Flynn held his eyes. ‘For legal reasons. To improve my chances in the custody case. That’s the only reason.’
The careful words traced a series of lethal cuts across her soul. She’d let herself forget why she was here in the first place. She’d let the magic of this place, these people, of Flynn’s kisses rob her of her good judgement. Her survival instinct.
She’d been so in love with the idea of being in love …
But Flynn was here to remind her.
‘Are you expecting that your magnanimous gesture should be enough reason for us to tolerate your continued presence here?’ Denise grated. ‘Your lies?’
‘Mum—’
‘I have nothing to say to you,’ she lashed at Flynn, her voice rich with agony. ‘You have betrayed us infinitely worse than your brother. He left in the first place because of you and then you have the nerve to bring …’ She turned her streaming eyes on Bel but couldn’t finish.
Flynn paled at his mother’s cutting words. ‘That’s exactly why we didn’t use her name. You never would have given her a chance. You liked Belinda Cluney.’
‘I loved Belinda Cluney,’ she broke in, angry and hurt. Bel’s own heart haemorrhaged. ‘But that was all lies. Has any one thing about the past eight months been true?’
Damn you, Flynn Bradley. This could all have been avoided.
‘It’s true that those little boys are your grandsons,’ Bel croaked above the din. ‘You have living, breathing reminders of Drew in your living room because of what Flynn and I have done.’
‘Would you like a medal?’ Denise scoffed, but misery saturated her words. ‘It doesn’t bring my son back.’
‘We all lost someone that day, Denise, but you have a son right here. Alive and healthy. You should be holding onto him with everything you’ve got, not dismissing him because he had the audacity to try and do something that would protect you.’
‘Bel …’ Flynn’s own voice was tight but he found her eyes for the first time in hours. Crazy how they still impacted deep down in her soul.
His mother dragged her eyes to her son. ‘What does she mean?’
Eight months of tension leached out of her in an unstoppable torrent. ‘This was all about you, Denise. Everything Flynn’s done, every lie I’ve told, was because he feared that you couldn’t deal with the truth. That it would push you too far. Because you never dealt with Drew’s loss. The son you favoured moved away from you while the other one is working himself to the bone trying to compare.’
Flynn stood and turned half-on to her to block her from his mother’s view as though that would be enough to silence her. ‘Bel, enough.’
‘That’s not true,’ Denise protested, leaning around him. ‘It nearly killed me to lose my firstborn but I’ve made myself accept it.’
‘That’s true, Bel,’ Alice murmured. ‘We all have.’
Her mind roiled. What? But everything they’d done … Why? ‘Then who …?’
All eyes shifted to the youngest man in the room. The one with the wildly lurching throat standing like a referee between the woman who raised him and the woman who married him.
‘Is that true, Flynn?’ she whispered.
Flynn clenched his jaw, failing to still the twitch pulsing wildly near his ear. His eyes looked haunted and bleak.
‘Were mine not the only lies being told?’ she asked gently.
His face creased as he began, ‘I didn’t …’ But his gaze clouded and his lips tightened and he turned his confusion to his mother as if he was only just seeing her now.
Denise’s own face mirrored his as understanding finally hit her. Hit them all. How much he’d been suffering. ‘Oh, love …’
Flynn’s chest rose and fell and Bel felt the pain of every tight breath. He hadn’t realised. He’d been projecting it all onto his mother …
‘In it or out of it, my brother was integral to the fabric of this family,’ he gritted, still struggling with the truth. ‘His loss has changed it for ever.’
Empathy washed through her. This whole thing—all the lying—was about Flynn trying to put his family back together. Trying to undo the damage he had caused when he was fourteen. And about his inability to deal with the loss of the brother he’d idolised.
‘And you thought raising his babies would change it back?’
His lips tightened. ‘He left us.’
‘He died, Flynn.’
‘He abandoned us long before that.’
She softened her voice. ‘Abandoned you, you mean?’
He froze.
‘He was your big brother. You loved him and yet he let old resentments come between you time and time again. And then he was gone and it was too late.’
Pain tightened his features, flared his nostrils. Glinted dangerously in his eyes.
She stood to face him and whispered, ‘You need these babies. They keep him alive for you. Don’t they?’ They healed him. How had she not seen it earlier? ‘You’ve never really let him go.’
His voice, thin and raw. ‘He was my big brother …’
‘I know,’ she whispered. She knew all too well what it was to be sidelined by people who were supposed to love you. ‘But you need to say goodbye.’
His eyes dropped to hers, desperate and pleading.
‘Forgive him,’ she whispered.
They stood there for moments, eye-locked, intensely private in a room full of people.
But then Denise spoke, standing as well. ‘Nothing you’ve said changes the fact that you have lied to us since the moment you set foot in this house. And now you’re using two little boys, dangling them under our noses as bait to keep you here. Tied to our son.’
‘She’s not dangling anything, Denise,’ Alice cut in. ‘Tell her, Belinda.’
Tell her that you’ll be leaving one baby behind when you fly back to Old Blighty. Tell her that some faceless, nameless bureaucrats have made an obscene decision that undermines everything you and Flynn worked for. Everything that is right.
She stared at Alice. Then at her boys. Then at Flynn who needed them so very badly.
Then she shook her head.
‘No.’ But as Flynn opened his mouth to do it for her she sped on. ‘I have not used them as bait. But I have used them for something else.’
She looked at Flynn, begging him with her eyes to understand. ‘I’ve been so broken, Flynn. I was lost and lonely and ostracised from my parents, who made me feel worthless. My own life might as well have ended when that ferry sank in Thailand. Those babies were the only thing worth living for, and fighting for the embryos gave me the first bit of hope in my meaningless existence. I became more and more obsessed with them every time someone or some law told me I couldn’t have them.’
Flynn frowned, deep and hard.
‘And then my petition was granted. And by then the embryos were the centre of my hollow, vacant world, and preparing my body for them became my entire purpose. And I somehow convinced myself that being with family—being together—was the most important thing for them. I ignored how ill-prepared I was to be a mother. How inappropriate my flat was. How little support I had without my sister. How I was going to support them, long-term. None of that mattered as long as I kept them in the family. In my family. It was such a grand purpose. And that was the urgency,’ she said, answering a question from weeks ago. ‘The urgency was in me.’
Her chest heaved with the enormity of what she was about to do and her hands shook from the terror. ‘But I was selfish. I was doing it for me, not for them. I think I lost sight of what really matters in my grief. Their health. Their happiness. But I remain resolute on one point … These boys will not be separated. Not while I breathe.’
Flynn stared at her. ‘You’re going to keep fighting for them?’
Tears filled her eyes. ‘No, Flynn. I’m finished fighting. I’m giving them to you.’
‘Bel—’ Alice gasped. Denise echoed her shocked intake of air.
‘But you’re their mother! They need you,’ F
lynn said.
She spun on him. ‘And I’m being a mother. How I feel can’t matter. Those boys will not grow up separated, only hearing about each other online.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You, of all people, should understand the importance of keeping their family together.’
Panic was written loud and clear on his face. ‘Then stay. Raise your boys here.’
Pain sliced deep into her. Asking her to stay was his clear and desperate last resort. And it would kill them both. ‘You know that’s not going to work, Flynn.’
‘We’ll make it work.’
‘A marriage based on lies will only hurt the children it’s meant to protect.’
‘We’ll make it work,’ he repeated roughly.
‘Without love?’ God, how it hurt to say that out loud.
‘I—’ He couldn’t hold her eyes.
‘She’s not welcome to stay,’ Denise chimed in, her voice thick. ‘She’s disrespected our whole family.’
Flynn snarled towards his mother. ‘She did that for me.’
Bel pushed to her feet. ‘It doesn’t matter, Flynn. I won’t stay where I’m not welcome. I won’t be treated the way Gwen was.’
Arthur dropped his gaze to his feet.
‘Then we’ll leave together,’ Flynn improvised. ‘Raise the boys together. Away from here.’
‘No!’ Alice’s voice this time.
‘I will not be responsible for breaking up your family,’ Bel cried, hoarse and heartsore. And I will not live with you, loving you, without your love. It was going to be hard enough continuing to breathe away from him.
Flynn’s face was granite. His voice dropped. ‘But you’ll have no one, Bel …’
Hearing it said out loud hurt almost as much as realising he couldn’t love her. She forced the lump blocking her throat aside long enough to swallow the pain. ‘I’ve got me. And it’s about time I started believing in myself.’
‘Bel, this is ridiculous. You can’t leave.’ Arthur finally spoke. He turned to Alice. ‘This can be worked out.’
‘No,’ Denise said firmly. The woman who’d helped bring her children into the world just a week ago now wanted her gone. Long, long gone.
Bel swung towards Flynn urgently and spoke to him as though they were alone in the room, blinking past the tears fast gathering behind her lashes. As though none of the distance or pain of the past few days existed. She spoke to him as she might have if they’d been lying in each other’s arms, determinedly not sleeping together. ‘Flynn, I lived seventeen years in enemy territory and it nearly broke me. It was unhealthy and intolerable. I cannot do that again—’
He said under his breath, ‘Then I’ll—’
‘No. You already hold yourself responsible for the fragmentation of your family. I won’t let you do what Drew did. Isolate yourself from them. For me.’
He looked to the babies.
She fought back the ache. ‘They will grow up surrounded by love and nature and wide blue open skies. They’ll run and hide and fall into the stream and track mud into the house and Alice will growl at them. They’ll be good and they’ll be bad and even when they are they’ll have three generations of family to support them and guide them—’ Despite what they might have unconsciously absorbed here today ‘—and a world of opportunity as Bradleys.
‘Forget what’s happened between us,’ she begged. ‘Just let me go. And love those boys twice as hard for me.’
He stared at her, his chest heaving, his dark eyes pained.
‘Flynn. You said to make it count.’ She wrung her hands together, twisting her fingers.
A deep frown folded down between his eyes.
‘That first day in Oberon I said I’d let you know when I knew what I wanted in return for everything we’ve done. You told me to make it count. Well, this does.’ She curled her fingers around his and his eyes dropped to the white gold ring she returned. ‘I need to go, Flynn.’
His whole family held their breath and Bel knew she’d already torn a fissure as wide as a valley in their fabric. But then he spoke, low and choked, and her heart ripped completely free.
‘I’ll drive you to the airport when you’re ready.’
She burst from the house, her eyes locked forward as she tripped down the porch steps to go and pack, heart breaking, not even pausing to say goodbye to her little men. She’d done that a hundred times since discovering the Crown’s decree, since recognising that she couldn’t bring herself to part them from each other. Every look, every touch, every kiss was a farewell. She’d stockpiled her memories and a fridge full of expressed milk and once that was gone they were on their own. Lots of babies grew up healthy and strong on formula. Alice would see them right.
‘Bel …!’
She stumbled in the snow and struggled to right herself, to keep moving. It was stupid to run from Flynn when he’d have hours with her in the car heading for the airport but, right now, she couldn’t face him. She’d never get that image out of her head. The awkwardness of his demeanour as she laid her pulpy heart out on the examination table. The dread.
That was what she’d remember most from her magical time here.
‘Bel.’ This time his hand snagged her arm and yanked her to a halt, but her furious forward momentum spun her and sent her sprawling into the freshly fallen snow. She scrabbled away from him and desperately tried to right herself but the tears streaming from her eyes made it impossible to see.
‘Bel, don’t,’ Flynn groaned, lurching headlong into the snow, snagging her foot and using it to get a better hold on her. In a heartbeat she was under him, both of them prostrate in the icy drift.
‘Don’t touch me, Flynn!’ She couldn’t bear it. To smell him. To feel him. Knowing she’d never do either again. She sobbed and shoved weakly against his weight.
‘Bel, listen …’
She struggled under him, screeching her frustration at being trapped. So very apt.
‘You can’t do this.’ He forced her face around to his. ‘Not this. It will kill you.’
Very probably. He shimmered and swam in the tears filling her eyes. ‘What else can I do? I can’t stay.’
‘We’ll get our own place, in Oberon. That’s not leaving my family.’
‘You don’t love me, Flynn.’ Her words were like blood, pumping from her fractured heart. ‘You can’t love me.’
‘Bel …’
The defeat in his voice hurt her most of all. ‘Is that what you want for me, Flynn? To live forever surrounded by people who only tolerate me?’
‘You’ll have the boys.’ It was desperate and he knew it.
‘And what kind of men will they grow up into, seeing that? What kind of lesson will that teach them?’
His frustration puffed as mist from his lips. ‘It’s something.’
‘It’s not enough. I’ve finally realised that I’m worth more. I’m worth someone’s beyond compare love, no matter how I grew up or what mistakes I made along the way. And that makes me stronger.’ Because God knew she’d had to grow strong this past year.
‘Enough to do something this unthinkable?’
No. Probably not. ‘Enough to survive it.’
‘How will you put them out of your heart?’
‘I won’t,’ she said fiercely. ‘Not any of you. But as much as remembering will hurt, it isn’t a patch on how much staying would hurt.’ She found his eyes and snared them with hers. ‘You accused me of not knowing what love looked like, of having no point of reference.’ Her chest heaved. She swiped at the tears that tumbled out. ‘You’re my point of reference, Flynn.’
And he always would be. No matter what happened today.
‘Bel—’
‘I understand, Flynn. You made me no promises. I built ice castles around a bunch of feelings I thought were there but really weren’t.’
‘Bel …’
She laughed emptily. ‘Seems to be a habit of mine. I may know what love feels like but I clearly have no idea what it looks like coming back at—’
Her teeth clacked shut.
‘I need to know something.’ He breathed down on her, frost puffing out with his words. ‘When you look at me, what do you see?’
She swiped at the tears blurring her vision and stared at him, uncomprehending. ‘I see you.’
‘Look deeper. Who do you really see?’
The fear in his gaze was evident. Bracing himself for hurt.
‘I see a boy who worshipped the ground his brother walked on and never got over being sidelined by him. I see a man who’s lived his life expecting the same kind of disappointment and who unconsciously hunts for evidence he’s been let down. Because it’s all he knows.’
Flynn frowned and then his lips tightened. ‘Why the hell would you love that man? An emotional train-wreck.’
She shrugged. ‘Even wrecks deserve their chance at love, don’t they?’ She was building her whole life on that hope. ‘But you’re so much more as well. Bright and focused and loving. Loyal and strong and enduring. And, to be honest, I’m no prize.’
‘Do you really think that?’ he said when she finally ran out of steam, his brow flat and furrowed. ‘That you’re worthless?’
She sagged, emotionally spent. ‘My whole life, I’ve lived in fear of disappointing people. Of seeing expressions like your mother’s tonight on people’s faces. I make mistakes, Flynn, a lot of them. I’m not a good fit for a man who’s scrying disappointment out wherever he goes.’
‘Yet you were willing to bind yourself to me for ever?’
She didn’t miss his use of the past tense and her chest compressed even further. She shifted uncomfortably under him, soaked to the skin on her lower side and toasty and warm on the upper. It was the perfect metaphor for how she’d been feeling all year. ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen. Poor decisions have a way of finding me.’ She sighed. ‘You’re better off being on the other side of the world from me.’
‘Who are you trying to convince?’ He smiled. ‘Me or yourself?’
She shivered.
His face sobered. ‘Are you cold, Bel?’
‘I will always be cold.’ If you’re not there. She pressed her lips together to stop their tremble.
Beauty and the Wolf / Their Miracle Twins Page 33