Billionaire Bosses Collection. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ my other responsibilities.’

      ‘Did she force you to choose between her and them?’

      ‘In a way, yes. I can’t blame her. I put them first, but how could I not? Charlie was still basically a kid and Mother was still stuck in a state of bewilderment. They needed me. In the end, Verity and I agreed to call it a day.’

      But to outsiders it had looked like a cold-hearted parting, she thought. Perhaps Roscoe bore some of the blame for that, hiding his feelings and turning a blank face to the world, but it had left him in terrifying isolation. He’d said that nobody had ever been his before, and it was true. Pippa clasped him more closely, seeking to offer him a warmth and love that would make up for the aching loneliness in which he’d lived, a loneliness that left him always prepared for betrayal, ready to expect it as natural and inevitable.

      Now she recalled the words with which he’d greeted her, a few hours and a lifetime ago.

      ‘Why did you think I wouldn’t come? Surely we’d agreed?’

      ‘Yes, but I thought you’d remember that you were angry with me, and with reason. I behaved badly.’

      ‘When? I don’t remember.’

      ‘When I discovered that you knew something I hadn’t told you, about my father. You’ll despise me, but I couldn’t bear that. It made me feel spied on.’

      ‘You like to control how much people know about you,’ she mused. ‘It’s safer, isn’t it? ‘

      ‘Much safer. No—’ he checked himself instantly ‘—it feels safer but, if you give into it, it’s actually the way to go mad. Once I knew what you’d discovered, I had to head in the other direction, even though leaving you was the last thing I really wanted. But it was like being driven by demons.’

      ‘Mmm, I know about those demons,’ she murmured. ‘They scream, This way lies safety. So you take that path, but you find that it leads to a howling wilderness, then to a cage. And you know you must escape it soon or there’ll never be a way out.’

      ‘You have to decide whether you want to live in that cage for ever, or venture out and take the risks of being human,’ he agreed. ‘But if you don’t take those risks—’ his arms tightened about her ‘—then you stop being human. And perhaps you need to find the one person who can make you want to take them.’

      ‘Then maybe it’s time I took a risk,’ she said.

      ‘How do you mean?’

      ‘Asking you about your father. You’ve already told me to back off—’

      ‘I didn’t mean—’

      ‘But I’m not going to do that. I’m going ahead, even if it makes you angry. Perhaps you need to be angry, so tell me what happened when he died. Were you very close to him?’

      ‘Close?’ He seemed to consider the word. ‘I hero-worshipped him. I thought he was a great man, starting from nothing and building up a huge business. He had power and that was wonderful. Which just goes to show how naive I was. I was as immature in those days as Charlie is now.

      ‘I was so proud when he took me into the business, told me I had the brains for it. We were a team, working together to conquer the world, so I thought. It was only after he died that I discovered the mountain of debt, the rip-offs, the deceit. He’d lied to everyone; my mother, who never knew he had a succession of mistresses bleeding him dry; virtually everyone he ever worked with, and me, who trusted him totally, was so proud at being close to him, and then discovered that we weren’t close at all.

      ‘I’d been so smug, so self-satisfied, sure of my place inside the loop, and all the time I’d been kept on the outside, like the fool I was.’

      Pippa pulled herself up, turning so that she could look down at his head on the pillow. ‘Don’t put yourself down,’ she said.

      ‘Why not? A fool is the kindest thing I can call myself. If you knew how ashamed and humiliated I felt at how easily he took me for a ride. He knew he could deceive me more than anyone else.’

      ‘Because you were his son and you loved him,’ she urged. ‘He made use of that. Shame on him, not you.’

      In the dim light she could just make out his wry smile.

      ‘That’s the sensible point of view. Back in those days it didn’t help a distraught boy who’d been conned by a father he damn near worshipped and only found out when it was too late to ask any questions. He was dead. I went to see him lying on a slab—cold, indifferent, safely gone beyond the world, beyond me. I wanted to scream at him—why hadn’t he trusted me? We could have fought for the business together. But he’d chosen to walk away, leaving me behind.’

      ‘He rejected you,’ she said softly, ‘left you stranded without warning. No wonder you’re sensitive about what other people know about you.’

      ‘Stranded without warning,’ he murmured. ‘Yes, that was it. Suddenly I was standing on the edge of a cliff that I hadn’t even known was there. No way forward, no way back, nobody I could talk to.’

      Nobody I could talk to. The words were like an epitaph for his entire life. His bond with his father had been an illusion, his mother took everything and gave little, Charlie took everything and gave nothing. He was like a castaway stranded on a desert island.

      ‘Was anyone with you when you went to see him on the slab? Your mother?’

      ‘No, she couldn’t bear very much. There were so many things she mustn’t be allowed to know.’

      ‘The other women?’

      ‘Yes. She’d heard rumours, I denied them, swore that I’d never heard of his being untrue to her. I was afraid she’d kill herself as well if she knew. It’s ironic. I blame Charlie for telling stupid lies, but I’ve lost count of the really black lies I’ve told, the deceptions I’ve arranged, the people I’ve bribed to stay out of my mother’s way in case they let something slip.’

      ‘That’s different. Sometimes you have to lie to protect people you love. That’s not the same as self-serving lies. I don’t suppose you told her the state the firm was in either.’

      ‘Not completely. I hinted that we weren’t as prosperous as we might be, but I spared her the worst. Sometimes I think stocks and shares are the only part of my life where I’m actually honest.’

      ‘Deception doesn’t make you dishonest,’ she said seriously. ‘It’s the kind of deception that counts. You’re the most honest man I’ve ever met. I know that Roscoe, because I know you.’

      After what he’d told her about how he resisted anyone’s eyes, it was a daring thing to say. Perhaps it was too soon for him to relax under a knowing gaze, even hers. But then she saw his face transfigured by joy and relief.

      ‘You know me,’ he echoed softly. ‘That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. Now I’ll never let you go.’

      Heaven must be like this, she thought, nestling against him. If only they could be undisturbed for ever.

      Pippa was to remember СКАЧАТЬ