Page 46 of Forbidden Until Midnight

‘Secrets have kept the people I love safe,’ he growled, closing the distance between them, anger making them both rash.

‘Now who’s being the child?’ she accused. ‘Secrets kept me from making a choice, of doing things by myself, without you, without being dependent on you, on my mother, on whoever my father is. Secrets are just a way of manipulating people when you can’t, or won’t, trust the decisions they will make on their own. It’syourway of manipulating people because you don’t trust anyone enough to let them in.’

Injustice tore through him that she would so wilfully refuse to see what he did for her, what it cost him to do for her.

‘Me not letting anyone in? Me not trusting enough?’ he demanded, his hurt running away with him. ‘You wanted me to know you, all of you,’ he said, using her words against her. ‘But you don’t want to know me.Allof me. Once again, you’re going to run away the very first chance you get. What is it going to take for you to stand your ground and fight for what you want, Eleanor? Because, apparently, it’s damn well not me,’ he finished, his words a devastating crack in the already fragile bond between them.

‘You havenevershown me all of you!’ she cried out, the tears in her eyes dissolving his resolve like acid rain. ‘Whether you’re lying to me or lying to yourself, the man I thought...’ she clamped her lips together and he could see her struggle to find a word that wouldn’t betray them both ‘...the man I thought you were was a fabrication. You know everything about me, every single secret I have, but I only know what you let me know. I would have stood my ground for you if you had been willing to show me who you truly are,’ she finished on a whisper, defeated.

He shook his head, her confession slipping through the cracks of his hurt, and leaving only what he had expected to see, what he needed to see. She didn’t wanthim.He wasn’t enough. For her. For his mother. He’d never been enough. His heart broke under the weight of her words.

‘I don’t believe you. You, me, this—’ he gestured between them ‘—it was nothing more than a distraction for you. It was you wanting to play with a boy who Daddy didn’t approve of. Because, deep down, Eleanor, no matter what happened between you, you’re still that same little girl looking for Edward Carson’s approval and I would certainly never meet that.’

‘How can you say that?’ she demanded, her cheeks suddenly pale, her deep brown eyes wounded.

‘Because you’re still there!’ he yelled. ‘You’re still playing by his rules, you’re still bowing to his commands.’

‘He has my family,’ she bit back.

‘Your mother is an adult, and your brother is barely a year away from being one. They can make their own decisions, so why haven’t you?’ he demanded. ‘Maybe you should ask yourself that as you sit in your ivory tower where you look down upon us mere mortals and cast your judgement,’ he growled.

Cristo.

He shook his head, the crack in his heart widening with every beat. He had to get out of here. Distant thuds exploded beyond the window as the crowds in the Venetian streets shouted their countdown to midnight.

Ten, nine, eight...

He grabbed his keys, his phone and his shirt from the back of the sofa.

Seven, six, five...

The horrible words they’d hurled at each other echoed in his mind as he made his way to the door.

Four, three, two...

And as the silence rained down, more deafening than any explosion, he pulled the door to the suite open and didn’t look back as he left.

One.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

New Year’s Eve tonight, Brussels

ELEANORCARSONAPPROACHEDthe stone steps towards the gothic building that housed this evening’s New Year’s Eve party knowing that, one way or another, it would be the last time she would ever come to one of these events. And she was more than ready for that to happen.

It had been three hundred and sixty-five days since she’d last seen Santo Sabatini. Yet, despite that, she’d thought of him almost every single minute of every single day. She had been a wreck after last year. She had thought of him as her anchor, the North Star by which she navigated her life, her route through the madness of this place and these people.

But discovering that he’d lied, knowingly, willingly and continually, for their entire relationship had coloured everything. Every interaction, every exchange, look, word. All that time he had known who her real father was. And yes, she’d been devastated that he’d kept that from her, but what had been worse was that he’d kepthimselffrom her.

Eleanor didn’t like looking back at those first few weeks. She could barely remember them, but what she could recall wasn’t pretty. She’d felt utterly empty, with nothing to numb the bone-deep ache that had settled beneath her skin and taken up residence.

Her mother had tried and cajoled but, being part of the chaos Eleanor was trying to find her way through, was unable to help. Freddie had wanted to delay his return to boarding school, but Edward refused to allow it. But her brother had sneaked back three days later, when Edward was away. At seventeen, bright blue eyes and blond hair, huge tears rolling down his cheeks, he’d begged and pleaded with her to tell him what was going on.

In that moment she’d realised that she was doing exactly what she had accused Santo of doing. She was keeping secrets from her brother in the hope that it would protect him from the fallout. From Edward. And, deep down, she was forced to face the fact that Santo had been right about that too. That what she had beenreallyafraid of, why she hadn’t left or fought back against Edward, was the terrifying thought that her brother and her mother would let her be exiled. That they would choose Edward over her. And that she would be left alone. Truly alone in this world.

She and Freddie had spent two days talking and crying and planning. Freddie had been so angry and hurt about the secrets they’d kept, and as she’d explained how terrified she’d been of losing him she’d begun to wonder if that was why Santo hadn’t told her the truth, her mother too.

She’d returned Freddie to the boarding school and made up an excuse that wouldn’t get back to Edward. In the Easter holidays Freddie had convinced Edward to let the two of them go to ‘Europe’, Edward naively believing that he had enough control over her to stop her from doing something ‘stupid’.

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