by Margaret Way
“Let me tell it, Miranda,” Corin said, coming to sit beside her. “Miranda has only been following orders, Zara,” he explained. “My orders.”
Is following orders a valid excuse? Miranda now asked herself.
“I intended to pick the right time,” Corin explained, “but Leila showing up like that tonight—you’re quite right. She believes herself all-powerful. Dad backs her in everything she does and wants. Now she’s pulled the rug out from under our feet. But she didn’t get off scot-free. She’s been administered one almighty shock.”
“I saw that, Corin.” Zara matched his terseness. “Move on.”
Again Miranda intervened. She was her own person. She should speak for herself. “I’m sorry you had to learn it like this, Zara, but Leila is…no easy way to say it, so here it is…my mother.”
Zara blanched. She shook her head in seeming bewilderment, then jumped up, looking in a stricken fashion to her brother. “Mother? Did Miri really say that, Corin? Did I hear right? Leila, our stepmother, is Miranda’s mother?”
So much depends on how Zara takes this.
“Please don’t upset yourself, Zara,” Corin begged his sister quietly. “Miranda didn’t even know herself until a few years back.”
“Years?” Zara’s voice soared. She looked at them both, obviously incredulous and deeply distressed they had kept such a thing from her.
“I was brought up by my grandparents, believing them to be my parents,” Miranda explained, desperate for Zara to understand. “I nursed my dying grandmother. That was almost four years ago. Only then did she tell me the true story. My mother abandoned me as an infant. She was only sixteen when she had me. Starting out in life. She didn’t want a baby to drag her down.”
Zara was all flashing dark eyes. “Dear heaven! This is shocking—shocking! So why, on reflection, doesn’t it surprise me? Leila had a child. You. Miri.” She collapsed into an armchair, shoulders drooping under the weight of this new knowledge. “We’ve been so close, Miri, and you didn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry.” Miranda bowed her head, she too showing her upset. “So sorry. I might have lost you. I could lose you now.”
Corin took Miranda’s hand in his, tightening his grip. “Miranda did as I asked, Zara. Blame me if you want to blame anyone. Miranda was all for telling you, but it wouldn’t have done you a bit of good. The knowledge wouldn’t have given you any rest. You’d have come out with it some time. And who could blame you? All those years of provocation, of Leila’s conniving, her malice, behind the scenes stripping you of Dad’s affection. She kept you away. She lied all the time: concocted stories, complained of your stubborn refusal to meet her halfway. What do you suppose would have happened had you known about Miranda and confronted her?”
Zara stared back at him, then gave a wild little laugh. “I’d have murdered her, like she murdered our mother.”
“No, no, Zara.” He felt pain like a twisting knife inside him. Whatever he and Zara believed, he wasn’t going to lay that charge against Leila at Miranda’s feet. “I’m not having that.”
Zara shook her head again, trying to rid herself of shock. She realised Corin didn’t want to her to go on with her suspicions. Of course she shouldn’t have said what she had. The last thing she wanted to do was add to Miranda’s heartbreak.
Only Miranda sprang up, as though divining the truth. “I can’t help my mother, Zara. Any more than you can help your father. We don’t get to pick our parents. You can’t think I want to talk about this woman? This woman without a heart? I’ve only laid eyes on her for the first time tonight. I used to think I could fall from the sky and land on top of her and she wouldn’t acknowledge me. But she does know me. We saw the evidence of that tonight. You’re shocked? Consider my shock. And it hasn’t even hit me yet. Leila’s whole history is mind-blowing. Far better my grandmother never told me.”
Corin responded sharply. “Then you’d never have come into our lives.” He rose, drawing Miranda back to the sofa. “None of us wants that.”
Zara slowly lifted her head, her beautiful face full of a heartbreaking poignancy. “So how did you and Corin get to meet?” she asked.
“Pretty much as Miranda told you.” Corin regarded his sister with compassion. “She approached me for a Rylance Foundation scholarship. She was a very promising candidate. A top-level student. She explained who she was.”
“Not quite true.” Miranda decided to intervene. Set the record straight. “Corin is putting the best possible spin on it, Zara. What really happened was that I told him Leila owed me. I had already checked her out. Checked out your family. I lay in wait for Corin, more or less cornered him, forced his hand.”
“Very enterprising too,” said Corin, with the first trace of amusement.
Miranda wasn’t to be distracted. “My life’s ambition, Zara, is to become a doctor. It’s what my grandparents worked so very hard for. They were everything in the world to me, but even they didn’t tell me the truth. I have to see it as protection, not betrayal. Just as Corin believes he was protecting you by not telling you what he had learned.”
Zara sat motionless, head bent, locked in thought.
Miranda was strong by nature, Corin thought. Zara was far more fragile. Miranda had the priceless advantage of being brought up by loving, dedicated parents. He and Zara had experienced more than their share of trauma after their mother’s death. He had been scarred to a degree. But never to the same extent as Zara. He was the son, the heir. He was male. That made a huge difference. To his father and, sickeningly as it was to turn out, to Leila. His scars had healed over. He was forging ahead in life. So was Zara. Up to a point. It was any additional damage to Zara’s psyche that was in the balance. The wicked stepmother didn’t simply exist in fiction. She made her presence felt the world over.
Miranda hadn’t enjoyed being party to keeping the truth from his sister. He was well aware of that. She hadn’t refused because she trusted him. That was all-important. Up to date Zara had trusted him too.
But now Zara remained quiet.
Please, oh, please, Zara, don’t see it as a betrayal, Miranda prayed.
Second by second dragged on. Miranda counted them with her heartbeats. Then Zara lifted her head, her lustrous dark glance embracing them both. “Start at the beginning,” she said.
Some note in her voice calmed Miranda’s trembling heart.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEY were in the apartment. Miranda had put distance between herself and Corin, her thoughts chaotic. The realisation that she had actually met her mother was starting to hit punishingly home. It wasn’t as though Leila, whatever her regrettable actions in the past, had transformed herself into a loving, caring person. Leopards didn’t change their spots. Leila was stuck with hers.
So where did that leave her, Leila’s biological daughter? She had studied the history of genetics, the chemistry of the genes. The word heredity referred to the way specific characteristics are transmitted from parent to child, from one generation to the other. Now she found herself dreading the thought that there could be traits of Leila lying dormant in her. Traits could express themselves at any time. Or had she escaped the major flaws in Leila’s character?
What did Corin think when he looked at her? Did he have nagging concerns at the corner of his mind? Who could blame him if he did? She knew sexually they were in perfect accord. But at some point he had to have fully registered she was Leila’s flesh and blood. Leila—his stepmother, the woman he loathed. Was it conceivable he was waiting for something beneath the surface in her to suddenly emerge? Tonight she had seen with her own eyes that Leila lusted after Corin. That was already gnawing away at her. It raised terrible questions. Had Corin at some time been caught in some taboo situation? No one could deny such things did happen when an experienced adult manipulated someone much younger.
Shame could encourage hatred.
Zara, before she had retired to bed, had turned to announce prophetically, “She’ll be back. You know that.”
>
“Nothing surer,” had been Corin’s response.
Corin’s greatest concern was to spare Miranda what was to come! Protective strategies had already begun to dominate his mind. Miranda, like his sister, was going into self-protective mode. He empathised with Miranda’s powerful experience of the night. Her encounter with her long-lost mother. She had been totally unprepared for such deep emotional upheaval. All things considered, she was handling it remarkably well. It only added to his admiration for her. Miranda had real character.
“Is there any way she could mount some attack on me?” she asked now, holding on to the back of an armchair as if for support. “Undermine me? Pre-warned is pre-armed. Will she get rid of me out of your lives?”
“Over my dead body,” Corin countered grimly. “Why are you over there, when I’m here?” he questioned tautly. He wanted her in his arms, but her mood was very sombre, warding him off.
Leila was no nice everyday mum. If Leila got so much as a hint he had a romantic interest in Miranda she would immediately turn to formulating ways to separate them. After all, she was mistress of that infamous art form. Though he did everything in his power to block it from his mind, he’d had plenty of experience of Leila’s seeing off anyone she saw as competition. Sick as it was, Leila still held hopes she could lure him into her bed. She’d been trying it on for years. Even now she wasn’t about to give up. She had no sense of honour. Worse, such was her colossal arrogance she thought she had only to catch him off guard. Arrogance was Leila’s defining characteristic.
“What sort of woman is my mother that she ties everyone in knots?” Miranda begged of him.
He looked back, brows knotted. “The straight answer? She’s a born manipulator. She breaks up families. She’s cunning. She’s cruel. She’ll stop at nothing to get her way. Dad is blind and deaf to all this. He’s mad about her.”
“That could stop if he ever knew the truth.” Miranda saw the strain in Corin.
“I doubt it,” he answered crisply. “She would come up with something. Some pathetic story. She wanted to tell him so often, but she loved him so much she couldn’t bear to lose his trust. She was so young, et cetera, et cetera… Sixteen. It was rape, of course. Or near enough. Overpowered by a man she knew and trusted. Her parents agreed to take her baby and rear it. She sent them all the money she could raise for years. Oh, she’s good, Miranda. Don’t underestimate her. Already she’ll be working on her case.”
“I don’t intend to inform on her. I must make that plain. I thought I would hate her, but in a way I feel sorry for her.”
“You won’t,” Corin predicted bluntly. “I can guarantee that. Are you going to come here? Sit with me?” How many times would he have to tell her she was the best thing that had ever happened to him?
“I think better over here,” she said with a shake of the head. “It’s all changed, hasn’t it, Corin?” She lamented. “Simple and sad as that. Our golden days, our stolen days, are over. I’ll never forget them. But we’re back to real life. The way things actually are. I confess I’m disappointed in you. I never thought I would be. It really hurts.”
“Hurts?” That stung him. Purposefully he closed the distance between them. Loomed tall over her. “You think I should have told Zara?” He took her by the shoulders. “You don’t know how badly traumatised Zara was as a young girl. She’s fought out of it, but a big reason for that is having Leila out of her life.”
“All right. I accept that.” She stared up at him, seeing the muscle working along his chiselled jawline. “I can see how it happened with Zara and with you. I don’t want to read more into this than I saw, Corin, but I watched you and Leila together tonight. I’m not stupid. I’m a trained observer. You know she’s in love with you. Why do you deny it? It couldn’t be more obvious.”
“Well, it’s not obvious to me,” Corin exploded, sick to death of the noxious Leila. “Leila does the big come-on on rare occasions when we’re alone. If Dad caught her at it, God knows what would happen.”
“Take a guess,” she lashed out. At Corin! But she loved him.
No matter what?
“Would he throw her out?” she suggested, with a forced little laugh. “Alternatively, would he throw you out? God, it could all end in tragedy. At the very least a huge scandal.”
“And you think I don’t know that?” Corin rasped. “Zara knows it. Leila knows it, but doesn’t seem to care. Now you know. For the record, I’d never for a single second think you stupid. You’re as smart as they come. Incidentally, Dad can’t throw me out. Zara and I have our mother’s shares, and my grandparents stand very strongly behind me. Even Dad can’t risk that sort of internal fight. Besides, I have the backing of the board. I’m regarded as top man to replace Dad. My position in that regard is quite safe. Dad needs me. Our investors are happy dealing with me if Dad is not around. I’m his Number One man.”
“And it would appear you’re also Leila’s Number One man,” Miranda said with a trenchancy that shocked her.
His glittering regard gave fair warning. “Don’t talk like that, Miranda. I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it either.” She threw up her head in challenge. “Leila has already tried something on, hasn’t she?”
No, no, no. Don’t let it be true.
Corin’s handsome features tightened into a mask. “Miranda, please accept once and for all I have no tender feelings for Leila.”
“But I’m not talking about tender feelings,” Miranda said very crisply. “Leila is one dangerous, over-sexed woman.”
“No argument there. But to put it bluntly I loathe her. She’s a viper. She did her best to cripple my mother emotionally. She succeeded in alienating my beautiful sister from Dad. But, as you so correctly identified, Leila is a very sexual person.”
“So are you!” It was out before she could call it back.
“And so are you,” he retaliated, his hands tightening on her shoulders. “Maybe I’d better remind you.” He took her face between his hands, held it still, then kissed her hard, like a brand. “I want to lead you to bed. I want to make love to you for the rest of the night. Instead we’re embroiled in an unsavoury family drama. Leila wants what she can’t have. Some people are like that. The chase is everything. She went after Dad. She got him. Only he wasn’t enough for her. As the years passed, she turned her attention to me.”
She tried to break away, but he wouldn’t allow it. “Well, it would have been a temptation, wouldn’t it? You would have been remarkable even then. A brilliant, sexy young man. I’m sorry if I’m making you angry, but I want the truth. I need it. Maybe it was all a grand illusion, but we’ve been as close as two people can be. That doesn’t mean I believed it was going to last. Or be allowed to last. We control nothing in life. We just think we do. This woman, this catalyst in our midst, is my mother. There’s no physical resemblance. She’s much taller than I am. More lavishly built. Her colouring is totally different. I have to be the living image of my father or someone in my father’s family. Someone with my distinctive colouring. The resemblance is so strong Leila recognised me immediately. She probably thinks I’m up to something. A go-getter like her? Who knows? I could have some of her characteristics in me, just waiting to break out. Ever thought of that?” She held his eyes.
“You’re nothing like Leila.” His black eyes smouldered in his dynamic face.
“Maybe you’ve only seen me at my best?”
“Don’t do this to yourself, Miranda,” he said. “Leila is a one-off. Meeting her tonight, so unprepared, has been a big shock for you.”
“More than a shock, Corin,” she said. A torrent of emotions was racing through her. “Have you ever slept with her?”
“What?” Corin’s expression turned very daunting. “I can’t believe you said that!” He held her so tightly she winced. Instantly his grip relaxed. “I’m going to forget you said that.”
“But you can’t forget.” Her beautiful blue-green eyes glittered with unshed tears. �
��You’ll always think of it now. I asked the question. Perhaps you might consider I have a right to. Have you?”
“Don’t cry. Don’t.” He wiped a tear clear of her luminous cheek. “This is the last time I’m going to say it. I loathe Leila.”
“You could very easily loathe her. That’s perfectly understandable. She tempted you against your will. It might have been years back. She’s seductive enough to make the head of a male of any age swim.”
“Never mine!” He released her as though all his former feelings for her were dissolving. “I adored my mother. There’s a sacred principle involved here, Miranda. A son’s love for his mother. My mother didn’t deliberately leave us. She loved us too much. When her car went flying off the Westlake Bridge, it was at a time when she was in terrible distress. She was at the wheel of a powerful car. Perhaps blinded by tears. She really did love my father. Then she had to confront the fact he had fallen in love with another woman, many years younger. He had brought her into the house. Forced her upon us all. His mistress. I’m sure she was. Even then. When I was seventeen, nearly eighteen—” an unmistakable note of outrage entered his voice “—Leila came to my room. Dad hadn’t arrived home. They were going to a party. She needed someone to fix the zipper on her evening dress. Zara was just down the hall. But she wanted me.”
“Of course she did!” Miranda released a long shuddering breath.
He’ll hate you for making him remember. He’ll hate you for making him recount an ugly, disturbing incident.
“You needn’t go on if you don’t want to.”
His brief laugh cut her off. “You wanted to know, didn’t you? Kindly let me finish. Weigh up the evidence, Miranda, before you sit in judgment.”
“I’m not judging you,” she protested. “I can understand this, Corin. I’ve seen Leila in action.”
“You are judging me,” he corrected flatly. “I can see it in your eyes. Eyes are the windows of the soul. So don’t back away from it. You started this. Let me finish it. I have nothing to feel guilty about in relation to Leila. She engineered it so her dress—a slip of satin—all but fell from her. Her breasts were uncovered. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Most of her body was exposed. I was supposed to be turned on. Instant arousal. Instant disgust, more like. I was supposed to be the callow boy, about to lose control. But she had it all wrong. Even without my love for my mother, my aversion to Leila, I would never betray my father. The whole situation was appalling. I remember yelling at her to get out. Get out! Get out! She wasn’t such a fool she didn’t pull up her dress and make a bolt back to her bedroom. Their bedroom—the master suite.”