‘There you are!’ Theo appeared in the doorway, his hair damp and tousled. Clean jeans and tee shirt. His forearms and fingernails were scrubbed clean. He came to stand beside her. ‘So, what do you think...?’
‘I like it a lot, but mostly I like the fact that you did it—that you took the leap.’
He smiled. ‘It was a cathartic experience.’ He turned to face her, a familiar look in his eyes. She drew a measured breath. They’d eaten takeaway in the kitchen, and then he’d gone to shower, but they hadn’t had a heart-to-heart yet, and it felt as if they could so easily slide back into their old ways. She could feel his eyes on her mouth, his hands going to her waist. He wanted to take her upstairs to bed, and she wanted it too, but first they had to talk.
She moistened her lips. ‘You haven’t asked me about how it went with Eline.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Was he really stonewalling her again? If they loved each other there could be no more hiding.
‘Theo, I know about Bram...’
His eyes narrowed.
‘Eline was telling me about her disillusionment with the industry, what her career had cost her...’ He seemed calm. She took a breath and continued. ‘No names were mentioned but I knew what she was talking about.’ She put her hands on his upper arms. ‘I know what you did, Theo: the sacrifices you made...how you lost Eline because of it. Trusting someone again... I understand why it’s been so hard for you.’
He seemed to consider for a moment and then he gently took her hands from his arms, giving them a little squeeze before letting them go. ‘Whatever Eline said doesn’t matter because I’m the only one who knows the truth about what I did and didn’t sacrifice...’
He threw a glance at the wall. ‘When I was painting this room, I was examining myself, trying to work out why I’d let you walk away, why I couldn’t face telling you about my brother—you of all people, the person who took in a lame kitten.’ He raked a hand through his hair, met her gaze. ‘And I realised that I’ve been hiding behind Eline’s mistakes because hiding was easier than being honest with myself.’
He walked to the single unpainted wall in the room and slid down it. He drew his knees up, traced a finger through the dust on the floor and then he looked up. ‘You said you want to love all of me, not just the bits I want you to see... So, because I don’t want to lose you, I’ll tell you the truth about myself and my brother so you know exactly what I am...’
Seeing him like this, his back to the wall, knees drawn up, it struck her that she was seeing him as a child, and it was turning her inside out. She went to sit beside him and hooked her arm into his.
‘I’ve been angry my whole life, Mia. I thought it was because I was just like my father. It’s what I fear more than anything...the violence inside myself. I thought that if I didn’t drink I’d be able to control it. But it’s there all the time, simmering. It’s why I run—why I work like a dog. I don’t want to give myself any corner. I have to be in control; I have to know what’s coming.’ He glanced at her, smiled faintly. ‘I didn’t see you coming...’
She squeezed his arm.
‘When Bram got sick, I bought the house on Texel, looked after him, but you mustn’t think I was being noble, or self-sacrificing. I was just trying to make amends.’
‘Amends?’
He angled himself towards her. ‘Bram protected us all and he paid a heavy price for that. My scumbag father used to...’ His mouth stiffened. ‘I’ll spare you the details.’ His chest was rising and falling, rising...falling. ‘Bram wasn’t scared of him...’ His gaze swerved to some distant point in the room. ‘Not like me. I was a useless little coward!’
‘No, Theo, no.’ Tears were thickening in her throat. ‘What are you saying...that it was all your fault?’
His eyes snapped to hers. ‘I should have done something to help, two of us against him would have been better, but I always had to take Madelon away...’
‘So you protected your sister...which was doing something.’ She shuddered. ‘Where was your mother when all this was going on?’
His eyes glazed over. ‘In the corner.’
‘Oh, Theo...’ She knelt in front of him, took him in her arms and felt a shuddering sob working its way through his body. It was unimaginable, what they’d all been through, and he’d heaped layer after layer of guilt onto his own head, just as she’d done over Hal and Ash. There seemed to be so many parallels between them, yet there were so many things she didn’t understand... Had there been no help from the authorities? Maybe Theo’s family had slipped through the net somehow. No wonder he and Madelon had involved themselves so passionately with Saving Grace.
In time she’d find out but, whatever had gone on, the experiences of his childhood had given him a seriously unbalanced picture of himself. He was no coward. He was strong, noble, kind and compassionate. He needed to see himself through her eyes. That was her job now, to correct his vision.
She released him slowly. ‘Do you remember us talking about the day I came to your hotel to ask you to meet Ash in Greenwich?’ He nodded, rubbing the back of his
