Rebel's Bargain

‘Actually, I live off my investments. I’m not reliant on the family trust.’

Poppy shook her head. ‘But it was there if you needed it—a safety net. I started with no money, just luck and sheer hard work to support me. You said the other day I’d chased media attention.’ She stuck her chin up. ‘Maybe I did. Where’s the harm in that when no one was hurt and it did my career a lot of good?’

She forced herself back to the point. ‘I’m trying to explain why my career is so important.’

‘So you’d never have to rely on your father.’

Poppy nodded. ‘More than that. So I’d never have to rely on anyone, ever, apart from myself.’

She rubbed her hands up her arms, half turning to the river. ‘Growing up watching my parents made me determined not just to escape but never to be weak the way my mother was. Never to allow myself to rely on anyone, make excuses for them, hang on to them even when it was a mistake. I wanted … I’ve always wanted to be independent.’

Poppy drew a deep breath. ‘It wasn’t just financial independence I dreamed of. It was complete self-reliance. That way—’ she paused, her throat closing ‘—I’d never be hurt. You see?’ She spun round to face him.

In the gloom he shook his head.

Poppy clamped her hands on her elbows. She’d never shared this with anyone. Could she make him understand?

‘I didn’t want love. I didn’t trust it. Love was something that made a woman weak—made her a walkover for any man who wanted to grind her underfoot.’

‘I never did that to you! ‘

He moved towards her and she put out a hand to stop him. ‘Hear me out.’

‘I’m not like your father, Poppy. Don’t pretend I am.’ His voice had lost the clipped anger she remembered from past arguments. It sounded raw, pained.

‘I’m not saying you were. Not physically abusive anyway.’

‘Now that’s—’

‘Please!’ She put up one hand and he juddered to a halt mere feet away. ‘What I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t about you, at least not in the way you thought. It was about me.’ Now it came to revealing her innermost demons Poppy’s larynx froze, the words emerging as a hoarse whisper. ‘I thought falling in love meant disaster. That it meant laying myself open to the worst kind of hurt and betrayal. So when I fell for you …’ She couldn’t help it—her head drooped, cutting the connection that sizzled between them even in the dark.

‘When I fell in love with you it was paradise and hell together. I’d never felt so ecstatic, or so fearful.’

‘I’d never have hurt you, Poppy. Surely you know that. I’d never raise my hand to a woman.’

‘I know.’ She looked up and caught the gleam of his penetrating gaze on her. ‘I know you’d never hurt me physically. But there are other ways.’

She swung away to the far window, her hand going to the rich velvet curtain drawn open at the casement.

‘I loved you despite my fear, despite all caution. I loved you so much.’ She swallowed and made herself go on. ‘But it wasn’t an equal partnership. You never said you loved me, just that you needed me.’ Poppy blinked and the flaming torches in the grounds shed crystalline shards of light as she forced back hot tears.

‘It seemed I was the one being made to change to fit your life, because you didn’t approve of my long hours, or the times a shoot would take me from you. You didn’t approve of Mischa, either, but he was my friend and mentor, the man who’d helped me since I was fifteen.’

Behind her Orsino remained silent.

‘You didn’t change your life for me. You shut me away from the only thing important to you—your treks. Then I realised I was making excuses for you, like my mother used to for my father. Telling myself it didn’t matter that you left me behind without a second glance, though you always wanted me on tap when you were back in London. Telling myself it didn’t matter that you wouldn’t make an effort to accommodate my needs and my career.’

Poppy’s breath shuddered from tight lungs. ‘Even then, when I saw myself becoming like her, I didn’t want to give you up.’ She swung round and faced the big, taut man standing like a graven statue in the moonlight.

‘Do you have any idea how terrifying it was to love you, understanding you didn’t care for me the way I did you? Knowing I was turning into the sort of woman I’d vowed never to become?’

‘Poppy.’ Orsino stepped close then stopped, his arm falling as she kept talking. If she didn’t get this out now she’d never have the guts to tell the truth.