‘Go on,’ Lex murmured.
‘Before it was renovated, it had a steep stone staircase. I was nearly four, Charlie was ten months younger than me. My mum put me and Charlie in an upstairs bedroom for an afternoon nap, but I wanted to play in the snow. Charlie and I left the room. There was a gate at the top of the stairs to keep us from going down the stairs on our own but it wasn’t bolted. Nobody knows how it happened, but Charlie fell down the stairs. Sam thinks I tried to grab her and tumbled down after her. She died on impact. I was in a coma for a few days with a brain bleed. I woke up with no memory of the accident. Or her.’
Cole felt as if he was talking about a stranger, about another man who’d had a sister who’d died when he’d been little. How could he not remember anything of this?
‘Oh, Cole,’ Lex murmured.
‘My father blamed my mother for not bolting the gate, my mum said she did. He said I must’ve managed to open it, but Sam says I wasn’t tall or strong enough to do that. But it didn’t matter to Grenville—Charlie’s death was my mother’s fault for not bolting it and my fault for letting her fall. Or for not dying instead of her,’ he added.
He heard Lex’s sharp intake of breath. ‘No, Cole.’
He couldn’t stop now. He had to get all of it out. It was the only way to lance the festering wound and put it behind him. ‘He was a stone-hard man, someone incapable of emotion, and the little he did have when Charlie died transferred to Sam. He demanded a divorce and my mother agreed to go quietly, provided he never blamed me for, or even told me about, Charlie’s death. He agreed because he didn’t want anything more to do with either of us.’
‘When did he buy Rossdale?’ Lex asked.
‘About five years after Charlie died. Every three months he’d make an offer, upping it until the owners couldn’t refuse the insane money he was offering. Every year or so, around the anniversary of her death, he’d disappear for weeks at a time. When Sam realised he was at Rossdale on his own, drinking himself into a stupor, he challenged him to do something with the place, something that would honour Charlie’s life. That’s when he threw himself into renovating the property.’
‘So, he rejected his own living flesh and blood and blamed you for her death, but remained emotionally connected to Charlie by turning the accident site into a shrine?’ Lex asked, sounding incredulous. ‘That’s...that’s sosad, Cole. And so selfish and narcissistic. It was all abouthim...his loss and his pain. And it was so easy for him to love Charlie. It didn’t require much effort.’
He jerked up his head. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She died at a delightful age when she was sweet and lovely. She hadn’t learned to talk back, to have an opinion, to argue with him or do her own thing. In his head, she was perfect and would be perfect for ever. That’s not love, that’s a cop-out. It takes courage to accept people with all their faults and foibles and love them anyway. Your father was an emotional coward.’
Of course he was. Cole dropped his head, ashamed that he’d craved Grenville’s love and approval. It had taken over thirty years for him to realise his father had been emotionally stunted, an awful person who’d blamed his young son for his younger sister’s death.
Because of Grenville, Cole had pushed away people, spent too much time alone and had second-guessed himself every step along the way, and for what? Because he’d thought that if he couldn’t have his father, he’d become his father?
He didn’t know what had happened that day at the ski-lodge—honestly, he didn’t even remember Charlie—but what he knew for sure was that he didn’t have it within him to hurt anyone and that her death had been a horrible, horrible, tragic accident.
His father could’ve grieved for his daughter, loved his wife harder and gathered his sons closer. But Grenville had chosen to distance himself, to perpetuate the pain. And, the longer he’d lived in his cold, acid-tinged shadow, the more like him Cole had become. Cold. Bitter. Lonely.
He was done.
No more. It was time to step into the light. To love and be loved.
Lex lifted her fingers to her mouth and closed her eyes. She said a quiet prayer in Charlie’s name.
The little girl who Cole had never known.
Lex did not doubt that Cole’s mother had thought she was doing him a favour when she’d hidden the truth from him, thinking that he couldn’t handle knowing that his sister had died when he’d lived, and that his father blamed him for her death. But Lex knew children were a lot more resilient than adults gave them credit for and that honesty was always the best way to go. As Cole had grown up, his mum could’ve told him what had happened, assured him the accident wasn’t his fault and explained that his father couldn’t move on.
Cole could’ve got therapy and a clearer picture of why his father had refused to interact with him.
‘I thought that if I couldn’t have a relationship with him, then I couldn’t have a relationship with anyone,’ Cole said, every word coated with pain. ‘I’ve had relationships but I’ve always cut and run. Because that’s what my mum did emotionally, and what Grenville did emotionallyandphysically.’
Lex leaned forward, placed her hands on his knees and rested her forehead on his. ‘I’m so sorry, Cole. I’m so sorry about Charlie.’ She looked up. ‘And you remember nothing about her?’
Cole pulled back and ducked his head. He pulled his hair apart and she saw a long, vicious scar. ‘They told me I fell down some stairs, that’s all I know. I don’t have any memories from before waking up in hospital.’
‘I can’t believe your brother never told you, especially after both your parents died.’
Cole shrugged. ‘Ignoring stuff was what we did. My parents divorced and ignored each other. My sister died and nobody mentioned her again. My family is very good at disconnecting. My brother just walked away from his life, and me, to become a monk.’
And Cole had walked away from her. Yeah, she could believe that it was a family trait. Cole, looking thoroughly miserable, pushed his hand through his hair. ‘“Just walk away” should be written on our family crest.’
Probably. And wasn’t it her luck to fall in love with someone who did exactly what she’d experienced all her life? Could she pick them or what?
She now knew why he acted like he did, why he found it difficult to stick—he’d never been shown how to. But, as sad as his story was, however much she grieved for him, he’d walked away from her once and she wouldn’t allow him to do that again. She couldn’t take the chance of having her heart stomped on again.