Page 42 of She Devil
I can tell from the determined look in his eye that he’s not going to leave this alone. He’s going to hound me for the rest of my life until I tell him what he wants to know.
I feel sick at the thought.
It’s suddenly clear to me that he’s brought me here to his island on false pretences to seduce me into telling him what he wants to know. It’s all been a game, a performance, in order to get what he wants from me. To trick me into trusting him so I’ll give away my secrets.
And I fell for it.
How could he do that to me after what we’ve shared here? It felt so special, so real. But it wasn’t. It was all just a lie.
Anger surges through me.
‘Is this what this seduction has been about? You’re trying to get some damning information about my father out of me so you can destroy him?’
He has the good grace to look a little shame-faced. ‘Maybe at first. And why not? He had no problem destroying my father. And our relationship.’ He shakes his head. ‘I can’t believe you’re still defending him after all this time. After everything he made you do.’
‘He didn’t make me!’ I shout, my control snapping. ‘He begged me not to see you any more. He couldn’t stand the thought of it after whatyourfather did!’
There’s a ringing silence in the air after I shout this when we stare at each other in shock.
‘What are you talking about? What did my father do?’ Jamie asks quietly, his voice dangerously low and incredulous, as if he thinks I’m lying.
I suck in a breath, attempting to centre myself. Okay, then. I guess it’s out now. If he really has to know the sordid details, I’ll tell him. If it’s so important to hear the truth, no matter what it costs him. No matter how much it’s going to hurt him to hear it.
I’m through protecting him from it.
‘If you really want to know, it was your father’s fault that my mother died,’ I say in a shaky voice.
His face pales and he shakes his head, his brow furrowed in angry confusion. ‘What? No. Don’t be ridiculous. How could it have been?’
I draw in a shuddery breath, feeling it catch painfully in my throat. ‘They were having an affair, Jamie. Your father and my mother.’
There’s an agonising silence in the air that throbs with tension.
‘What makes you think that?’ Jamie asks eventually, though I can tell he’s having trouble accepting such a preposterous suggestion.
I walk back over to the bed and slump down onto it, forcing myself to look at him so he’ll know I’m telling him the truth.
‘Your father was at the hospital with her when my father and I arrived after her accident,’ I say. ‘He was sitting outside her room in a terrible state. He was drunk and distraught. He admitted to us that he’d found her passed out in her hotel room. He’d gone there to apologise for a row they’d had the day before. Because he and my mother had been lovers for years, even before we were born. They were supposed to be going on that skiing holiday together. My mother’s friend was going to cover for them—the one my father made go to France to pick up Maya and tell her that her mother was dead as punishment.’
I twist my fingers together in an attempt to stop my hands from shaking. It’s so unbelievably hard for me to talk about this after burying it so deep for so many years, but I know now I’ve started I have to get it all out.
‘Maya had messed up their plan to be together by getting expelled so my mother felt forced to take her instead,’ I explain. ‘Your father had been angry about this—that she was putting her selfish teenaged daughter’s needs before his—and he’d followed her there. She’d told him to go home and they’d had a terrible row.’ I take a breath, steeling myself to continue, even though my chest feels as if it’s folding in on itself.
‘He’d been drinking heavily in a nearby bar when he spotted first Maya then my mother go up to one of the dangerous black slopes later that day and had followed them up there. Apparently my mother was about to take the lift back down to meet Maya at the bottom instead of skiing down the slope that she wasn’t experienced enough to handle—until she saw Cliff. They had another row and he threatened to tell my father about their affair. Apparently, in her anger and desperation to get away from him, she skied down the slope—and he chased her. That’s when she fell and smashed her head. That’s why she died. Your father hounded her to her death because he was jealous and selfish.’
Jamie has remained standing rigidly in the middle of the room, staring at me with angry tears in his eyes as I’ve told him all this, but now he shakes his head, his jaw set. ‘I don’t believe my father would do that.’
‘It’s all true, Jamie,’ I whisper with sad exasperation. ‘I was there at the hospital. I heard it from his lips. He told us all about it while she was fighting for her life in the room next to us. There was no reason for him to lie.’ I sigh as I remember the terrible aftermath that followed his confession. ‘I had to forcibly restrain my father from beating the shit out of him.’
The unrestrained dismay on his face makes my stomach turn. He can’t believe he’s hearing this. It clearly isn’t what he was expecting to find out about the father he’s worshipped for all these years. But he asked for it. He forced me to this point of honesty, even after I warned him he should let it go.
Still, I experience a stab of guilt as I see pain and confusion flash through his eyes. It’s a devastating blow and he’s having trouble standing up straight now, as if he’s been belted in the stomach.
‘That’s why I could never tell you the truth,’ I say shakily, suddenly feeling the need to soften the blow in any way I can. Because I know how painful it must be to hear this—I’ve been through it myself.
I stand up and move towards him, but he backs away from me and leans against the wall behind him, holding out a hand to stop me from coming any closer.
‘How could we have stayed together at that point, both knowing your father was responsible for my mother’s death, Jamie?’ I plead, desperate for him to understand how much it’s affected me. To get why I felt forced to act the way I did.
