She folded her arms around her waist, to hold herself together and stop the shaking. Had she been foolish to go with her heart? Hadn’t she once trusted her mother, only to have that trust destroyed?
Her mother… Was that where her fears really came from? Was she overreacting? Perhaps it was that feeling of betrayal from her mother’s disappearance, which she had never been able to shake, that was making her doubt Theo now?
The letter!
It might contain answers. She’d realised in Finland those answers might be more complex than she had once believed. Her mother had fallen in love with Danny Charbonnet that Christmas. Freya knew that now from the memories she had recalled in Lapland. But also, from her own experience there with Theo.
Her mother hadn’t run away on a whim. And Freya would understand the choices her mother had been forced to make so much better now. Because she now knew how visceral and volatile and instant and intense love could be.
Her mother’s letter could explain so much. But even if it didn’t, she needed to confront her past, so it would not continue to taint her future.
She dashed into her bedroom, yanked open the dresser drawer and rummaged around until she located the letter she had buried there five years ago. She lifted out the bulging envelope addressed to her in her mother’s looping scrawl, postmarked with the address of a clinic in the French Alps.
She ripped the letter open, and pulled out five sheets of paper, yellowing and fragile, filled with her mother’s increasingly shaky handwriting.
Her hands began to tremble as she read the words, written as her mother lay dying. She pressed her fingers to her lips, the rush of love like a riptide threatening to pull her under as she recalled the woman she had refused to forgive for so long.
How could she have been so wrong? About everything.
Anjelica Galicois had never stopped loving her children. She had tried everything to gain visitation rights, but her father had used all his wealth and privilege to prevent her from ever seeing them again, out of bitterness…
But as Freya absorbed the truth, she began to see some terrifying parallels between her parents’ marriage and the deal she had struck with Theo…
And a warning.
A tear slipped down Freya’s cheek as she came to terms with the extent of her father’s lies, and the impossible situation her mother had found herself in once she had escaped her desperately unhappy marriage, not realising she was making a choice between the children she loved and her future happiness with Danny—the man who had supported her always—until it was too late…
As Freya folded the letter carefully and tucked it back into the envelope, she knew what she had to do. She had to escape. Again.
But as she secured the rope to the balcony balustrades, the rush of exhilaration and purpose—which had spurred her on the last time—didn’t come. Because all she felt now was the dragging weight of hopelessness and broken dreams.
All she could see was the man she still loved unconditionally—and those pure blue eyes, which held so much trauma. And secrets she was finally beginning to see he had never been willing to share, not even with her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Xander,whatareyou doing here?’ Theo’s eyes widened as his brother strode towards him, cutting through the crowd of advisers and security personnel amassed in the palace chapel’s antechamber.
Dressed in a dark tuxedo, his hair trimmed and his jaw clean-shaven, his older brother looked commanding and unruffled, and a lot more like the man Theo remembered than the last time he’d seen him—holding his baby daughter so tenderly on the video call. But from the dark scowl on Xander’s face, his brother looked a lot less relaxed, too.
Theo knew how he felt. It was less than an hour and a half to go until his wedding. And the knots that had been in his gut for days now were starting to strangle him. He’d been avoiding Freya, while handling the guardianship papers, the logistics of the land deal, and all the contracts that had to be signed. And just as he’d suspected it had been torture, not to hear her laugh, not to touch her, not to smell her, not to hold her, not to make love to her.
Thankfully, though, he didn’t have much longer to wait.
Letting her believe theirs was a romantic liaison would have been a mistake, a betrayal of the promises he’d made to her. There would always be limitations on what he could offer her. But once they were married, he’d be able to show her how much better her life could be, with him, instead of her father.
He’d sent Xander a text to inform him about the marriage and the port acquisition, so Xander would be aware of the details before the official announcement appeared in the press.
His brother hadn’t replied. But then Theo hadn’t really expected him to. After all, he was far too busy now with his new wife and child. And he would no doubt assume that Theo was simply doing what Xander himself had suggested he do on that call…
But when Xander reached him, the scowl on his face told a different story.
‘Of course I’m here, Theo. I would not miss this wedding for the world.’
But Theo heard the edge in his brother’s voice—it was an edge he recognised from the night he’d had to crawl back to their apartment and Xander had gone ballistic over his night-time activities. And also, from three days ago—when Xander had reprimanded him for ‘seducing’ Freya. The frustration and disappointment in Xander’s expression made the knots tighten around Theo’s throat.
What was his brother so furious about now? He was trying to do the right thing here—for Freya and for their business.
‘Where are Poppy and your daughter?’ Theo asked, glancing over his brother’s shoulder, not sure he was ready to meet his niece for the first time, today, when his guilt over Freya was already weighing down his stomach like a stone.
