How could he have forgotten?
‘They covered it up,’ he managed at last, his voice sounding so, so far away. Lost in his own head.
‘Yes, to protect the young mother and her child. The press would run stories because of Celine’s death, and therefore the circumstances would have been front-page news. The family of the mother and daughter would have been hounded for months. Maybe years. He said it was felt that Celine would have wanted to protect them.’
Louis jerked his head up and down in what passed for a nod.
‘She would never have wanted those families to go through any more pain than they would already have been in. Neither would she have wanted people pointing the finger at Rainbow House. Back then there were people who already objected to having a place for people with learning difficulties on their doorstep. My mother wouldn’t want to have given them any more ammunition.’
‘No one could never have anticipated that your father would use the cover-up to tell you such a cruel lie. You can’t blame yourself.’
Fury howled inside him, tearing and clawing. He wanted to rage. At the world. At his parents. At himself.
‘I don’t,’ he ground out.
And he didn’t, at least not for that part of it. But how could he have believed his father—a man who made his career on lying and being vindictive as much as his talent—over what he knew in his heart to be true about his mother? How could he have ever imagined she would have chosen to take her own life? What kind of a son did that make him?
What kind of a person did that make him?
No loyalty. No trust. No belief.
Suddenly he realised Alex was cupping his face in her hands as though she could anchor him while the terrible storm wailed around his head. As though she could save him.
But she couldn’t.
No one could.
He had to protect her. She deserved better, so much better, than him. She deserved someone loyal and honourable, someone who would stand by her side no matter what. Clearly, he wasn’t that person. He never had been. The press were right.
‘Tonight you will pack to leave. The wedding is off.’
‘No,’ she cried. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’
He’d only felt helpless once before in his life. The night his father had told him that his mother had given up on existence, on herself, on him, and taken her own life. Louis was determined that tonight, the night he had discovered it was all a lie, wasn’t going to be a second time.
‘It makes perfect sense.’ He finally found the strength to move. To take Alex’s hands and tear them away from his face. To step away from her. To cross the room. Seeing her desperation only made him feel furious, powerless and mournful all at once. He couldn’t understand the emotions raging through him. He only knew that, whatever they were, they had to be as far removed from love as it was possible to get.
Because that was the one thing he clearly wasn’t capable of.
‘The only person at fault here is your father—you can’t let him win. You must learn to forgive yourself.’
A tear tracked its way down her cheek and his stomach churned at the realisation that he’d hurt her. Immeasurably. He’d been a fool to imagine it could have turned out any other way.
But equally quickly, anger washed over the guilt. For her part, had Alex been honest with him? She certainly hadn’t been honest with herself.
‘Alex, we’ve been through this before. You talk about me forgiving myself, but you still haven’t forgiven yourself.’
Her eyes flashed, but he didn’t miss the shadow of panic.
‘Of course I have. That’s why I volunteer at Rainbow House. Because I’ve accepted my past and I’ve made peace with it. I don’t push it away like you do.’
‘But you still haven’t accepted it, Alex. You don’t volunteer at Rainbow House because you’re at peace with yourself, you volunteer because you’re still trying to earn your father’s love. You might have stopped blaming yourself for your mother’s death, and for not being the saviour sibling you had been intended to be, but deep down you don’t think your father has stopped blaming you.’
‘That’s enough,’ Alex gasped, her hand pressed to her chest as if he was ripping out her very heart.
He knew he might as well have been.
But he couldn’t stop now. He had to tell her, lay it all out there. She deserved better and he couldn’t bear the thought of being the one to tie her down, trap her and disappoint her.