“So, how did you manage to avoid following your mother footsteps in life?”
“My Aunt Midge raised me from the time I was ten.”
“It took ten years for your mother to decide she couldn’t manage? Or did something precipitate the decision.”
In the pause that follows her question, a flickering image flashes through my head.
A child holding a glowing heart. Darkness all around. But the child’s face practically glows. It’s sad eyes. Gentle hands. A red heart. Deep breaths. Red. Everywhere, it’s red.
I blink out of the thoughts, the book in my lap coming back into focus.
“Well?” The expectant tone in Laura’s voice carries an air of annoyance. “Why ten years?”
“I don’t know. I guess she just gave up.”
“That’s not how mothers operate, darling. My guess is, you’ll never know. Women do what they have to do, sometimes. Even at the risk of unimaginable pain.”
There’s a very lucid texture to her voice, and I have to look away from her eyes, which seem to be searching me for something, though I can’t say what.
“Is that why you and Lucian don’t communicate much?” It’s a tricky question with Laura, given the way she obviously feels about her son.
Instead, she sneers at my question, staring off toward the yard. “He resents me. He felt I forced him into marriage.” Rolling her shoulders back, she lowers her gaze toward her hands resting in her lap. “As if I had a choice.”
“You loved Amelia, though. Didn’t you?”
“Love is a strong word, child. Best saved for your own children.”
“You don’t believe in romantic love, then?”
“If I did, I suppose my husband might still be alive, assuming the heart grows stronger when you love.” She rubs her hands together and tips her head. “Has my son fucked you yet?”
My God, her blunt questions will never cease to keep me on edge. Even now, there’s a thrum of anxiety beating through me.
While my mind scrambles for something to say, short of lying right to her face, she waves her hand in the air. “Never mind that. I’m sure he will eventually. A young thing like you is far too much temptation for the appetite of a Blackthorne man. His father was the same way. The younger ones always seemed to draw his attention most. Disturbing really. Had Lucian been a daughter, instead of a son …” She seems to stare off for a moment, her eyes glassing over with each passing second, brows creeping toward a frown. “I’m tired. I’d like to go lie down now.”
Chapter 52
Lucian
Four years ago …
A rush of cold air casts a chill across my skin and drags me out of the void. At the sound of wind, I push up onto my good elbow and double blink the sleep away. Across my dark bedroom, the door to the balcony stands open, fluttering the sheer white curtain beneath the drawn drapes.
‘The hell?
I roll to my side and clamber out of bed, the frigid ambient air becoming painfully apparent outside of the covers. The cast on my right side was finally removed, but the ache of pins and plates seems more intense in these cooler temperatures. As if the cold has an affinity for the metal through my layers of skin and flesh.
Hobbling toward the door, I notice the flickering movement on the balcony, and find Amelia standing there in nothing but a silk, pink nightgown, her blonde hair dancing in the breeze.
“What are you doing?” Sleep still clings to my voice as I approach her from behind, and I rub my eyes, to be sure this isn’t some strange nightmare. It wouldn’t be the first, but they’ve settled some in recent weeks.
“Do you remember that night in the atrium … when we kissed?” she asks, not bothering to turn around.
Rubbing the back of my neck, I blink hard to focus. “Yes.”
“It was the best kiss I’ve ever had. For weeks, I dreamed about it. About you. I was certain that I was going to be the girl who won Lucian Blackthorne’s cold, unattainable heart.”
Though the anger that I feel toward Amelia still courses through me, it’s lessened with time, as I’ve watched her slip into depression alongside me. I know now that it was a mistake on her part, leaving those pills out. A simple, human error. But I can’t bring myself to forgive her, and whatever this is she’s doing, it only solidifies my feelings,