Father. But fathers didn’t love their daughters. Did they? Or was her own father the aberration? She had known for years that her father wasn’t just indifferent to her, he actually hated her, and she’d known why. And except for her brother, it was reinforced by the attitude of the majority of men—particularly those in power—all around her. But why had she accepted her father’s hatred? Why had she accepted his assessment that she had no value, that she was a worthless addition to his family?
Andre had never felt that way about her. She was special in her brother’s eyes. He had protected her, fought for her, loved her. And she had made him proud of her when she obtained her PhD, something she might never have achieved without his assistance.
She smiled softly to herself. She would never forget the mingled love and pride on Andre’s face as she’d accepted her Oxford diploma and the trappings of her new status in a ceremony that dated back centuries. Then her smile faded. Why had that not been enough for her? Why had she looked in vain for her father beside her brother? Why had there been a gaping hole in her heart as she realized that even in this, her supreme moment, she had failed to win her father’s love? The fault was not in me, she realized with a sense of shock. The fault lay in my father. Andre was right all along. It was not anything I did or did not do.
Her thoughts returned to today. Keira said her husband cried tears of joy when Alyssa was born. That is how a father should feel. That is what my father should have felt at my birth. He did not. I could have brought him great joy, just as Alyssa has brought to her father. But he chose to turn away from me, chose to hate me instead. That was his loss. Not mine. All these years wasted seeking his approval. Seeking his love.
It hurt terribly to realize now just how much of her life had been wasted pursuing something that could never be. It hurt even more to realize she’d allowed her father to control her emotionally, had allowed him to make her fear rejection so much she’d come to expect it and steel herself against it, afraid to risk her heart with any man other than Andre. Even though her father had been dead for more than two years he was still controlling her through that fear. But no longer.
Chapter 7
You have been a coward long enough, Mara told herself with sudden conviction. Not a physical coward—she’d never balked at taking a fence when she was riding, and had been thrown more than once. She’d always picked herself up, dusted herself off and climbed back into the saddle, determined not to let fear control her. But that same dauntless courage had failed her time and again when dealing with her father.
Not anymore, she vowed. He is dead, and he will not control me anymore.
Mara felt like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, struggling to free herself from the confining cocoon that had bound her for years to a false conclusion—that her father hadn’t loved her because somehow she was unworthy of love. Yes, Andre loved her, but her brother had always been a perfect, God-like being in her eyes, so far above mere mortals that she had discounted his love for her as the exception. Andre’s love was like God’s love—immutable. It was her father’s lack of love she’d always struggled to overcome. Her father’s assessment of her as worthless she’d always fought to disprove.
If that wasn’t true...if her father had been wrong...if she could be loved for who she was...not as a princess, but as a woman, loved by a man...
A picture of a man rose in her mind—a tall, handsome man with dark hair and bluer-than-blue eyes, with a smile that made her heart ache and her body tingle. A man who handled a gun and a baby with the same easy competence. A man who made her keenly aware of herself as a woman, with a woman’s body, a woman’s heart, a woman’s emotional needs. A man who looked and was dangerous, but who also paradoxically made her feel safe.
Trace.
Mara turned over restlessly, the silk sheets rustling. Trace. He already filled her thoughts, day and night. He even filled her dreams. But until now she had accepted his dislike for her as just something that was, the way she’d accepted her father’s hatred.
If she could pick one man to love her, she would pick Trace. Not because he was drop-dead gorgeous, although he was. Not because he had a body that rivaled Michelangelo’s David, although he did. Not even because he made her feel safe, although that was true, too. She would pick him to love her because there was a deep well of love within him he kept hidden from most of the world, love such as the overwhelming love he showed Alyssa, a child not his own. If Trace loved a woman, there would be nothing held back. Nothing he would not do for her. Nothing he would not share.