A Night of Scandal

Nathaniel tipped his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. ‘The surprise isn’t that she found out, but that it took everyone so long. Sebastian and I have been waiting for this for years. We tried to keep the secret—whenever there is press coverage about my father, it affects Carrie badly. She takes a lot of medication, but even with that, it isn’t good.’

He didn’t talk about it because he was trying to protect his mother. ‘Why do you call her Carrie?’

‘Because that’s how I think of her. I stopped thinking of her as my mother a long time ago. She wasn’t really capable of being a mother. She was too ill.’

‘Is it true that you built her a cottage?’

‘Sebastian and I wanted her to have as normal a life as possible.

It’s easier to keep her condition stable when she isn’t around strangers. She lives in her own little world. Most of the time she’s happy enough. She has full-time carers who she sees as family.’

‘And what about you? Her real family?’

‘I see her whenever I’m in England. But she doesn’t recognise me. Or Sebastian.’ Nathaniel’s hands curled into fists. ‘Do you know the really frustrating thing? She talks about me all the time. “My son Nathaniel, famous Hollywood movie star …” But she doesn’t actually know it’s me. She calls Sebastian “Nathaniel” but when I visit her, she can’t seem to make the connection. Once she even asked me if I knew her son Nathaniel.’

Thinking about his bleak, loveless childhood brought a lump to her throat.

He’d learned to survive alone.

She slid along the seat and put her arms round him but he was rigid and unresponsive.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Nathaniel, you’re not fine!’

‘It’s how it is. It’s how it’s always been. I need to warn the clinic.’ Shrugging her away, he reached for his phone. ‘They need to keep her away from newspapers and television. It could have a serious impact on her emotional stability. And then I need to increase security so those jackals can’t get anywhere near her because she associates gangs of journalists with her disastrous marriage to my father. And the LA press don’t have anything on the British tabloids.’

Katie sat there, helpless, trying not to feel hurt by his rejection. ‘Are you going to call Sebastian?’

‘I’ve just sent him a text.’

One by one the doors between him and the world were slamming shut. Katie wanted to put her foot in the final crack to stop him closing her out along with everyone else.

‘You don’t think a conversation might be helpful?’

‘All he needs are the facts.’

Facts. Facts. Katie wanted to point out that there was more to conversation than an exchange of facts.

Picking up on her tension, Nathaniel turned his head and looked at her. ‘You’re upset that I didn’t tell you—’

‘No.’ She pushed the words past stiff lips. ‘It’s how you cope with things. I understand.’

‘Do you?’ His voice was hard. ‘Because if revelations about my family are going to shock you, then you’re hanging out with the wrong guy. There are more skeletons in my family than in the average graveyard.’ The brittle tone rubbed over her nerves like sandpaper and Katie tried desperately to regain some of the closeness they’d had on the island.

‘I understand why you didn’t tell me. I understand how much you must be hurting.’

‘I’m not hurting.’ The shield was up and no one was getting through. ‘I stopped hurting twenty years ago.’

Katie stared at the perfect lines of his profile, despair seeping through her.

Not hurting?

He was in agony.

And she had no idea how to reach him.

‘This place is incredible.’ They were high up in the Hollywood Hills, near the urban wilderness of Runyon Canyon. Beneath them, the sprawl of Los Angeles lay in a haze of early-morning sunshine.