The Bad Boy Wants Me(95)

‘I’ll take it then that you have no idea,’ she said coldly.

I put on my sweet face. ‘No. Ivan made all the arrangements.’

She narrowed her eyes skeptically and let them slide to my pendant. An ugly look crossed her thin, proud face. ‘Do you know the contents of my father’s will?’

Suck it up buttercup. He didn’t leave it to you. ‘Not really. I guess we’ll know after the funeral.’

‘But most of it’s going to you, isn’t it?’

I took a deep breath. This needed to be said. ‘You want his money, but you never once came to see him in the last six months.’

Her eyes widened with fury. ‘How dare you lecture me on my relationship with my father?’

‘You hurt him when you never brought your children to see him once in the last two years. He wanted to get to know them.’

‘Are you mad? Do you think I would expose my children to that pedophile?’

I gasped in shock. ‘How could you say that about your father?’

She looked at my horrified expression with revulsion. ‘Why are you pretending to be so shocked? I can say that because it’s the truth.’

‘It is not,’ I said, holding on tightly to my temper.

‘How old were you when you came to him?’

‘I was seventeen,’ I said indignantly. How could she even think that about Robert?

‘I rest my case.’

‘He … we … didn’t do anything, then,’ I stammered. I wanted to say so much more, but I couldn’t. I had to protect my secret. Otherwise it would have been all for nothing.

‘God, you disgust me. Both of you.’

She turned away from me and rapped smartly on the glass. When Barry put it down she ordered him to stop the car. As soon as the car came to a halt she got out. Before closing the door, she had one last parting shot for her stepmother.

‘Just in case no one told you. It’s not the done thing for the grieving widow to deck herself in her best jewelry to attend her husband’s funeral.’

Slamming the car door, she walked to the next car in the procession, the car that she should have been in. I turned my head and watched her enter it and shut the door.

I turned back to face the front. ‘Carry on, Barry,’ I whispered painfully.

My hands were trembling. I touched my pendant and closed my eyes. Oh, Robert. How could she even think that about you? I hoped wherever he was he had not heard our nasty conversation.

Quietly, Barry put on his stereo system and Nick Cave’s poignant and heartfelt song Into My Arms fills the car. No gesture could have been more appropriate at that moment. The unexpected thoughtfulness of that mostly silent man took me by such surprise that I could not even speak. Our eyes met in the rearview mirror, mine full of silent gratitude, and his kind. I smiled and he nodded.

When we arrived at the cemetery, I got out of the car, and Ivan strode up to me. His face was a like a thundercloud.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked harshly, his eyes sharp.

His breath smoked. I looked up at him, still dazed. The wintry air invaded my lungs and stung my eyes. Did he also believe that Robert was a pedophile? Was that what everyone was thinking? I nodded.

‘Why did she get out of the car?’ he demanded.

‘It was nothing.’ I paused. My mind had gone blank, but he was staring at me with demanding eyes. ‘Er … she … wanted to know why we are having a reading of the will at the house and not getting written notifications.’

‘Why on earth did she ask you that? She knows damn well that I’m the executor of the will.’

‘Anyway, why are we having it done this way?’

‘Because I wanted it this way.’

I looked at him curiously. ‘Why?’

‘I have my own reason. Now come on,’ he urged, and I fell into step with him. We walked briskly, our heads bowed on a path that glistened like white quartz.

It was strange that my hurt and confused heart should find the presence of that cold, hostile man reassuring and a comfort. I stole a glance at him. His face was closed and distant. He gave the impression that he was not even aware of me.

As soon as we reached the freshly dug grave, the woman he had come with caught up with us and linked her arm through his. There was no mound of exposed soil. Everything was white and completely beautiful. A woman handed out pink rose stems. I held it in my gloved hands. I looked around at the assembled. We were the official mourners, come to pay our last respects.

Our breaths rising in little visible puffs.

During the whole simple ceremony, no one spoke. There was just the slight sound of people shuffling. Then the coffin was put on the wooden lattice that had been erected over the hole in the ground.