“You had a thing?”
“Only in her mind. But that doesn’t seem to make a difference. It’s the way of the world, isn’t it? People falling for the wrong people. I suppose it wouldn’t be life if it wasn’t complicated.” He watched her. “I saw you running past with Evie earlier, on your usual route. You were laughing. What happened?”
Her usual route.
She’d been here a little over three weeks, but she’d developed a routine. It was funny how quickly that had happened.
Usually the run was the perfect end to her day, and it had been tonight until that phone call.
“I spoke to my mother.”
He picked up his beer. “That explains why you needed a large glass of wine.”
“It does? How?” She took a sip of the wine. It was cold, dry and exactly what she needed.
“I’m going on personal experience. Speaking to my father has the same effect on me.” He gave a humourous laugh and lifted the bottle to his lips. “Frustrating, isn’t it? Filial duty. There are times when you want to walk away from it, but loyalty and love keep you coming back for more.”
Loyalty and love.
He was right. He was so right.
And she always made excuses for her mother. She’d had a tough time growing up. She was focused on the business. She was putting pressure on Abby because she wanted her to be the best she could be.
“She never answers my questions!” Abby blurted the words out. “I do everything I can to please her. I twist myself into a pretzel. I deliver everything she wants, on time and with a smile. I never let her down. Never step out of line. I try and be the perfect daughter, but I ask her one personal question—just one—and she cuts me off.”
He lowered the bottle to the table. “Why do you have to be the perfect daughter?”
She was thrown. She’d expected him to ask what her question had been.
“Simple answer? My mother is the sort of person you don’t want to disappoint. It has always been the two of us—we have no relatives. I admire her, I really do. More than anyone else I know. She’s strong, capable and clever and she can be intimidating, but I always remind myself she had a tough time when she was young. What she has achieved is nothing short of incredible.” She stopped.
She was doing it again. Justifying. Making excuses. Why did she keep doing that? And she realised with a flash of regret and panic that she’d said far, far too much. Now he was going to start questioning her about her mother’s achievements and she was going to have to dodge around the subject the way she did whenever the subject was raised by anyone at the hotel.
Fortunately, he didn’t.
“So you’re pretty close.”
She liked to think she and her mother were close, but were they? Really? It was slowly dawning on her that there was a great deal she didn’t know about her mother. She had so manyquestions but there was no point in asking them because her mother was always evasive.
Whenever she asked about that early period in her mother’s life, she brushed the questions aside.
It doesn’t matter what went before, she’d always told Abby.It has no relevance to the present.
But that wasn’t true, was it?
Because she was pretty sure that her presence here had something to do with her mother’s past history.
“We’re not close in an emotional sense. I don’t think my mother is capable of that. And I understand, I really do. Her dad walked out when she was eleven leaving her to care for her sick mother—I mean, what kind of guy does that? And then my dad died before I was born—I think she figured out that it’s safer to do things alone. She’s never had anyone she can rely on. No one to lean on. I have always felt a responsibility to be reliable and exactly what she wants. I was determined to be the one person who never disappointed her. But she even keeps me at a distance.” She thought of her mother sayingrely on yourself, Abby, not other people.It sounded good in theory, but in practice it was a lonely way to be. She had no family other than her mother and no real friends. Until now. “Sorry, that was far too much information. I’m embarrassed.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t need to hear any of this.”
“Don’t apologise. It’s good to know you’re human.”
“You don’t think I’m human?” The tension was slowly releasing its grip on her. She realised she probably should have had something to eat along with the wine, which had already gone to her head. A warm, relaxed feeling was slowly spreading through her body.
“I think you keep yourself hidden,” Tristan said slowly. “You’re afraid to show who you really are.”
