Modern Romance July 2019 Books 1-4. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ cabinet and stood next to him, the delicate silk of her black dress making a soft, whispering sound and the faint scent of summer flowers drifting in the air as she reached him. ‘You have a brother, Alej. It may not be the ideal scenario—but that’s a wonderful thing, surely? You’ve got a sibling—which is more than I do. Someone whose gene pool you share. Someone you can have a unique relationship with. Have you managed to find him?’

      ‘No.’ Even Alej could hear how cold his voice sounded as he answered her question, but it wasn’t nearly as cold as his heart. ‘I haven’t found him because I haven’t bothered looking for him. He was sold to a woman in America and that’s all I know.’

      ‘But surely you—’

      ‘There is no “surely” about it,’ he ground out. ‘I’m too old to believe in fairy stories, Emily. Do you really think I would track him down, so that we could have some great big family reunion? Do you honestly think he knows the background of the woman who gave birth to him? Even if he does, do you imagine that’s something he’s ever going to want to celebrate?’

      Emily didn’t answer. Not straight away. Her head was too busy buzzing with the emotional repercussions of his shocking revelation. But one thing quickly became apparent—like the agitated and muddy water of a pond which finally grew still, so you were able to see the stones on the bottom. No wonder Alej was so cold and mistrusting. No wonder he thought all women lied. Because in his experience, they did. She’d told him lies herself, hadn’t she? Big, powerful lies. She’d told him she didn’t want him. That she’d wanted other men. She’d said that because she was scared—scared of her own feelings and her mother’s unpredictable behaviour. Scared of being hurt and scared of the future.

      Even now, she’d only given him half the truth, hadn’t she? She had been too much of a coward to take that final step and to tell him what was deep in her heart. And didn’t he need to hear that, now, when he was at his most vulnerable? When he must be aching and hurting deep inside, despite the proud expression on his face.

      ‘I also need to tell you something, Alej.’

      He withered her with a sardonic look. ‘Don’t tell me your mother was a hooker, too?’

      She didn’t respond to the jibe. ‘When I told you on our wedding day there had been no other man—’

      ‘It had conveniently slipped your mind that you might have forgotten to mention one or two?’ he suggested.

      She blanked his harsh sarcasm, because of course he would lash out at her—wouldn’t anyone have lashed out in the circumstances? But he hadn’t yet made sense of his past, she realised—and maybe in a way, she had been guilty of the same. ‘No. There has been no other man because...’ she swallowed ‘...because nobody ever came close to you. And what I felt for you, I’ve...I’ve never felt for anyone else.’

      She didn’t know what kind of reaction she had been expecting from this tentative revelation but it certainly wasn’t the one she got. All his icy composure had vanished and his face now blazed with sudden fury. ‘Is this pity you dole out to me now, Emily?’ he demanded savagely, angry green fire spitting from the depths of his eyes. ‘You think that because I have revealed my shameful parentage to you, I will grab at any crumb of affection which comes my way? That the illegitimate son of a hooker and a thief will be grateful for anything he can get?’

      She saw his pain and his anger and thanked whichever self-protective instinct had stopped her from coming right out and telling him she loved him. And wouldn’t logic rather than emotion serve her better than anything else right now? ‘I don’t care about your past!’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t care who your father was or what your mother did.’

      His face was a mask. ‘I didn’t tell you because I wanted your affirmation,’ he said coolly. ‘I only told you because you asked.’

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