by Annie O'Neil
“Got it in one.” Amanda gave him a thumbs-up. “If I were a psychiatrist I would probably chalk it up to attention-seeking. My parents were always away at parties, or hiding me away from their guests when they entertained at home. Then there was boarding school, when they grew tired of holding interviews for new nannies. During the holidays I was trotted out and expected to...” She looked up to the ceiling, searching for the perfect word. “Perform, I guess.”
“What? Like a circus animal? ‘Show us your tricks, you clever girl?’”
Matthew’s eyes had widened in disbelief. It looked as if his parents hadn’t gone down that route.
“Pretty much,” Amanda answered, suddenly remembering the conversations she’d been forced to have in French, and later Italian, with visiting guests from the continent. “I guess all that performing on demand stuff brought out the rebel in me. That and my parents were never home long enough to take a blind bit of notice of the fact that their daughter was turning into a hellion.”
Matthew smiled. “I would’ve enjoyed seeing Amanda the hellion.”
The light drained from her heart at all the bad memories.
“No. You wouldn’t have.” She folded her hands together and stared at them as she continued. “I partied a lot. Too much. I was studying pre-med, but I found things easy enough that running away at weekends to drown myself in Cosmos or G&Ts or whatever the drink of the moment was seemed like a good thing. A fun thing...”
“Until...?”
She looked up and met his inquisitive gaze.
My God, he has beautiful eyes. And when he learns this about me they’ll be filled with scorn and he will leave me too.
Her heart cinched tight. Not telling him would have the same effect. And she needed to give Tristan the chance to have a father. If being a father was what Matthew wanted.
“One weekend things went well beyond crazy. I had a trust fund. A big one. My friends had much the same and we—we jumped on a plane and went to Las Vegas.”
“Sounds expensive, but it doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world.” Matthew leaned forward and put a hand on her knee. “Why are you still beating yourself up about it?”
She looked at his hand, doing her best to ignore the warmth shifting from his body to hers. As she spoke she watched his fingers, waiting for their response to what she said next.
“I got married.”
And there goes the comforting hand.
Matthew sat back on the sofa as he took in the news, but to his credit he didn’t look judgmental. Just curious.
“And your husband...?”
“He was a nice enough guy. Older than me by a few years. In the British army.”
She only just stopped herself from giving him a wink and saying that therefore Matthew was obviously her type. But John and Matthew were worlds apart.
“He was on leave and undecided about whether or not to sign up for another tour or retire and start the specialty car repair garage he’d always talked about with a couple of his mates.”
Darkness began to shadow her heart. He hadn’t been that bad. And he’d only slapped her just the once. But once had been enough for her to say what she really thought of him once her rose-colored glasses had shattered.
She swallowed and forced herself to continue, barely recognizing her own voice as she explained, “He knew I was a trust fund kid and—unbeknownst to me at the time—he saw me as a way to not have to work for a living. Just...party. Fund his garage. Buy a cool car. But when we got back my father went ballistic. He put a stop on my accounts. Took all my credit cards. Said if I was old enough to get married I was old enough to look after myself. My mother was... She looked absolutely disgusted when I told her what I’d done.”
“Tough love?” Matthew said, as the silence in the room demanded filling.
“Something like that.” She kept on talking, because she only wanted to tell this story once. “Once John found out I was no longer rolling in it a whole different side to him came out. A mean one. He drank—but not for fun.”
“Why did he drink?”
Matthew’s jaw tightened, and again she saw his hackles rise on her behalf. The empathy that shone from his eyes gave her the courage to tell him the horrible things she would have willingly had erased from her mind if she’d been able to.
“The truth?”
Matthew nodded. That was what they were here for.
“He wanted to drown out the fact that he’d married a university student who still had five more years of medical school to attend before she earned so much as a penny. I was still young enough—arrogant enough—to believe I had been put on this earth to be a doctor and I wasn’t going to settle for anything less. I told him if he wanted to live off me once I was working he’d have to put some graft in too. Sign up for another tour in the army while I carried on at med school. He resisted. I became more insistent. The fights grew meaner. Angrier. He told me the only reason I was in med school at all was because my parents had given millions to the university. That the uni had had to take me so they could flaunt the Wakehurst name.”
Her shoulders slumped at the memory. She’d worked so hard to get in. And even harder to get out. To prove she was as valid a candidate as anyone else.
“And then one day we fought so bitterly he hit me.”
Her hand flew to her cheek, as if reliving the moment. It hadn’t been the pain so much as the shock. Outside of her parents, no one had ever treated her as if she were so insignificant...worthless. Unfit to be loved. And John had repeated each and every one of those things until he’d all but ground them into her very cell structure.
When Matthew finally spoke his voice came out as a growl. “Where is he now?”
Amanda looked up at him, tears falling freely from her eyes, and said the only thing she could. “Dead.”
His expression remained unchanged. “How?”
“I’d told him he was useless. That a real man would go out and work instead of getting drunk and hitting his wife, and the next morning he was gone. He signed up for another tour and a few weeks later...” A sob escaped her throat but she forced herself to finish. “There was a knock at the door.”
“Killed in action?”
She nodded, too tired to spell it out. Matthew was smart, and he had been in war zones himself. He knew how these things went.
“My parents were still refusing to see me, so I threw myself into med school. I couldn’t get enough of it. Treating patients was a way of dealing with my own grief.”
“Did you love him?” Matthew asked softly.
Amanda shook her head. “Of course I thought I did at first, but once the cocktails wore off and the money dried up reality hit like a two-ton lorry. It was obvious to just about everyone—including me—that we’d made a massive mistake. If things hadn’t ended the way they did I have no doubt I’d be a divorcee instead of a widow.”
She could have dealt with that. But carrying the guilt that her words had sent John to a war he’d never returned from... She’d barely been able to look his parents in the eye at the funeral. And they’d made it more than clear that she wasn’t welcome at the wake.
Throwing her energies into work, doing her best to help people at their weakest, most frightened moments, seemed the only way to try and make amends.
“How did you and your parents come to mend fences for the SoS ball?”
“Ha!” Amanda surprised herself by cackling—a counterbalance to the raw, searing pain of admitting how her reckless behavior had led to such a horrible turn of events. “When I got a job running an A&E in Chelsea they thought it was okay to trot me out amongst their crowd again. And by then I didn’t really care. I was... I was completely numb until—”
“Until?” Matthew leant forward again.
Amanda’s breath caught in he
r throat when she looked up, and her gaze meshed with Matthew’s so perfectly she wondered how fate could have been so generous as to have put Matthew in her life. Given her her precious son.
“Until I met you.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
MATTHEW’S HEART EXPLODED in his chest.
Hope clashed with fear as his brain caught up with the rapid flow of events to remind himself he wasn’t a safe bet. He didn’t do commitment. But when Amanda had told him her husband had hit her... He’d known damn straight that he’d go to bat for her any day of the week. Even if meant risking his heart.
Was that what this was? The heart pounding in his chest? The blood pumping through his veins with a vigor—a lightness—he hadn’t felt before? Was he actually letting himself fall in love?
“The charity ball was a...a very nice night.” He eventually allowed.
“That’s putting it mildly.” Amanda stretched her leg out and gave him a playful shove on the knee, but not two seconds later the light left her eyes. “When I saw you it was like coming out of a coma.”
“With you looking so miserable, I don’t know if it that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Matthew joked, only to receive another play-kick.
“It was very good thing...even if it did cost me.”
“Cost you how?”
“Oh...my parents didn’t like my decision. They thought my keeping Tristan was like wearing a scarlet A—proof I had never really grown out of my wild-child phase and...” She looked up at him, an unexpected hint of naughtiness sparkling in her eyes. “I suppose with the right man ripping my dress off there is a side of me I can’t control. Not that there have been heaps of them. Men, I mean,” she quickly qualified. “You were kind of a... You were a One Night Only special.”
Matthew tried to contain the swell of pride he felt as Amanda made it clear he had as strong an effect on her as she did on him. Tonight wasn’t about bolstering his ego. It was about Amanda. And their son. She was trusting him with her darkest memories, and instead of running for the hills he knew in his heart he wanted to honor them. Honor her.
She worked hard. Had obviously turned her life around on her own. Yes, she had her aunt, but she hadn’t come to him begging for hand-outs—Ah. That was why she hadn’t told him. She’d wanted to prove to herself she could do it on her own because her parents and her husband had made her believe she was worthless. Capable of nothing.
“And calling me to tell me you were pregnant would have meant risking another rejection?”
Amanda smiled shyly. “You should’ve been a shrink, Dr. Chase. Or a mind reader.”
“Let’s just say I have a rough idea where you’re coming from.”
She raised her eyebrows, her curiosity clearly piqued. But she didn’t press. And he was grateful to her for that. On top of the whole discovering he had a son thing he was just about covered on the “things to mull over” front for the foreseeable future. No doubt about it.
But his heart was going against the tide, insisting he already knew what to do. Get to know this woman. Cherish her. Love her. Protect her. And Tristan, too.
But he was built of history, and history dictated that he wasn’t the man for the job. Giving Amanda what was best might not be the fairy tale ending she was hoping for—but he’d find a way to help.
He watched as Amanda’s body became consumed by a yawn—one of those head-to-toe numbers that only came from emotional exhaustion.
“Looks like someone needs their bed.” He stood up and offered her his hand.
She took it and rose, looked him squarely in the eye and shook her head. “Can’t. I’ve got to let Auntie Florence get some sleep. Concussion Watch continues.”
“Let me do it.”
Amanda looked as shocked as he felt by the offer. And then another full-body yawn rippled through her.
“Go on.” He turned her around and gave her a gentle nudge toward the door, only just resisting giving her pert derriere a short caress as she took a step on to the stairs. “Show me the way and I’ll stay with Tristan.”
The name felt unfamiliar, but sweet on his tongue. Tristan. His little knight.
Amanda shot him a dubious look, but after a quick eye-scrunch eventually shrugged, as if to say, Okay, whatever you want, and started shuffling up the stairs in her big fluffy slippers.
He stood out in the corridor while he heard her murmuring an explanation to her aunt. When Florence came out of the room she didn’t say anything, but pressed her hand to his forearm, gave it a squeeze and gave him a nod, as if a future between him and Amanda was a done deal.
As Florence walked up another swirl of stairs to her room he was struck by how—in just those few tiny moments—he’d felt more a part of a family than he had since his brother had died.
“Right. You ready?” Amanda poked her head out of the dark bedroom and waved him in, keeping her voice low. “He’s still sleeping, but his vitals are all checking out well. No signs of anything other than a tired little boy with a bit of a gash on his head.”
Matthew stood by Amanda, looking down at the small figure tucked into a low trundle bed beneath a navy duvet, surrounded by soft toys and books. Curly hair had gone haywire on the pillow. Small hands were clutching a well-loved rabbit.
His son.
The swell of emotion in his chest grew so tight it was almost painful. Was this what love at first sight truly was? A parent’s love for their child?
He wondered how his own parents had found it so easy to forget that he’d still needed love after Charlie died. Not seeing how their silent looks and cold words had all but killed his own will to live. Looking at his own son now, he was grateful he had turned the cold, isolated pain and guilt of his childhood into a burning desire to do one good thing.
Tristan—he knew it in the very center of his soul—was his one good thing.
“C’mere.” He sat down on the chaise longue, leaving one leg on the floor. “Use me as your pillow. Watch your son for a bit.”
Amanda gave him a well-deserved wary look. Components of his personality he’d never known existed kept leaping to the fore. The gallant gent. The astonished father. The caring husb—No. They weren’t anywhere close to that yet, but...
He gave her arm a reassuring rub. “I won’t bite. And you deserve a rest.”
Still giving him a wary sidelong glance, she lowered herself to the upholstered base, throwing him a hesitant look over her shoulder. “This is a bit weird.”
He nodded. “I know. For tonight, shall we just pretend it’s normal?”
Again the dubious look. “We don’t have a ‘normal.’”
“True.” He beckoned with his hands for her to join him. “Doesn’t mean we can’t start making one.”
“Yeah, right.” She sniggered. “You and me? Normal?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
Like him being possessed by The Guy Who Wants to Stick Around, for starters.
Amanda suppressed another yawn.
“Okay, sleepy bear.” He scooched further back on the chaise to make more room. “Don’t fight nature. Lean back and watch your son.”
Amanda began to, and then abruptly whirled around, pointing an accusatory finger. “No hanky-panky.”
He laughed. “What we got up to was not hanky-panky.”
The air instantly thickened between them.
Amanda’s eyelids cloaked her hazel irises for a moment, before opening to show him he hadn’t been the only one reliving that night.
“No hanky-panky,” she whispered.
He crossed his heart. “I’m not saying the thought hasn’t crossed my mind, but tonight I vow not to ravage every delicious curve of your body.”
“Delicious?” She quirked an eyebrow, as if it was a complete revelation that he had something n
ice to say about her sensuality.
Off the charts wasn’t even close to describing how he thought of her.
“Michelin-starred delicious,” he confirmed soberly. “Never had better.”
“Oh. Well...” She rearranged her surprise into a playful of-course-I-was face and finally leaned back against him, as if the topic were now a signed and sealed deal. No hanky-panky for tonight... But in the future? To be determined.
He smiled as she settled back, remarkably pleased that they were adding yet another layer to their relationship. Was this what being content...happy...was all about?
Amanda held herself rigidly at first, and then, as their breathing began to match each other’s, his fingers weaving between hers and twisting into a folding of arms and hands across her belly, Matthew felt her begin to genuinely relax against him, ultimately letting her full weight rest against his chest until eventually, to the steady beat of his heart, she fell asleep.
At that moment Matthew knew there was another good thing he could do, and he prayed with all his might that he’d have the courage to do the second.
* * *
Amanda stretched and yawned like a well-rested cat, hardly able to remember when she’d slept so well. She rolled to her side, delighted to see the tree branches outside her window were hidden beneath a thick layer of snow. She fell back onto her pile of pillows and grinned.
And then her mind caught up with the unfamiliar sensations of feeling protected and cared for. And in her bed. Hadn’t she fallen asleep on the chaise longue? With Matthew?
Her eyes popped open.
Matthew was downstairs with her son.
She pulled a dressing gown over her onesie, rammed her feet into her unicorn slippers and virtually skied down the stairwell, first to Tristan’s room—which was empty—and then to the kitchen, where she heard the low rumble of Matthew’s voice and also...
She screeched to a halt and forced herself to listen outside the kitchen door.
Tristan’s laughter.
She pressed her ear to the swing door, doing her best not to set it swinging.