Page 32 of Lover
I kept her close as she told me for the second time the story of how she’d come to be at Willowfield with Ms. Reeves. The abuse that permeated her childhood at the hands of a mother who didn’t know how to love, the distant care of her father who was too afraid to protect her, and his final horrible act made in desperation to save, he believed, his daughter’s life.
“I lost so many years,” she whispered, and I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of being the keeper of that buried history.
“I’ve got a terrible temper, and I’m haunted by my mother’s voice, and by nightmares of weeping women jumping out of windows.”
I worried for her, hurt for her, and could only listen, unable to offer any words of confidence. There was no reason for this pain, no divine purpose for such suffering, and it angered me that she’d been given so much of it.
Then she spoke her secret belief even I hadn’t known.
“I killed my parents, Callum. They’re dead because of me and my pride.”
“No,” I said immediately, giving her no time to let the words sit between us as though they could be true. “Your father made his own decisions.”
“To protect me from myself.”
“To protect you from your mother.”
I lifted her chin, studying her face with new eyes.
“You’re a force of nature, and despite your trials, you’ve survived with a spirit worthy of its own folklore. Up to now, you’ve made your way through hell all alone, but you’re not on your own anymore, Millie. Never again.”
Fresh tears tumbled down her cheeks , but they were the sort that comes when your troubles have finally been laid to rest.When she could cry no more, she lifted her head and brought her mouth to mine, pulling me down as she lay onto the pillows. Without words, she requested I prove to her I was still there, that she was still wanted.
As we made love, I whispered promises to provide all the happiness she so greatly deserved, and I intended to keep every one.
CHAPTER 18
EARLY THE NEXT morning, though I urged her to stay, Millie slipped from the bed.
“I don’t want everyone to know I spent the night here.”
“What does it matter if they know?”
“They’ll think…”
“Of course they will. And it’s true.”
She stooped down to retrieve a fallen pillow from the floor.“You have a rather rosy view of the world, don’t you, Professor Hughes?”
“A realistic one. They’ll find out whether you go back to your room this morning or not because I intend to do this again.”
“Do you?” Her tone was blithe, airy, and she looked at me with her eyebrows raised. “And what if I say no?”
“Will you say no?”
She almost smiled. “No.”
“There you have it.”
She threw the pillow at me, and I swatted it away with a grin of my own. She was pinching her lips, struggling not to laugh as she slipped on her shoes. The lighthearted exchange filled me with an ache to hold her and spend the morning in bed, listening to more about her life. All the things I knew, the new things I didn’t.
“I want us to work as usual,” she said as she went to the door. “Don’t be suspicious.”
“I am never suspicious.”
She shot me a look, a long-suffering affair that froze me on the spot. It was an expression I knew well, and for an upside-down moment, the past and present collided brutally.
“Millie?” I said.
