by Anna Antonia
Love shouldn’t hurt was a common mantra. No one had advice on what happened when love felt right but hurt so many others. The closest I could think of was a Spanish proverb.
Where there is love there is pain.
Maybe all this was unavoidable. Maybe not.
“Emma? Emma?”
I snapped out of my troubled thoughts and looked at Marie. “I’m sorry. What did you ask?”
“Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Water?”
“I’d like some water if you don’t mind.”
Marie smiled and linked her arm through mine. “Of course not, Emma. It’s not trouble at all.”
She steered me into a gorgeously gilt room, resplendent with floor to ceiling windows and facing a traditional French garden. Lucas followed behind us, unusually silent and docile.
“Can I get you anything to drink, Lucas?”
“I’ll have whatever you’re having. Thank you.”
Marie left us alone with a promise of being back before we knew it. I’m sure Lucas and I both hoped she was right. I sat down on a settee and curiously looked around me to avoid having to pretend that I wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as I really was.
I may not have hated Lucas anymore but it didn’t mean I was at ease being in his presence yet.
“She ingested pills.”
I jerked my attention over to him. “Do you know why?”
“I told her that it was time to give Gabriel up. I told her that he wasn’t coming back. I knew she didn’t take it well, but I left her alone in her room anyways.” Lucas’s perfect posture belied the sadness creeping across his pale gaze. “I severely underestimated how she would react.”
The words slipped out before I could recall them. “I know you feel guilty but it’s not your fault.”
“I brought Embry here, filled her head with the confidence that Gabriel would leave you and go back to her. I failed and then I compounded it by telling her that he loved you too much to walk away. It’s not my fault? Surely you jest.”
My cheeks flushed in embarrassment. “I’m serious. It’s not your fault.”
“How can you possibly say that?”
“Embry made the choice to take those pills. You didn’t force her to do it.”
Lucas snorted in derision. “I might as well have. Telling her that Gabriel resigned was the final nail. She knew then I didn’t have leverage over him anymore.”
I was probably courting something I shouldn’t have. He’d yet to blast me so why poke the sleeping tiger?
“If you’re going to blame yourself, you might as well blame me.”
“Who says I don’t?” Lucas said with a touch of familiar defiance. “One could say Gabriel would still be with Embry if it wasn’t for you.”
“Maybe he would still be with her. Maybe they’d be planning their wedding by now. Or maybe Gabriel would still realize it was wrong to marry someone he wasn’t in love with.”
“Yes, and we all know how well that turned out, don’t we?” Marie’s soft voice interrupted. She took a seat next to me and sat her tray down. “Here’s your water, Emma. And coffee, black, for you Lucas.”
Lucas and I shared a similar tactic. We waited for Marie to lead us. She took dainty sips from her cup, seemingly unconcerned by our silence. I uncapped my water bottle and took a drink. Lucas sat back, leg crossed over his knee and waited.
The silence suffocated but this was clearly Marie’s show. We would base our lines off hers.
Marie finally set her cup down on the coffee table. She folded her hands in her lap, neat and prim. “Lucas shared your last conversation with me, Emma.”
I had the good grace to look abashed. Faced with Gabriel’s beautiful and kind mother, it felt like sacrilege to have basically accused her of cheating on her husband with her brother-in-law.
“It’s true.”
Okay. My gaze shot over to Lucas. He didn’t spare me a glance but kept his attention on Marie.
“I see.” I looked over at the entry, instinctually dropping my voice to a near-whisper. “Does Gabriel know?”
“Yes. I told him after Ryan died.”
Oh, my poor Gabriel. Did it give him comfort to know the man who hated him so much wasn’t his father? Or did it break his heart to know the circumstances of his conception?
“Emma, I hope you know that I do approve of your relationship with my son. He’s loved you for so long and I know it’s the real thing. For both of you.”
I had the urge to hug her. It meant everything to me to hear that and told Marie as much.
“I’m also very sorry that Lucas here has been unfairly brutal towards you, Emma.”
“Marie, you don’t need to apologize for me.”
She turned her gaze in his direction. “Apparently, I do.” She waited a beat for his reply. When it didn’t come she continued, still looking at the father of her only child. “Do you want to know why I’ve supported Gabriel’s love for you all this time, Emma?”
“I’ve been curious about it. I never understood it. You weren’t like the other mothers I’ve encountered.” Immediately, I felt that came out wrong. “I mean, the mothers I’ve encountered were through my summers working with my mom.”
Marie turned back to me. “I know exactly what you meant. Gabriel told me all about you from the beginning. He admired you so much, you know. You were a girl of strong character. Someone who was unlike anyone he’d ever met. Including me.”
I bit my lip and looked around the room for a moment to gain my composure. Hearing me being described through Gabriel’s eyes humbled me. I only hoped I’d continued being someone he could be proud of in the future.
“Marie, Gabriel will be down any moment. At that time, I’d rather us not be speaking of the poor decisions that created the tragedy of his life.”
“You’re right.”
I assumed they jointly decided to end the discussion. Instead, Marie dove right into their sordid past.
“I dated Ryan back when we were kids. It was sweet. Safe. Predictable. It was expected that we would marry. I didn’t see any reason why we wouldn’t or shouldn’t. It would make everyone happy and if I didn’t necessarily feel passion for Ryan, well, it was okay. There was more to base a marriage on than passion. At least that’s what I thought until Lucas happened.”
I noticed he couldn’t keep his eyes off Marie. There was such a softness to his expression that I’d never really seen before. He looked so much like Gabriel did when he looked at me.
It was the look of a love to last the ages.
I turned away, feeling I was intruding on something private.
“I’d known him, of course, but had never thought that we could ever get along much less be anything else. Lucas was arrogant and cruel. He never missed the opportunity to be mean to me. Ryan was sweet and nice. There could be no doubt who I should prefer. Love doesn’t work that way though.”
That I understood all too well. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Lucas and I fell in love—”
“No. I loved you already. You were the one who fell in love with me later.”
There it was again. Complete, utter adoration.
“You’re right. Lucas covered up his feelings for me by pushing me away. His sharpness was the worst. Sound familiar, Emma?”
I stumbled over my words, really not knowing what to say while Marie’s gentle teasing smile prodded me. “Maybe a bit.”
“Anyways, once I knew of my feelings, I wanted to break off my engagement to Ryan but my family wouldn’t hear of it. I was stuck. I didn’t know what to do and then I found out I was pregnant with Gabriel. I told Ryan first, hoping he’d break it off and make my decision easy. He didn’t. He told me he was hurt but that he wanted me happy. No matter what.”
Marie’s face told the sad story long before her words did. I reached out and held her hand. Knowing what would happen to them both made it worse.
“Ryan said that if Lucas didn’t step up and do the right thin
g, he would. He would marry me and raise my child as his own. But first I had to tell Lucas.”
Her hand squeezed mine. I looked over at Lucas, dreading to think that he would’ve abandoned the woman he loved in her time of need. Gabriel would never have done that to me.
“Once it got dark, I snuck out of the house. We met out at the park and I told him I was pregnant. Lucas wanted me to get an abortion.”
I let out a sound of anger. I was all about personal choice, but the thought of anyone suggesting that the world would’ve been better off with Gabriel made me a little crazed.
“It wasn’t me. I was conveniently called out of town and Ryan used that time to trick Marie. He then married her before I even knew she was pregnant.” I sensed Lucas’s icy gaze wasn’t meant for me. “It was over. I would never be able to convince Marie that we had a future together.”
Marie’s posture changed. Her head dropped slightly and she seemingly turned inside herself. “It’s true. I was too afraid back then to disappoint anyone. We married and then…and then Ryan had me under his control. He never forgave me for falling in love with Lucas. He wanted me to pay for it and I did. I took the beatings and the affairs and the abuse because I deserved it. If only I had been stronger…”
Hearing her self-flagellation wound me up. She spent two decades suffering the unimaginable all because she’d committed the sin of loving someone one brother instead of the other?
“No, Marie! You didn’t deserve that. You were all just kids. Yes, it wasn’t the most ideal situation. I understand that. There was betrayal. I get it. Things wouldn’t have been easy within the family, but Ryan just wanted to possess you. Lucas really loved you and still does. You should’ve had the right to follow through on that.”
“Thank you. You’re very kind for saying that.”
Marie spared me a shy smile, looking so much like the young girl that she once was. Innocent. Sweet. Vulnerable. One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but I wished Ryan Gordon was still alive so I could blacken his eyes and kick his ribs in for abusing such a small, defenseless woman.
“You know I’ve blamed myself ever since, Emma, for not being able to tell the difference between them. I should’ve trusted in Lucas. If only I hadn’t been so afraid, I wouldn’t have been so quick to assume Lucas wouldn’t want us.”
“They were identical twins. You can’t be blamed for that.”
Marie’s bittersweet smile pained me. I could tell the one night that changed their lives forever still hurt beyond measure. She lived with the consequences everyday so how could she ever forget?
“But Ryan and Lucas were so different. Not just the hair or clothes, but they were really different people. I should’ve seen it that night. I should’ve looked closer. I shouldn’t have been so afraid of what people would think of me.
“And that is my sin, Emma. I wasn’t strong enough to face people disliking me, thinking the worst of me. I was too afraid because I knew I shouldn’t have cheated on Ryan, especially with his brother.”
“It wasn’t just you, Marie. I share as much, no, even more of the blame. He was my brother. I knew what you meant to him.”
Privately, I wondered if Lucas had been motivated by sibling rivalry or if it ran deeper. I suspected it was always there, separate and apart from Ryan.
Marie shrugged. The gesture communicated the helplessness of being unable to change the past.
“I’ll never know if what I did to Ryan changed him forever or if he would have been abusive regardless. All I know is Ryan seemed like a good, nice man but he was really a brutal man filled with hate. I also know Lucas seems like a jerk but really is a gentle man who’s filled with love and has a soft heart. The outsides never matched the insides only I was too blind to see it until it was much too late.”
Lucas still does seem like a jerk but I’m not so sure about the soft heart part.
I looked away, doing my best not to give away my thoughts.
“What?” Lucas drawled. “Is that so hard to believe, Emma? I’ve only insulted you and your mother, bullied you, used your love for my son against you, and ran you out of the job you were so proud of. Other than that—I’m a big softie.”
Wait. Was that a joke? I think it was. Lucas Gordon actually made a joke at his expense.
Marie said his name softly, in censure. I patted her hand, letting her know it was fine and I wasn’t offended. I actually would’ve laughed if it didn’t seem so inappropriate for the occasion.
“Why did you do it, Mr. Gordon? For Gabriel. All of it was for him. Correct?”
“Yes. Love hasn’t been kind to this family and I wanted to spare him.” Lucas seemed to struggle with his next words. “I believed that Gabriel could be happy if he based his future on logic instead of passion. If he could avoid our mistakes then he would be happy. Apparently, I was wrong.”
Yes, he was.
Marie exhaled. It was a small, watery sigh. I looked down at my lap to give her a bit of privacy. Soon she cleared her throat and said, “We both made mistakes, Lucas. He wanted to rub your face in it and I helped him by not saying anything to you. All those years I pretended that was everything was okay when it wasn’t.
“And I stayed all those years, afraid that if we left he’d kill us both. He controlled all the money. I couldn’t go to my family because they would’ve just sent me right back and in fact did the first and only time I left. You were already married and I had no friends that weren’t through Ryan’s social circle. I was well and truly trapped.”
Wincing, I thought back to my one and only visit to Gabriel’s house. If only I had known what was happening there, I would’ve done something. Anything.
You could’ve done something. You could’ve stayed.
My heart bruised again. I left him at his most vulnerable, thinking I knew everything there was to know about Gabriel Gordon. I had gotten it all wrong.
And to think that Gabriel loved me anyways…
Quickly, I thought to my childhood with my mom and felt blessed for the first time. We may have been poor, but we were safe in our house. We had a special kind of freedom and never had to suffer the terror Marie and Gabriel had on a daily basis.
No amount of money could make up for that.
Overwhelmed by compassion for them, I felt the tears rise up. I didn’t do anything to blink them back. I noticed Lucas focused his attention on me, but I didn’t move my gaze from Marie. I watched her and listened.
“I protected my sweet boy as long as I could. I told him that when he grew up he should love a strong girl. I told him that as long as he loved her, nothing mattered. Not what people thought. Not how much money she had or didn’t have. Nothing mattered except his feelings for her.”
Marie’s glassy gaze reflected mine. She scooted closer. “You were that girl, Emma. You were the girl of both our dreams. You gave him hope, something better to aspire towards.”
I blinked and set the tears free to roll down my cheeks unchecked.
“I’m sorry for letting you all down.”
Marie cupped my cheek, blue eyes soft with unlimited understanding. “You didn’t, Emma. Even if you had never re-entered Gabriel’s life, you helped to make him a better person. I’d love you for that alone.”
I placed my hand over hers. “I want you to know that I always loved Gabriel, even when I left him that first time. I only did that because I didn’t think someone like him could ever want someone like me. I never thought I was good enough to be his equal. I was wrong. I was so wrong and I wish I could take it back. I’d give anything to take it back.”
“I know, Emma.”
Regret was a terrible thing. It never lessened or went away. A bitter marker to remind us of our fallibility.
Sniffling, I wished I could lay my head in her lap like I’d sometimes do with my mom when I was little. More than anything I wished Gabriel was here with me. He’d take one look at me and know exactly what I needed. Whether it was time cuddled on his lap, or a painfully long spank
so I could let out all my tears and feelings without feeling awkward.
I dashed my hand across my cheeks. Once I would’ve felt dreadfully ashamed of showing my emotions like this. Instead, I was too damned exhausted to try to hide them.
Lucas stood up and reached into his inner coat pocket. Pulling out a handkerchief, he cleared his throat, and handed it to me. “We all understand, Emma. We…I’ve been there.”
I appreciated his empathy. “Thank you, Mr. Gordon. That means a lot to me coming from you.”
“Yes, well. You’re welcome.”
Gabriel’s father cleared his throat again and walked over to Marie’s side. He crouched and then brushed his thumbs across Marie’s cheeks. She smiled and only then did Lucas returns to his seat.
Dabbing my eyes, I said, “Earlier you said you weren’t strong. Marie, you’re one of the strongest women I know. You suffered so much and still managed to teach your son how to love. Please don’t sell yourself short anymore.”
She leaned forward, seemingly amazed by my pronouncement. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
Marie’s gaze dimmed again. “I took the pain for my…our…son and would have done so for the rest of my life. It was the only way left to show my love for him.”
If there was ever any doubt about the Genesis of Gabriel’s predilection for love, then Marie’s whispered confession confirmed what I’d long suspected. Love was pain. Pain was the ultimate expression of love. No wonder it changed his instincts and needs.
Still, I had no interest in dwelling on the whys. Gabriel was who he was. I loved him completely and always would. Besides, I acknowledged with a secret, devilish grin, I happened to love being part of it all.
Considering my guilt complex, I was born to be his. We created balance for the other.
Lucas’s soft voice pulled me away from my thoughts. “And I showed love by thinking I could keep away all new pain from my son’s life. Now there’s a young lady upstairs who almost died in my care because of such arrogance.”
Lucas blinked rapidly a couple of times before regaining his composure. Once again he looked like the untouchable lord.