Carides's Forgotten Wife Page 11

  “Nothing.” She blinked back tears. Tears of frustration, of sorrow. Tears because everything about this situation hurt, and no one was left undamaged. “I went along with everything my father wanted from me because I had the idea that if I did he might be happy. That was how I chose to deal with the loss of my mother. I thought you would be my reward. But I’m realizing something.”

  “What is that?” he asked, his voice sounding rung out, scraped raw.

  “Another person can’t be your reward. Because they’re yet another thing you can’t control.” She laughed, but nothing was funny about it. “A person isn’t cake. They can’t just exist to be a treat for you. They have their own baggage. Their own needs and desires. And it wasn’t until just before your accident that I started to fully realize that you weren’t just going to magically become that reward I felt I deserved. And it wasn’t until this that I… Leon, I didn’t know about your son. I’m embarrassed to admit how little I know about you. I expected you to be something for me, only for me. And I never realized that whatever you were, as broken and debauched as it was…maybe you needed to be that for yourself. For your own pain. I never… I never once considered that.”

  It didn’t fix the past. It didn’t make her trust him. It didn’t really even make her forgive him. But understanding that he had suffered a loss greater than any she could possibly imagine did help cast him in a new light. It helped explain some of his behavior. His drinking.

  It didn’t remove the deep wound from her heart. There was no magic here. Only grim understanding that didn’t do a thing to revive the scorched earth that surrounded them.

  “I was afraid when I came in here,” he said, not addressing what she had just said. “I was afraid that she would be…”

  “She’s fine,” Rose said, knowing that the assurance was empty.

  Because she knew what he would always see. She knew what he would always fear as he approached the crib.

  And she knew then with absolute certainty why he had signed away his parental rights to Isabella.

  “That’s why,” she said. “It’s why you didn’t want her.”

  “If you had asked me what love was after my accident I would have told you… I don’t know. But if you ask me now… Love is pain, Rose. It is a hope that blooms with no thought for what might lie ahead. No cares about what could go wrong. And that makes it all the more painful when it’s cut away. Devastating. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to do this again.”

  “She’s here now,” Rose said. And as hard as it had been for her to accept Isabella, she couldn’t imagine sending her away. It was a process. There was no getting around that. For Rose, there had been no magical maternal bond between herself and this little baby. But there was something growing in her chest. Blooming, just as he had described it. The beginnings of love.

  And protectiveness. She felt that, too. The desire to prevent Isabella from feeling unwanted. Unwanted by Leon or herself.

  “Yes,” he said, “she is.”

  “You can’t send her away.”

  “I never said I would,” he responded.

  “It’s my turn to be fearsome about it,” she continued. “Things are changing. You are changing. The more memories fall into place, the more you’re going to become who you were. And if you think that your original reasoning can stand in light of that—”

  “I don’t,” he said, pushing himself up from the floor, beginning to pace the length of the room.

  “And if you do? If you do then I’m going to fight you. Every step of the way. No more secrets. We can’t afford to have any between us. This is our life.” She was making a stand, a stand she wasn’t entirely certain she wanted to make. A commitment. “I want to be a family.”

  “I don’t know if I can promise that.”

  “You will promise it. You will, or I’m going to have to fight you. For this house. For her.”

  “You couldn’t win a fight against me. As you’ve already explained if you do not stay married to me for three more years you don’t get the house. And as for Isabella… Biologically she’s mine. You don’t have a right to her.”

  She was remembering now. Remembering all the ways he could be so impossible. So arrogant. It had been easy to forget because the Leon of the past few weeks had been held at a disadvantage. But this was the man she had always known. Strong. Driven. Occasionally ruthless.

  He had done nothing but reveal vulnerability over the past weeks. And she could tell he was fighting now to reclaim these traits.

  “So what, then? What is it you want?”

  “You will remain my wife.”

  “And you think you will continue to live as you did? Only instead of abandoning me alone in the manor you’ll leave Isabella here, as well?” She stood, closing the distance between them. “That would be in keeping with your past behavior. Shut away the women that cause you grief, that might get in the way of your good time.”

  “It is not so simple, and you know it. Especially now that you know about Michael.”

  “Love scares you. You, big bad Leon Carides. It terrifies you, and you run from it.”

  “Only a fool isn’t afraid of a lion, Rose. Even I know well enough to be afraid of things that can be fatal.”

  She was pushing too far. She knew it, but she couldn’t help it. “I know you’ve suffered loss. I know you’ve suffered pain. But it doesn’t give you the right to put other people through hell while you protect yourself.”

  “You spend your whole life hiding in this mansion, hiding yourself behind the convenient lies you tell yourself, little girl. Hiding in books. You think you know pain because you lost your parents. I buried my child. Do not lecture me on pain. Do not lecture me from your safe little nest. You know nothing. Nothing at all.”

  He turned on his heel and walked out of the nursery, leaving Rose there alone with Isabella.

  She debated going after him, but decided against it. She turned and walked to the crib, leaning over the side, letting her knuckles drift over the soft skin of the baby’s cheek.

  She knew more about Leon now than she had before walking into the nursery. She had a piece of who he was. An explanation for why he was. And yet she felt no closer to him than she had before. If anything, she felt like there was a greater distance between them.

  She was beginning to believe that they would never be able to bridge this divide.

  The more reality crept in, the more it filled this space between them, the more impossible it seemed they could ever find their way back to each other.

  He was not her reward. She thought of everything they had. A broken marriage, loss, pain. She couldn’t see the reward in any of it.

  She looked down at Isabella again. Maybe there were no rewards at all. Maybe there was simply life. And what you chose to do with it.

  “I don’t know that my father ever knew what to do with me,” she whispered into the silence of the room. “But I loved him anyway. He loved me, too. He didn’t know how to show it, but he did. You see, much like your father he lost someone he loved very much. My mother. I think it becomes difficult after that to show love.”

  She only realized just now, talking to an infant who didn’t understand a word she was saying, that it was the truth. Her father was more comfortable with work, with Leon, because it was simpler than love. Taking a protégé on, helping him succeed…it cost less than loving.

  Love was so terribly expensive. And she was only fully grasping that now.

  “I loved your father,” she continued, a hot tear slipping sown her cheek. “But he’s never loved me. That hurts. It makes me want to curl into a ball and never love anything ever again. But I think you’re going to need someone to love you. I will. I’ll love you like no one has ever hurt me. We didn’t choose this. And you certainly deserve better than me. But it’s time for me to st
art making some choices. It’s time for me to stop waiting. I choose you, Izzy.”

  She swallowed hard past a lump that was rising in her throat. “I don’t know what your father will do. I can’t… I can’t make him into the man I want him to be. I can only be the woman I want to be. I can only try to be the mother you deserve. I don’t know how to be a mother. I barely remember my own. But I know what I missed having. I can give you those things. He’s right about one thing—I do hide. Well, I’m not going to hide anymore.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE MEMORIES OF his son had begun to fade back into the past. Shifting from a fresh, sharp grief back into a tender bruise. When they had first hit him they had been as fresh as if it had occurred yesterday, rather than sixteen years earlier.

  It had taken him a couple of days to stop reliving it. To stop being hit with fresh realizations.

  His son would be a man now, had he lived. Or, at least, on his way to it. He wondered if he had dealt with these realizations on and off in the ensuing years, or if the drinking, the women, were all a part of making sure he didn’t have these realizations.

  He had found that his ability to care for Isabella had suffered. He had avoided her. A behavior he was in no way proud of. But there was no pride in any of this. There was no reason. It was just pain. Pure, unmitigated.

  Ever present.

  Because, though it didn’t hurt to breathe today, the reality still existed in the background. It was part of who he was, this loss. A wound that time might ultimately heal, but one that had most definitely left a scar.

  He walked into the study where Rose spent most of her time, where he knew she was cataloging her father’s books, and other pieces of his extensive collection. He was surprised to see that there was a little pink bassinet placed next to her chair. She was idly jiggling it as she hummed and took notes, something about the multitasking particularly maternal. Causing a shock wave of emotion to rock him.

  “I owe you an apology,” he said, the words even shocking him. He hadn’t realized that was what he was going to say before he said it.

  “Please don’t tell me you have more surprises. A bunch of mail-order brides who have just arrived ordered prior to your memory loss? A stable of horses? Gambling debts.” She snapped a finger as though a brilliant idea had just occurred to her. “A passel of racing ferrets.”

  “No,” he said, moving deeper into the room, taking his seat on the settee near her chair, keeping a distance between himself and Isabella’s bassinet. “Remember when I lectured you on how you needed to treat Isabella?”

  “Yes, I believe I do. As I was naked and in the middle of an emotional meltdown. Those moments tend to stand out in your mind.”

  “It was easy for me to say that to you. That you would have to treat Isabella as your own or remove yourself from the situation.”

  She arched a pale brow. “Well, I’m delighted that it was easy for you to say. It was not easy for me to hear.”

  “I imagine not.”

  “Regardless, it was the right thing for you to say. And I knew it, even then. She’s innocent. She has nothing to do with the poor decisions the adults in her life have made. She doesn’t deserve to carry anyone’s resentment. I might have a right to my anger, but I have no right to direct it at her.”

  “That is incredibly mature and clear-sighted of you. But I had no right to say it to you. I didn’t understand how heavy baggage could be, Rose. Emotionally, I might as well have been a child. Not now. I understand how difficult overcoming anything can be. I’m not sure I have overcome anything of importance.”

  “Except for the vagaries of the immigration system, poverty and a lack of education?”

  “Full points to me for that. However, emotionally speaking… I was in no position to lecture you.”

  “Is this an honest to goodness apology?” she asked, her blue eyes wide.

  “Yes.”

  “I feel like you owe me one for the other day, too.”

  “Don’t get overly hopeful.”

  Isabella began to fuss and Rose swiftly put down her notebook, bending down to pick the baby up out of the bassinet, holding her close to her chest. “I feel like Isabella is hopeful she will be getting fed soon.”

  “Do we…call the nanny for that?”

  “No. Elizabetta is out for the day. You’re acting like Isabella hasn’t been here for the past few weeks. The only thing that has changed is you. You were feeding her. You were taking care of her. Before you remembered.”

  “The memory is what prompted my apology. It’s easy to see things as simple and uncomplicated when you haven’t experienced anything.”

  “I have a news flash for you. Isabella doesn’t care about your pain. She’s an infant. She cares about herself. More to the point, about being held, being fed and sleeping. She doesn’t care if you’re struggling.” Rose made no move to get up. “Her bottle is on my desk in the warmer. Get it for me.”

  This was a new Rose than he had previously experienced. She was being imperious; she was not being careful with him, or tiptoeing around his mental state. He found he rather liked it. A few nights ago in the nursery had been like a trial by fire. It had been painful, excruciatingly so, but it had also brought out a fire in him that had been missing.

  Arguing with Rose had felt… Not normal. It occurred to him then that they never argued. They hadn’t, before his accident. He was sure about that. That was easy because they barely spoke. Still, he felt more alive when he was butting up against her. Perhaps it recalled the way that he was in his job.

  Whatever the reason, it felt like a return to being a man and not just an invalid.

  Of course, he felt a lot like a man when Rose kissed him. When she touched him. But she seemed interested in doing none of those things now. So if necessary he would accept fighting as a substitute.

  “The longer you stand there the louder she’ll scream,” Rose said.

  He moved toward the bottle warmer, plucked the bottle out of it and handed it to Rose. He was careful to maintain his distance from Isabella.

  Rose put the bottle in the whimpering baby’s mouth; Isabella made a few grateful sounds as she latched on. Then Rose stood, leaning toward him, “I think you should take her.”

  He took a step back, his stomach tightening. “I don’t think I should.”

  “You can hold me at a distance all you want, Leon, but you can’t do it to your daughter. You dropped your defenses when you remembered your past. You came in and apologized to me, and that was nice of you, but I don’t think it was the right thing to do. If you’re not going to fight for her, then I’m going to do it. I made a promise. Not for you, not for your sake, but for hers. I promised her that I was going to love her like she was my own child, that I was going to fight for her, and I am. Even if I have to fight you.”

  He simply stood, staring at her.

  “She’s a baby. Not a bomb,” she insisted.

  He had to disagree with that. He knew better than just about anybody that grief was a unique kind of bomb. One that detonated deep inside of you and left wounds that no one else could see. Left shrapnel embedded deep in your soul that you couldn’t simply remove.

  Children. Your own children had the very greatest ability to damage you simply because of the immediate and intense love they commanded. The protectiveness. That was almost worse than anything else. The need to protect. The gut-rending terror when you failed.

  “She is so soft,” he found himself saying. “So very vulnerable. I find it…terrifying. I wish I could remember more of myself. I wish I could remember more of my years. As it is, the strongest things are the loss of my son, and the presence of my daughter.”

  “That must be difficult. You’re right. I don’t understand that. I don’t understand what it’s like to lose a child. It must be… I don’t
pretend to understand what you’re feeling. I won’t. But what I do know is that Isabella is here. She needs you now. If you fail her it’s because you choose to.”

  He tasted the strange metallic tang on his tongue, similar to the all-encompassing panic he had felt in Isabella’s nursery a couple of nights ago.

  “She’s here,” Rose continued. “She’s here, and you’ve had this accident that might have killed you. This accident that’s giving you a chance to change. What’s the point of it if you don’t take it?”

  He reached out slowly then, taking his daughter into his arms, relishing the feel of her soft, warm body against his. She was very alive. Perhaps not something that most people would think about their children. But something he would never take for granted.

  “You are right,” he said slowly, never taking his eyes off Isabella. He could see himself in her face. In her dark, sharp eyes and her sullen mouth. It was a miracle. To see yourself in a child. Which he was not entirely certain he had appreciated the first time around. But he had been young, and he had not been touched by loss. A baby had been an accident that they were working to contend with. This baby was not planned, either. But this baby was a miracle. A miracle he had never thought he’d get a chance to experience again. “I gave this away. I was going to give this up.”

  “You were afraid,” she said simply.

  “Do not defend me. I don’t deserve it. I was taking the easy way. Perhaps I was afraid because of my experience with Michael, but I’m certain that not wanting to disrupt our marriage came into play. Not for your feelings. For my own comfort. For the protection of my ownership of the company.”

  She looked away. “You’re so certain of that?”

  “Like I am about so many things regarding myself. I am certain about this, too. Regrettably so.”

  “Change it then.”

  “A fresh start would’ve been much easier. But that isn’t what we have, is it?”