Welcome to Mills & Boon. Jennifer Rae

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       CHAPTER TWELVE

      FLYNN IGNORED THE knock on the door the first time. He’d already spoken to Henry at the office, dealt with his father and phoned his mother. Anyone else could go jump as far as he was concerned.

      But, by the third knock, even Flynn had to admit that whoever it was didn’t seem to be going away.

      He wrenched the door open and found he couldn’t even muster up any surprise at seeing his brother on his doorstep—or Helena standing just behind him.

      ‘We’ve come for Helena’s things.’ Zeke glanced at Helena, who seemed to shrink back further, then turned back to Flynn, his jaw set and eyes full of fury. ‘And while she’s packing, you and I are going to have a word.’

      The anger that had never been more than a moment away, ever since Thea and Zeke had left, simmered up closer to the surface. ‘I suppose that’s logical. You run off with my fiancée on my wedding day, and you think now is the time to talk.’

      Zeke stepped inside and from the corner of his eye Flynn saw Helena slip in behind him, heading for the staircase. He wanted to stare, to take her in one last time, but he wouldn’t let himself. He had to cut her out of his life completely. It was good that she’d come for her things.

      ‘Nothing about this situation is logical. Flynn—’ Zeke started, but Flynn couldn’t let him finish.

      ‘So what? You don’t like the mess you left behind so you’re here to whisk Helena away too? What’s wrong with you? Is one sister really not enough?’

      He felt the punch before he saw it, the blossoming throb of pain radiating from his cheekbone as Zeke pulled his fist back. The surge of adrenalin had him wanting to return it, to break his brother’s face for coming here after everything that had happened, for acting so righteous. His hands balled up into weapons as he prepared to strike—

      Until a small hand grabbed his arm and yanked it back.

      ‘Stop it. Both of you. Idiots!’ Helena’s cheeks had spots of red in them as she glared at them both. ‘Zeke, I thought you were coming here to support me?’

      ‘And I thought you were going to do the talking,’ Zeke countered.

      Helena’s jaw tightened and Flynn couldn’t help but wonder what it was she still had to say. How could there be anything left?

      ‘Fine.’ She grabbed a bag from behind her and thrust it into Zeke’s hands. ‘In that case, you go and pack. We’ll be in here when you’re finished.’ She jerked her head towards the door of the library.

      Inside, Helena seemed perfectly at home in a room he hadn’t even realised she knew existed. With decisive strides, she made her way to the desk and, grabbing two tumblers, poured them both a whisky. Turning, she handed one to Flynn and he could see the uncertainty in her eyes, even as she ran the show.

      She thought he would reject her again, even though she’d sent Zeke upstairs to pack so she could leave him, once and for all. How many more ways were there for them to show each other they weren’t meant to be?

      ‘Okay, look, this is what’s going to happen here,’ Helena said, clutching her own glass with both hands as she sat down in the chair nearest the desk. Raising his eyebrows, Flynn followed suit, settling into his own chair. ‘I am going to tell you some things. Not because I think you deserve to hear them, and not because I think they’ll change anything.’

      ‘Then why are you bothering?’ Flynn asked because he had to try and remember which Helena this was now. It was just harder with her sitting right there, blonde and lovely and tired and hurt.

      ‘Because it matters to me. Because I need to have the full truth out there before I can move on.’ She gave a light shrug. ‘And because Thea told me to.’

      ‘Then by all means,’ Flynn said with excessive courtesy, ‘talk away.’ It wouldn’t make any difference. It couldn’t, not now.

      Helena sucked in a breath then paused as if she hadn’t expected the permission to be granted so easily. She took a sip of whisky before she started to talk.

      ‘When I was sixteen, I snuck out of the house to meet an older boy, one I knew I wasn’t supposed to see. He took me over to his friend’s house, said we’d have a little party.’

      Flynn shifted in his seat. He didn’t want to hear this, didn’t need to hear this. ‘And you were all about the parties, right?’

      Helena ignored him. ‘When I got there, they gave me a drink, then another one. And another—maybe more. I wasn’t used to alcohol so it affected me quickly. But I wasn’t so drunk that I didn’t tell them to stop when they tried to take my top off. I wasn’t so far gone that I didn’t scream when they raped me, one after another. I knew they were lying when they said afterwards that I was plastered, that I’d said yes and I just couldn’t remember. But I was too ashamed to argue.’

      The glass toppled from Flynn’s hand, rolling across the rug and leaving Scotch in its wake. Flynn watched it go, a solitary focus in a world that was shifting around him, spinning until he didn’t know which way was up any more.

      Maybe you didn’t even know who the father was. He’d said that and she’d winced. Because she hadn’t known. Because two men had taken that away from her. Had taken everything. And now she sat here relating the story in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice, as if she were putting herself apart from the memory so it couldn’t hurt her any more.

      He wanted to reach out to her, to touch her, to tell her he was listening now, but what right did he have? And what good would it do when she was leaving him anyway?

      ‘I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t have been able to look at my daughter without remembering that night, without reliving it.’

      ‘And that’s why you thought you couldn’t love your own child.’ The words rasped in his dry throat and Flynn grasped tight on to the arms of his chair to try and stop his world from tilting so far it tipped him off.

      ‘After that day, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to love anyone or anything again,’ Helena said, and when her gaze flashed up to meet his Flynn felt it all the way deep in his soul. ‘But I did. I fell in love with you, even when it was the craziest, riskiest thing I could do. And it still wasn’t enough.’

      Flynn swallowed, unable to find the words to respond. Helena drained the last of her whisky and put the glass next to a stack of paper on the desk before getting to her feet.

      ‘I gave up my child, did everything our parents wanted, and it still wasn’t enough for them. Eight years later, I married you to try and make up for my past mistakes and that wasn’t enough either. So, you know what? I’m done trying to be enough for anyone else. I’m good enough for me. I’m not a monster, whatever you think.’

      ‘Helena—I didn’t—’ Flynn started, but she held up a hand to stop him.

      ‘No. СКАЧАТЬ