Page 44 of Legacy of His Revenge
‘Your brother...’
‘He lives in a home just outside London, but something spooked him and he had a panic attack and went a little berserk. Hence why he’s in hospital. He hurt himself while he was thrashing around. Nothing serious but they couldn’t deal with it at the home.’
‘You have a brother and you never told me...’
‘I have no idea where to begin, Matias. If you just sit and listen, I’ll try and make sense. My father only had contact with our family because he was left without a choice. When Eric was born, my mother knew that the only way she would ever be able to afford to take care of him would be with financial help from James. She had a lot of faults but a lack of devotion to Eric wasn’t one of them. She made sure James paid for Eric’s home, which is very expensive, and when she died it was up to me to make sure he carried on paying. It sounds callous, Matias, but it was the only way.’
‘You wanted me to invest in your father’s business because you wanted to make sure he could carry on paying for your brother’s care.’
Sophie nodded, relieved but not terribly surprised that he had picked it up so quickly. For better or worse, it was a relief to be explaining this to him. If he chose to walk away, then so be it. She would be able to deal with the consequences, even though she knew that she would never be the same again without him in her life.
‘I’ve always managed to put aside a nest egg and I’ve been dipping into it to cover the costs of Eric’s home since James’s business went to the wall, but, yes, I encouraged you to think that investing in James would be a good idea, not because I wanted the money for myself, but because I would have done anything, I’m afraid, to make sure my brother is safe and happy.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘How could I, Matias?’ Sophie tilted her chin at a mutinous angle, defensive and challenging. ‘You used me to confirm your suspicions about James and even when you came back into my life, it was because you felt you had no choice.’
‘Sophie...’
‘No, let me finish!’ Her eyes glistened because if the end was coming then she would have to be strong and she didn’t feel strong when she was here, looking at him and loving him with every bone in her body. ‘I didn’t tell you about Eric because there was no way I wanted you to think that you could exact more revenge by going public with what my father had done, shaming him by telling the world that he had fathered a disabled child he had never met and only supported because he had no choice.’
And just like that, Matias knew the depth of her distrust of him. Just like that he saw, in a blinding flash, how much he had hurt her. She had bowed her head and listened to him accuse her of things she had never been guilty of, and she had closed herself off to him. She clearly didn’t trust him and she never would.
‘I wish you had told me,’ he said bleakly.
‘How could I?’ Sophie returned sadly. ‘How could I take the risk that you might have been tempted to involve Eric in your revenge scheme, when the press would have turned it into a story that would have ended up hurting him, destroying both his privacy and his dignity? And also...’
Matias was processing everything she said, knowing that he had no one but himself and his blind drive for vengeance to blame for where he was right now. ‘Also?’ He looked at her.
‘Eric is fragile. When Alan, my ex-boyfriend, walked out of my life, having met him just the once, Eric was heartbroken and felt responsible. I thought Alan was the one for me and I just didn’t think that he would walk away because the duty of caretaking Eric was too much.’
‘Any creep who would walk away from you because of that was never the one for you,’ Matias grated harshly. ‘You should count your lucky stars you didn’t end up with him.’
‘You’re right. What I felt for Alan wasn’t love. I liked him. I thought he was safe, and safe was good after my mother’s experiences with men. But yes, I had a lucky escape. Don’t think I don’t know that.’
‘I was driven by revenge.’ Matias breathed in deeply and looked at her with utter gravity. ‘It was always there, at the back of my mind. I was always going to be ambitious, I guess. I was always going to be fuelled to make money because I knew what it was like to have none, but I also knew what it was like to know thatI should have. Your father was to blame and that became the mantra that energised a lot of my decisions. For a while, the chase for financial security became a goal in itself but then, like I told you, my mother fell ill and I discovered those letters. At the point when you entered my life, my desire to even the score with your father was at its height and...you became entangled in that desire. You didn’t deserve it.’
Sophie looked at him questioningly, urging him to carry on and weak with relief that he seemed to have taken the situation with her brother in his stride.
‘I thought you wanted to push me into investing into someone you knew was on the verge of bankruptcy and probably crooked as well because you wanted to carry on receiving an allowance from him.’
‘I understand,’ Sophie conceded, ‘that you would have thought that because you knew nothing about Eric... You didn’t know that there were other reasons for my doing what I did.’
‘I saw red,’ Matias admitted. ‘I felt I’d been used and I reacted accordingly, but the truth was that deep down I knew you weren’t that kind of person.Querida, you didn’t trust me enough to tell me about your brother and I can’t begin to tell you how gutted I am by that, even though I know that I have no one but myself to blame. I expected you to wipe away the past as though it had never existed, and I couldn’t appreciate that I hurt you way too much for you to find that easy to do.’
This was the first time Matias had ever opened up and she knew from the halting progress of his words that it was something he found difficult, which made her love him even more. He was apologising and it took a big man to do that.
‘I never want to hurt you again, my darling. And I will always make sure that your brother is protected and cared for in the way he deserves. Just give me the chance to prove to you how much I love you and how deeply sorry I am for putting you in the position of not thinking you could trust me with the most important secret in your life.’
Sophie’s eyes widened and her heart stopped beating before speeding up until she felt it burst through her ribcage.
‘Did I just hear you say...?’
‘I love you,’ Matias told her simply. ‘I never thought that I would fall in love. I was never interested in falling in love, but you came along and you got under my skin and before I knew it you had become an indispensable part of my life. When we went our separate ways, it was weird but I felt as though part of me had been ripped away. I didn’t understand what that was about, but now I realise you were already beginning to occupy an important position in my life.’
‘You never said,’ Sophie breathed. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘How could I?’ Matias smiled wryly at her. He stood up and went to sit on the sofa next to her but he didn’t try and pull her towards him, instead choosing to reach out and link her slender fingers through his. He absently played with her ring finger, giving no thought to what that said about the road his subconscious mind was travelling down. ‘I was barely aware of it myself. We never expect the things that take us by surprise. Love took me by surprise.’
