Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
I gave a huff of laughter because he really was quite the unbelievable bastard. “I don’t want anything to do with you because you cheated on and abused my mother for the entirety of your marriage and then you had an affair with my twenty-one-year-old girlfriend while Mother was dying.”
He stiffened, rage filling his expression.
“Now you can warp the facts to suit your conscience, but those are the facts, Father. You did betray my mum and you did betray me.”
“It was complicated,” he insisted.
“No.” I shook my head. “It wasn’t. It was disgusting and selfish. And for a while, I thought it was unforgivable.”
My father leaned forward expectantly. “And now?”
“I forgive you,” I released the words on a whoosh of air, like they’d been locked inside me for years, desperate for freedom. “But not for you,” I hurried to explain. “I forgive you for me. For Mum. I have to. I don’t want your actions to ruin the rest of my fucking life. So I forgive you. But I don’t want to have anything to do with you ever again. Don’t call. Don’t set private investigators on me, and for Pete’s sake, leave Sebastian out of it.”
“And if I don’t?” he seethed.
“Then I will file a restraining order,” I told him calmly.
His face slackened with shock. “You cannot be serious.”
“I’m very serious. I don’t want you anywhere near my life or the people I love. If you cannot abide by that, I will make sure you abide it by law.” I turned before he could say another word and pulled open the doors.
I half expected him to shout something vile after me, but there was only shocked silence.
Striding into the hall, I halted upon finding Sarah standing beneath my mother’s portrait.
She turned as I approached. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, taking her hand. “It felt good to be the one in control for a change.”
Her smile was soft, tinged with a little sadness, as she turned back to stare at my mother. “Is this her?”
“Yes. This is Mum.”
“She was beautiful, Theo. You look like her.”
“He didn’t deserve her.” The painter, a famous artist called Raphaella Forbes, captured the warmth and kindness in my mum’s eyes. “She was so good to everyone. Even him. He didn’t deserve her,” I repeated, wishing like hell she’d had a better life.
“No, he didn’t.” Sarah squeezed my hand.
“I worry I don’t deserve you,” I confessed hoarsely. “That everyone will agree because of my past.”
She turned to me, expression solemn. “You have done nothing but take care of me while empowering me at the same time. Do you know how rare that is? To hell with everyone else.”
Warm gratitude filled the hollowness in my chest. Relief too. I brought our clasped hands to my mouth and pressed a hard kiss to her knuckles. “My mum would approve of you.” I looked up at the painting, into Mum’s soft eyes. “Wouldn’t you, Mum?”
A beat later, I looked down at Sarah. “She says yes.”
She laughed softly, eyes still filled with an understanding of my grief that made me love her even more. Pressing a kiss to my fingertips, I rested them against the painting. “Miss you, Mum.”
Swallowing hard, I stepped back, tugging on Sarah’s hand. “Let’s go, my love.”
As we turned to leave, my feet stuttered at the sight of my father standing beneath the archway of the library. For just a second, he wore a stricken expression that shocked me.
However, he quickly covered it, smoothing his countenance to that blank expression I was more familiar with. I knew that blank expression. I’d worn it many times myself to cover up my true feelings.
I realized then that perhaps my father was human after all. That maybe he did experience remorse and guilt. But he was too scared to admit those feelings, too afraid to reveal he was fallible. Terrified, perhaps, to let those emotions in, in case they swallowed him whole.
And in the end, my father’s fear would leave him with nothing and nobody but one son who stuck around out of duty.
It hit me then, as we left the house on Wilton Crescent, with more clarity than ever, why Sarah asked me to do this. I couldn’t lock my feelings away like my father did. I’d only lose everyone who mattered to me. And there was no way in hell I’d ever risk turning out to be just like Stephen Cavendish.
I wanted to be better.
Not just for Sarah.
For me too.
Thirty-Four
THEO
In an effort not to come off as a suffocating, overprotective Neanderthal, I hadn’t expressed my concern about Sarah heading out into the city. It was the day before New Year’s Eve and London would be teeming with visitors. I had to trust Sarah would be safe, however, meeting her agent for drinks at a bar near Charing Cross.
Thankfully, morbid distraction came in the shape of an encrypted file sent to my email by DCI English’s team. They’d agreed at our visit to let me read the fan mail that had been sent to me in case there was a clue that perhaps only I might pick up on.