Cinderella's Christmas Secret - Sharon Kendrick Page 0,39
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