by Pippa Roscoe
The slight hitch in her breathing letting him know that she knew he was there.
Neither said a word. The silence between them vibrating with unspoken hurts and needs, as if the stars alone bore witness to a great tragedy.
‘Maria, I’m so—’
‘Don’t. Don’t you dare apologise.’
She turned then and he wished she hadn’t. He could see the tear tracks on her skin, the slight redness that screamed against the shocking pallor of her cheeks. Maria was not hiding her pain as he did. No. She claimed it. Owned it, was even glorious in it. He bit back a thousand curses that would send him to hell and keep him there.
‘Do you know what today is?’ she asked as if she wasn’t flipping the switch on the detonator for a bomb he knew, knew, was about to change everything. He could feel it in the air, taste it on his tongue and he desperately wanted to stop the words from falling from her lips.
Instead, he bit down and shook his head, fearing her answer as much as needing to hear it.
‘It’s my birthday.’
Curses rose in his mind so loud until they were screaming at him. If he had known...would he have done things differently? He was so torn, so confused, in so much pain he couldn’t tell any more. All this time his nightmares had shown him losing her in the most violent painful way, and now he was making it happen in reality. Pushing her away to protect himself and he knew that made him the worst kind of beast.
A small sad smile painted her beautiful features. ‘Perhaps it is fitting that we met on yours and part on mine.’
‘Maria—’
‘And I was the one who had a present for you,’ she said through a half-laugh, full of sadness and loss.
It was then that he saw the small box being turned over in her small hands, the paleness of her skin in contrast to the black velvet case. He frowned, trying to make sense of the shiver of apprehension that streaked through his body. But all he wanted, all he could think of was trying to make her stay.
‘I was wrong, Maria. I never should have left you in that restaurant.’
‘You were. And you shouldn’t have. You knew what it would do to me and you did it anyway. For the first time since I met you, you truly lived up to the reputation you have clung to.’
The knife twisted in his gut, even as she thrust out her hands to give him the gift he did not deserve, had never deserved. Without taking his eyes from her, he retrieved the box and held it. ‘Maria, please—’
‘Open it.’
‘Don’t you think we have more important things to discuss right now?’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Because I think that somewhere in that gift is the heart of exactly what is going on right now.’
Frowning, he pulled back the lid of the box and everything in him stopped. It was as if the sight of the contents had not only stalled his breath, but the thoughts in his mind, the blood in his veins. It took him a moment to compute what he was seeing—what he knew he should have been seeing and instead what was actually there.
The three beaten, hand-moulded, textured strands had been woven in a plait that seemed to have no beginning and no end, and though he didn’t want to, though he desperately tried to hide from what Maria had created, he could sense how she had wanted each strand to represent his mother, father and himself, and then shift and morph into her, him and their child... And it might have. If it hadn’t represented something to him already. Something dark and dangerous and devastating.
‘You shouldn’t have done this.’ Matthieu barely recognised his own voice, unable to even bring himself to look at her.
‘I... I thought that this would be something beautiful for you. A way to keep something of your family with you at all times.’
He could hear the confusion, the hurt, in her voice. Perhaps even a trace of fear.
‘You have no idea—’
‘Of course I don’t, Matthieu. Because you don’t talk to me! Don’t tell me what you’re thinking or what you’re feeling.’
‘You don’t want to know what I’m feeling right now,’ he warned her.
‘But I do, Matthieu. I do. I don’t just want the bits of you you deem fit for me to see. I want everything. Not the beast, not the carefully contained husband. I want you.’
‘You want to know me? You want to know what I’m feeling? What I’m feeling right now is sheer horror. Horror that you would take something so personal from me and change it into something completely different. That you would take the very reason my parents are dead—’ He cut himself off mid-sentence, desperately warring with himself to grip the fine strands of silver in his hands, or hurl it from him as far as he could. And it was her fault. He never would have been standing here, sharing this with her, had she not pushed, not demanded, not wanted.
‘Matthieu, I—’
‘The way my father looked at my mother when she gave him his present that night...so full of love, so full of life. They sent me to bed before I was able to get a good look at it, promising that I could see it in the morning, but...’
He shook his head at the memories. The childish frustration that he’d been sent to bed, the desperation to see more clearly what his mother had given his father.
‘I was too impatient. I sneaked from my room and found it downstairs in the dining room. My parents wasted precious time searching my room, the whole of the first floor, time that they could have used to leave the burning building had it not been for me. Had it not been for this—’ He held up the bracelet to punctuate his point.
‘—Or what this once was, my father could have made it out. He could have leapt from the window he pushed me out of. I remember the moment he looked at me and made his decision to go back for my mother. I remember the tears I saw in his eyes, how desperate he was to be with me and desperate he was to find her. I saw him there in the window, the words of love he sent me drowned out by the sounds of the fire raging through our home.’
‘I’m sorry!’ his father had yelled, the words barely reaching Matthieu staring up at him with horror and fear and pain.
‘Do you know what it’s like to feel responsible for your parents’ deaths? To wish your father had chosen you over your mother? Can you conceive of the guilt? That you would rather your mother have died alone than be alone yourself? Or, better yet, not have rescued me at all, but taken me with them?’
His voice broke on the last word. He’d never admitted that to anyone. He’d never even said it out loud.
The silence around them vibrated with thick emotion. Her warmth was the first indication he had that she had come up behind him. That she stood so close, he could feel it.
‘The fire was not your fault, Matthieu,’ she said, her voice breaking over the words, as if she hurt just as much as he did just then. ‘Their loss was not your fault.’
‘Really? You believe that? That I’m innocent of that loss, that I’m not the beast I proved to be tonight when I left you in the restaurant on purpose?’ he bit out, hating that his fear, that his pain was making him just as cruel as she accused him of being, but simply unable to stop. Because pushing her away was safer, for her and for him.
‘Don’t—’
‘Don’t what? Lift the veil of whatever fantasy you’ve woven around us? The same fantasy you wove around you and Tersi? The man you thought you loved the day we met.’
It was as if he had struck her. The flinch yanking her head back and the colour draining from already pale features.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Confusion and pain fell from her eyes like tears, each one landing hard and fast on his heart.
‘Yes, you do. You do know. You find people in your life to weave impossible relationships around, because that’s easier for you than to face up to the reality that not everything can be a fairy tale, not everyone can be as perfect as you really want them to be. Not
your father, not your brother and damn sure not me.’ And even as he said the words, he half believed them, half hoped that he was speaking the truth, because the pain he was causing her, causing himself would be somehow less, and damn him if that didn’t make him a bastard. ‘And what is the reason for that, Maria? You once told me you wanted to know who Maria Montcour was, but, in truth, whether you’re a wife, or a mother, a sister or a daughter, you don’t seem to know who you are. And without that, we will all be playing roles in your fantasies. Ones we never have any hope of living up to. You demand love from us, but how could we if you don’t even know yourself?’
Maria let his accusation lie within her. She almost felt herself shrugging into it as if rearranging a piece of clothing over her skin. The horrifying realisation that he might be right robbing her momentarily of thought. Suddenly it was as if something within her snapped into place. As if he had thrown a mirror up to a person she vaguely knew but hardly recognised. Because he was right. It was easier to play a role within these desperately fantasised relationships. Because any rejection she experienced wasn’t a denial of her, it was the role that she had assigned herself, one she could discard and move on from.
Had she really done that? All these years...she recognised the truth of it in what her feelings had once been for Theo. But no matter what Matthieu said, she knew that she did love him. She could see him almost mentally scrabbling around for anything that would push her away, that would defend himself against his own feelings for her. And if he was going to tear strips from her heart to reveal some inner truth, then she would do the same for him. If this was the last time she would ever be able to meet him with honesty then she would.
‘Oh, how righteous you are, accusing me of not knowing myself, of hiding in roles, but what about you, Matthieu? What are you hiding from each time you leave my bed?’
‘I have to. I have nightmares, and they are...’
‘Just dreams, Matthieu.’
‘No, they’re not. They are real, they are memories for me! Each night I see my father, my mother and my house all burn. Sometimes you are there. You and our child. And I can’t—’
She could see the pain rippling across his shoulders and down his spine. Even in the warm night air, he looked frozen, cold to the touch even as his words were heated and blistered with pain. Her heart broke at the sight of it. Hating that he had hidden this from her.
‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you talk it through with me? We could have faced it together, but instead you bottled it up and kept it to yourself.’
‘I’m not like you. You have your brother, you have family. I am alone in this, and have been for more years than I have not been. Of course I didn’t tell you. I don’t tell anyone anything.’
‘But I’m not just anyone,’ she couldn’t help but cry. ‘I’m your wife. A role more real than any other. And as much as you might fight it, try to deny it and palm it off as fantasy, I love you. I do. It’s overwhelming, incredible and wondrous and you won’t let me share that with you, which is unspeakably sad.’ The words were a call to action in her heart, rippling out through her body. She hoped above all that even now, even as she knew she must walk away, he would change his mind. Change his heart.
‘But you won’t let that happen for yourself,’ she pressed on. ‘Instead you hide your pain, hoarding it as if it’s precious, as if it’s the only thing your parents left you with. Ignoring the fact that they gave you the building blocks to become the amazing man you could be, if you just let yourself.’ She could see the way he flinched at her words as they struck home, as they knocked aside the lies he had built around his heart to protect himself. ‘When I first told you about our child, you asked me what it is that I wanted. Now I’m asking you. What is it you want?’
‘I don’t know!’ The shout left his mouth and crashed against her in the most painful way. Because she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, desperately wanted to help him find his way to the truth. But she couldn’t.
‘That’s not good enough.’
‘It was at the beginning. I told you that I would be there for the child. I told you that you could have whatever material thing you could ever want or need. And I told you that I could not give you more than that. You’re changing the terms of our agreement.’
‘Yes,’ she said defiantly. ‘I am changing the terms. Because you’ve shown me that you are capable of more than you pretended to be. And you made me want that person, you made me want more.’
Matthieu couldn’t even deny it. Because he had changed. From the first moment that he saw her by the lake in Iondorra, he had known it would happen. It had started long before the nightmares that plunged him back into memories that he had long ago buried, never wanting to feel the pain, the devastation, the loss—the loss he feared he would experience if she or their child ever... He couldn’t even bring himself to think it. She had made him want more, want to be more. But it was too much. And the beast within him ached, snarling, biting, growling and gnashing its teeth.
‘And until you are ready to be the man I know you can be, I don’t want to see you. I don’t want you near me. You will have access to our child any time you like. I would not deny our child or you that right. But know this. When it comes to our child, there is no force majeure. You will be there at every birthday, every Christmas, every celebration whether it be a music exam, a school exam, or a driving test.’
Maria was painting a picture of the future he would deny himself. The future he was almost forcing through his hands like sand and it was eviscerating him.
‘No force majeure and no three strikes. Miss one, and you are out of their life for ever. Do you understand? Because what I have learned from my childhood and my time with you is that I will not inflict any kind of physical or emotional absence upon my child.’
My child. She was removing him from her life just as he had wanted before he had returned to the house, and after she had given him the present. At first it had been because he thought they would be better off without him. Now? He simply couldn’t imagine how he could live with them. Them and the constant fear that he could lose them at any moment. So yes, he needed her to go.
‘My child will grow up knowing they are loved, they are supported by their family. That no matter what, they come first. And they will know that because I will lead by example. So no matter how much I love you—and I do, Matthieu, so, so much—I am putting myself and my child first. But, Matthieu, for you? You have to face this. You cannot live in the shadow of the reputation you have lived down to as beast. You cannot let it rule your life.’
She walked past him, then, head held high, so beautiful it made his heart ache. But he knew it was for the best that Maria Rohan de Luen, the woman he loved too much to bear, left his life.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
YOU CANNOT LET it rule your life.
Maria’s parting words had echoed within the walls of his estate, had roamed around his mind for hours and even days after she had left.
His phone calls and emails had gone unanswered. He had not been back to the office since that night. Because in truth, her words had come to consume him. In the years following the fire he had thought, in his own way, that he had dealt with the events of that night. But now Maria had shone a light on his darkest, deepest hurts and the door that she had unlocked now swung open, fully flooding him with everything.
At first he had been cowed by the loss, a loss as fresh as it had been all those years ago. But once the first flush of memories from that night passed through him, other memories emerged. A holiday they had spent in Antigua, the way his mother always dressed in bright colours, pinks, turquoises, purples and bright oranges. The way his father would gently tease his mother for her choice in unusual earrings. And it hurt. The realisation that he had pushed down all the things that had made the two of them unique, loving, sometimes even like bickering schoolchildren. And it made him want m
ore.
A week after Maria had left, he’d called Malcolm, who had arrived at the house within hours. The concern and shared pain on his familiar features almost a balm to Matthieu’s wounds. He had peppered his oldest friend with questions about how his parents had met, what they had been like, things that perhaps he would have learned in time, had they had the luxury of it. For hours they had talked, Matthieu relishing everything he had never wanted, never been able to bear, before.
Until finally Matthieu had talked about that night. Opening up his grief for someone other than Maria to see. To own his shame and guilt over his actions that night.
‘I never knew,’ Malcolm had said. ‘If I had... Matthieu, why didn’t you tell me you felt that way?’
‘Admit that it was my fault?’
‘But it wasn’t,’ Malcolm had said, pressing a hand on the wooden table as if to hold himself back from a stronger physical act. ‘Matthieu, do you remember how the fire started?’
He’d frowned, knowing by heart the fire marshal’s incident report he had once scoured as if it held answers. ‘Faulty electrics.’
‘Where?’ Malcolm had prompted.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Where did the fire start?’
‘On the second floor.’
‘And where were you?’
‘Downstairs in the living...’
Malcolm had levelled him with a heavy gaze. ‘The fire wasn’t your fault, Matthieu, and if you’d been in bed that night, and not further down in the house, then... Then you might have been one of the first casualties of that night. Your father didn’t waste precious time, and even if he had, he would have done so because he loved you and wanted you to live. If he went back into the fire for your mother it was because he wanted the same for her. Your father might have survived, but the man I was lucky enough to call my closest friend in the world wouldn’t have forgiven himself if he had not tried.’