Page 24 of Cinderella's Christmas Secret 1
‘I mean, how did that happen?’ she mused, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Because fourteenisvery young, no matter how old you looked. You haven’t explained what your parents had to say about you joining a construction team and working the roads.’
There was a pause. A pause which seemed to last for ever, giving him time to fall back on his familiar strategies for avoiding scrutiny. But something stopped him and he didn’t know what. Was it the clearness of her grey eyes—or an expression of something like compassion which had softened her lovely face, rather than judgement? Almost as if she had guessed at the truth. He thought about what she’d told him about her own father—about his failure to be there for her. Maybe he and Hollie Walker had a lot more in common than he’d previously thought, and was it really such a big deal for the mother of his baby to discover a few truths about him?
‘They didn’t know,’ he said.
‘But they must have known. How could they not?’
‘By that time in my life, my mother and I were estranged—’
‘Atfourteen?’
‘Yes, Hollie. At fourteen. It happens.’
‘And your father?’
He shrugged. ‘He did not really deserve that title, for I only ever had the briefest of relationships with him.’
‘Why?’ she questioned quietly. ‘What happened?’
His mouth tightened because this was the part which was definitely off-limits. The part he had taken extra care to filter from his life and online presence—confident in the knowledge that nobody else in the picture would disclose it, because it didn’t reflect well on them. Very few people knew who his father had been, and that had always suited him just fine.
Yet suddenly he remembered the nurses who had looked at him so contemptuously when he had stood by his mother’s deathbed all those weeks ago. Was it that which made him want to break the habit of a lifetime and unburden himself to Hollie? Those nuns who had judged him and found him wanting for his seeming neglect. His mouth hardened. As if anyone who was old and a mother was automatically some kind of saint who deserved unconditional love from her child—a child she had shunned and rejected.
‘My mother was never married to my father,’ he said baldly. ‘I was illegitimate. Not such a big deal now, but pretty big at the time, particularly in the part of the world where I grew up.’ He saw her flinch and wondered if she was thinking about her own situation, wondering whether she too would be judged in this small part of Devon which was now her home. ‘My father was one of Spain’s wealthiest men. Have you heard of the clothes chain Estilo?’ he questioned suddenly.
‘Yes, of course I have. Practically every woman on the planet has an Estilo piece in her wardrobe.’
‘He owned it,’ he said and saw her eyes widen in shock. ‘He was married, of course. He had any number of lovers—my mother being just one of them.’
‘And was she...content with that?’
His narrowed his eyes. ‘No woman is ever truly content with being a mistress, Hollie. Maybe that’s why she became pregnant.’
‘With you?’
He nodded. ‘Sí.With me. He had told her from the very start that he wanted no children, for he already had two daughters—and although he desperately wanted a son, he planned to conceive one with his similarly aristocratic wife. Outwardly, his life was a model of respectability and he had no intention of altering that state. When my mother went to him with news I was on the way, I think she was expecting him to change his mind and divorce his wife, but he didn’t. He didn’t want the scandal or the damage to his reputation as a family man. So he ordered her from the house and gave her nothing, not even after I was born.’ His mouth thinned. ‘There was no acknowledgement that I was his child and certainly no maintenance.’
‘But...if he was so rich—’
‘To have compensated her would have been an admission of liability and that was something he wasn’t prepared to do.’
‘She didn’t go to the papers?’
‘Like I said, it was a different world back then and he had most of the media in his pocket anyway.’ His mouth hardened. ‘So I lived from hand to mouth with a mother who was increasingly resentful that I had ruined her chances of having a “normal” life. Because where we lived, a woman who had a child out of wedlock was shunned.’
Her grey gaze was steady as she flicked her tongue over her lips. ‘What happened?’ she whispered.
He shrugged. ‘My father had no other son and then his wife died and, behind the scenes, my mother was concocting a plan. I only learned afterwards that she had gone to his home and confronted him. Told him I looked exactly like him—which was true—and that I had his mannerisms. In the extremely macho world in which he operated, she appealed to both his ego and his pride. She asked would he not prefer his only son to inherit his valuable business, rather than his daughters—two women who would be bound to go off and have families of their own. So he agreed to give me a home in his enormous mansion in the centre of Madrid.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘I guess you might describe it as a trial run. Like taking on an apprentice on a temporary basis, to see whether or not they fit in. To see if I was suitable to be recognised as his son.’
‘And what did you do?’ she questioned, when the silence which followed his disclosure became elongated. ‘Did you go?’
‘Life at home wasn’t exactly wonderful and I can’t pretend that the thought of inheriting one of Spain’s most profitable companies didn’t appeal to a boy who had known nothing but hardship. So I went to my father’s house...’ He shrugged as his voice tailed off. ‘And quickly realised that the situation I found myself in was untenable.’
‘How so?’ she whispered.
He was lost now. Lost in the dark memories of the past. He remembered being bemused by the amount of cutlery beside his plate, and cramming food in his mouth as if he were a street urchin. Which was exactly how he had felt. Like a poor boy who had wandered into a parallel universe. He remembered being amazed at marble-decked bathrooms the size of ballrooms and lavish dinners which could have fed a whole village. His stepsisters laughing because he didn’t know which knife to use. The servants looking at him with a scorn they hadn’t bothered to hide, as if recognising that he was an outsider.Un bastardo.And that was never going to change—he’d recognised that instantly. He’d stuck it out for as long as he could but it had felt as if he were trapped inside his own private hell.
‘I wasn’t made to feelwelcome,’ he summarised acidly and although she looked as if she wanted him to elaborate, he was damned if he was going to do that, for any frailties he possessed, he showed to no one. Nobody would ever see him vulnerable—not even the mother of his child. ‘As dawn broke on Christmas Eve, I left to return to my mother and managed to hitch rides from Madrid to A Coruña. I arrived not long before midnight when the night was bitterly cold and the snow was falling. I remember seeing the Belen in the town square...the traditional nativity scene,’ he elaborated, when he saw her frown. ‘I thought my mother might be out—although I certainly didn’t think she’d be on her way to Mass. She was more likely to be drinking in a bar.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘But she’d gone.’
