“Charlie has her hands full,” Winona said after a pause. “I don’t think she’s looking for a relationship.”
“Have you explained that to Caleb?”
“He knows. They’re friends, first and foremost. But I’m sure there’s a huge part of him that hopes one day she’ll look at him and want more than friendship.”
Alessio ground his teeth together, the idea of his half-brother and Charlotte made him want to punch the nearest wall to pieces.
“There’s a part of me that wants that too,” Winona confided with another of those proud little maternal smiles. “I love Charlotte. She’d be very good for Caleb.”
It was more than Alessio could handle. He scraped back his chair and stood, hands on hips, eyes focussed on the wall opposite as he concentrated on bringing his breathing back into control.
It wasn’t as though he wanted to propose marriage to Charlotte or anything but hearing his mother wax lyrical about the possibility of a relationship between Charlotte and Caleb only drove home to Alessio how much her preference, her thoughts, her maternal interest, would always be squarely focused on her second son.
“I have to go.”
“It’s only early!” She protested immediately.
“I came for dinner, we’ve eaten.”
Winona’s eyes grew round, and she blinked away from him quickly, so it was impossible not to realise that he’d surprised and hurt her. Impossible, despite their relationship, not to feel like a bastard for the angry words he’d thrown at her feet.
“Okay,” she whispered. “If you have to go, go.”
Strangely, he hesitated. He stood, feet planted, unsure of exactly what to say to her. Part of him wanted to apologise, but then he remembered the little boy he’d been, whose heart had been broken by this woman and her easy rejection of him, her quickness to build a selfish new life for herself here in England, and instead, he squared his shoulders and expelled a slow breath through his nostrils.
“Do you ever feel like we are better served not to try anymore?” He said quietly, the words surprising him, because they were the honest to God truth in his heart, the question that he knew they needed to address.
Winona moved to Alessio, a worried look on her face. She stopped right in front of him then put her hands on his forearms, gripping him tightly.
“I don’t ever, for even one moment, think that.”
Her face was pale.
“You are my son. You will always be my son. With my dying breath, I will try to fix this, to heal what I broke when I left you.”
“Some things cannot be healed.”
“That’s true,” she said, her voice cracking. “But you were asking about whether we should stop trying, and I’m telling you: I won’t. I can’t. I refuse. Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever did, and I will never—never—not regret that.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “It’s hard to explain what that time was like. I weighed up what I could give you, and what your father could, I weighed up what he would do to get custody and I realised you were better off without me. It made sense at the time, my darling.”
But her explanation only made him angrier. “I was a little boy, and you were my mother. You were the only constant in my life and then suddenly, you weren’t. How could that ever have made sense?”
“You idolised him.”
Alessio’s nostrils flared. “And I loved you. What’s your point?”
She flinched. “He wouldn’t let me take you.”
“Then why not stay?”
Winona’s throat moved as she swallowed. “It wasn’t that easy.”
“Because you were pregnant.”
“Partly, yes.”
“You had an affair.”
“I fell in love.”