She watched his fists flex around the wheel again, the tension rippling through his body.
‘How did you find out?’ It was then she understood the cause, the distant tone to his voice giving away the internal reflection going on beneath. He was thinking on his own parents. He was angry at them. Just as he’d been the night in her office—
‘You don’t need to tell me.’
His prompt pulled her up and she looked to the road, trying to ignore the way the memory of that night chilled her. Or was it just the memory of what Charles had done?
No, it wasn’t that. Charles no longer seemed to carry the same weight, which would be a good thing, if not for the cause of that switch being sat right alongside her.
‘No, it’s fine,’ she said. ‘To be honest, it became impossible to miss in the end. There’s only so much lipstick on the collar, weird credit-card purchases and mistaken text messages a woman can take before she has to open her eyes to it.’
‘He didn’t come right out and tell you.’
‘Hell no, I had to yell it out of him.’ She grimaced as she remembered that particular fight, but not with the familiar ache of loss, more with shame over the foolish way she had ranted. She never should have given him the satisfaction of seeing how much it had hurt.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pressed,’ he said gently, his hand moving from the wheel to rest upon her leg and making her flinch with the bolt it sent through her. He lifted it away immediately, misreading her reaction and apologising again.
‘It’s okay,’ she said, pushing back the ache to have his hand return. ‘It’s a relief really. At least it happened before we ended up married, or, worse, had children.’
She sensed the air tighten and immediately realised her faux pas—shit. ‘I’m sorry.’
He flicked her a look, his eyes strangely dark and haunted, and her heart ached inside her chest—he suffered, no matter how strong he appeared. ‘Why?’
‘Your parents, your...your...’
Words failed her. It didn’t feel right to discuss something that she had gleaned from sources other than him, and unpleasant sources at that.
‘You can say it,’ he said. ‘Believe me, I’ve had years to get used to it.’
She swallowed. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t like the gossip columns at the best of times and stuff like that shouldn’t be splashed around for the amusement of others. I wish I could un-see it all.’
He surprised her with a smile, his eyes softening to look at her and taking her breath away. ‘You and me both.’
Emotion welled, their budding connection encouraging her to try for more. ‘It must have been hard growing up like that. I know you said Julia had it rough, but for you and your brothers it can’t have been much better.’
He gave a small shrug. ‘We had some good times. Dad was home six months of the year and during that time we would make the most of it.’
‘When did it change?’
‘In my teens. My brothers and I were getting older and liked having our own space. There was less need for them to be with us and they seemed less and less interested in each other. Of course, the rumours in the press didn’t help with that.’
‘No,’ she said quietly, easily filling in the blanks. ‘I can imagine.’
‘And then one day, he left. The next thing we knew he’d been found dead and his mistress made clear whose bed he’d been in when it happened.’
She watched his knuckles whiten around the wheel, the intensity of his stare through the windscreen clawing its way through her gut, and she couldn’t stop herself reaching for him. Her fingers resting over his thigh.
‘Do you really have nothing to do with your family now?’ She knew what she’d read but she just couldn’t get her head round it. His closeness to Julia. His obvious love. Could they really be so bad that he’d turned his back on them?
He was quiet and still. He didn’t even seem aware of her hand upon his leg. And then he turned to her, his eyes scanning her face. ‘You say it like you can’t believe it possible.’
He looked back to the road. Should she drop it? Did he want her to?
But she knew she was close to understanding him, and she wanted that, no matter the risk that posed to her just-in-it-for-the-fun stance.
‘They’re still your family.’
‘They were my family,’ he said. ‘If we had weathered the storm together and then tried to make a normal life of it maybe things would have been different. But when the cameras arrived, everything became an act, a farce. I couldn’t even tell you what was true and what was fake, put on for publicity’s sake.