‘And what about you, Magenta?’ he asked. ‘Or is it an inherited trait of the James women to keep their children’s fathers in the dark about their paternity?’
‘No!’
‘Then why didn’t you tell me two weeks ago? Three?’ His eyes scoured hers as he pulled her to face him. ‘Just when was it exactly that you remembered who I am?’
The torment in his face was palpable, shredding her heart into what felt like a thousand pieces. ‘That first night in the wine bar,’ she admitted guiltily. ‘It was an instinctive feeling rather than anything real, but over the next few hours—days—things started coming back.’
‘And you didn’t tell me?’ Hard incredulity burned in his eyes as he let her go. ‘All the time we were together at the house? Not even that night we made love?’
‘I told you—I was afraid. You’re rich now, and I don’t have two cents to rub together.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ he demanded impatiently.
‘I didn’t want you using your money and your newfound power to hurt me. I was frightened sick you’d try and take him away from me.’
‘And you didn’t think it was any less of a crime trying to keep his existence from me?’
She did, but she didn’t know what else to say to try and exonerate herself, when really there was no excuse for what she had done.
‘At first I was just afraid,’ she told him. ‘But I didn’t know what I was frightened of. There was this threat hanging over me—over Theo—and I knew it had to be because of something you’d once said or done. You already seemed to disapprove of him being left with Aunt Josie and you didn’t even know he was yours! Anyway, things kept coming back in dribs and drabs. Then that night we made love I remembered everything. Until then a lot of pieces of my memory were still missing and my mind was a jumbled mess.’
‘If you have remembered everything,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ she queried, the face upturned to his etched with anxious lines.
A cold gust blew up from the lake, sweeping through the trees and penetrating her T-shirt. She wrapped her arms around herself to try and stop her shivering.
Without a word Andreas was removing his jacket.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked again, tortured by his sudden nearness, by his warmth and the fragrance of his cologne that was clinging to the jacket he was now placing carefully around her shoulders.
‘I mean that you’re still stating that Marcus Rushford wasn’t your lover. Unless it’s only me you’re trying to convince, but your insistence does make me wonder.’
‘I do remember. Everything. And he wasn’t,’ she reiterated adamantly.
‘It was him you left me for. Him you wanted to be with,’ he reminded her—as though she needed reminding.
‘I thought I did,’ she admitted. ‘But it didn’t take much more than a week for me to realise I didn’t. OK, he was exciting, and he was offering so much, and I was young and naive enough to believe that any man could make me feel the way you did. That what we had wasn’t important and I could just walk away. I didn’t want to be stifled by commitment, to relinquish all my hopes and dreams. You were expecting too much and I wasn’t ready, even though I really, really didn’t want to break up with you.’
Emotion was threatening to overwhelm her.
‘I couldn’t stay at the bottom of the pile with—as you said just now—no security and no prospects, no clue as to where I’d even come from,’ she said, managing to contain the sob that just for a moment had started to make her voice wobble. ‘The girl with no father and most of the time no mother. With no money and no respect from anyone. Always the one who people pointed a finger at. The one who didn’t quite measure up. I was determined to break free from all that, and when Marcus offered me the chance I jumped up and grabbed it.
‘I truly believed he’d make me rich and famous and everyone would look at me and say, “Hasn’t she done well? Jeanette James’s bastard daughter. Who would have thought it, with her background and the type of upbringing she had?” I wanted respect and admiration, but above all else I wanted acceptance. To be able to show everyone who’d doubted me or shunned me—like your father and your grandmother, and all the kids I’d gone to school with—that I was every bit as good as they were. Yes, I wanted fame, and I wanted self-sufficiency. And somewhere among all those crazy mixed-up ideas of grandeur I wanted to help Mum.’
‘So you didn’t love him?’ It was a cool, emotionless question. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’