
Eleanor touched his hand, and he turned to see the tears in her eyes, for that lost boy who was long gone. ‘How old were you when he died, Alex?’
‘Eleven,’ he said, but he’d been so much older than his years even then.
‘She had no right to blame you,’ she said with such passion the guilt only increased. ‘And had nothing to forgive you for.’
She still doesn’t get it. But she will.
‘Maybe,’ he said, because he wanted to bask in that misguided adoration, just for a little while longer. How pathetic was that?