Dora felt sick. This was the flipside of Della’s affair. This devastated woman who had carefully made up her face so that she could go to her son’s engagement party.
Her eyes felt hot. She was out of her depth. Her sister had taken Nuria’s husband. Now Dora was taking her son. What could she possibly say that would in any way make up for that?
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry for what Della did. I know you probably won’t believe me, but she never wanted to hurt you. And she didn’t plan to get pregnant.’
‘I’m sorry too.’ Nuria smiled at her sadly, her irises suddenly very green. ‘Sorry for what my husband did...what I let him do.’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘Do you love my son?’ The older woman was suddenly fighting to speak. ‘Do you love Charlie?’
Dora felt her heart swell. Always, before she had met Charlie, she had been scared. Scared to trust, scared of hoping to find her place in the world, and most of all she had been scared to love.
She had hidden those fears from everyone except her sister, but then she had met Charlie, and he had pulled her close even as she was pushing him away, held her and comforted her and made her see that she mattered, that she had always mattered.
‘I didn’t want to,’ she said slowly. ‘Not at first. In fact, I hated him.’
Shivering, she thought back to that first time they’d met. She knew now that it hadn’t been hate she had felt, but fear—fear of that irresistible pull between them and the knowledge that what she was feeling would mean giving away a part of herself for ever.
And she had done it anyway.
‘Only then I got to know him and now I love him. Like I loved Della...like I love Archie.’
Was she making it clear enough? If only she could sing it, she thought with a wrench.
‘I don’t know how to describe it except that when I’m with him I don’t want that day to end, and every morning when I wake up I can’t wait to spend another day with him.’
‘And he feels the same way,’ Nuria said softly. ‘He’s not been raised to show his feelings, but—’ her voice broke a little ‘—but I know my son, and he loves you very much.’
Dora stared at her in silence, struggling to breathe, let alone speak, wanting to believe her words.
But Nuria was Charlie’s mother—she saw what she wanted to see. And why would she think that her son was marrying for anything other than love?
Dora’s hands tightened around Archie. She could end this now. Stop the lies and the guilt filling her chest like a dark cloud. But how could she tell Charlie’s mother than her son had never and would never love her?
Nuria looked her directly in the eye. ‘So please, please, do a better job of protecting him than I did.’
‘There you are. I’ve been looking for you—’
She and Nuria turned as one. It was Charlie.
His dark eyes moved from Dora’s face to his mother’s. ‘Everything okay?’ he asked slowly.
Dora blinked. She had just told his mother that she loved him, and more than anything she wanted to tell Charlie too. But she had already given away so much to him that she would never get back.
‘Everything’s fine. I’m going to take Archie back out to the party now. Don’t forget we’re making the announcement at three.’
Charlie watched as Dora slipped through the door. His heart was pounding. He felt dizzy, confused. Introducing Dora to his mother had felt like the biggest deal inside his head. He had told so many lies, had so many regrets.
Only now it had happened—and without him.
‘Charlie—’
He stared down at his mother, not only seeing the tears in her eyes but for the first time acknowledging them. What must it have felt like for her? To be told that her son was marrying this particular woman; to know she’d have to meet her husband’s love child.
And that was just today. What about everything that had gone before?
Yes, she had played her part in the distance that had come between them—willingly at first, and then with increasing reluctance. But he didn’t know what was more tragic: that she should have walled herself away from her son or that he had let her do so.