No, it wasn’t.
It was heartbreakingly easy to imagine Tiernan at seventeen, sheltered in some ways and utterly broken by the brutality of life in others. Scarred and ostracized by his family, I could almost feel the echo of awe in joy in my own heart at the thought of him faced with a kind woman who could see beyond his brusqueness and shallow disfigurement to the goodness that lay beneath like buried treasure.
I leaned into his side, offering him my silent support and warmth.
“We were careful, but we were kids. Bryant was a controlling, obsessive parent. It’s no wonder really that he caught us.” He shrugged woodenly, but I could feel the tremble of fury through our clasped hands. “Six weeks. Six weeks with Grace was all I got before she disappeared. I met her at our spot on the beach for three weeks before I heard the rumors that Caroline had sent her away.”
He stepped forward until his expensive loafers sank into the mound of snow over her grave and crouched down to wipe the snow off her gravestone.
“I tried to find her, but I didn’t have the resources I do now.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “She must have been fucking devastated, lonely and afraid. She found her escape in booze and filthy street drugs.”
“She killed herself?” I whispered through numb lips, shaking from more than the cold as I hugged myself.
He jerked his head in some semblance of a nod as he stood and stepped back into line with me. When he grabbed for my hand, I latched on just as strongly.
“We’d just found out she was pregnant,” he admitted in a voice like gravel. “We were meeting to make a plan.”
Agony cut through me, splitting me straight down the middle. A headache pointed at the center of my skull and my heart threatened to spill out my throat.
“I’m so sorry, Tiernan,” I said, hugging his arm to me because I didn’t know if he would accepted more and I didn’t want to intrude on his sorrow. “That’s…that’s just fucking tragic.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, scrubbing at his face with his free hand even though he wasn’t crying.
His eyes were red-rimmed, but dry, his mouth pinched and his scarred stark white. There was so much pain in every inch of him, I wanted to latch onto him and suck it out like a leech.
“This is why you hate Bryant and the Constantines,” I surmised.
“Bryant must’ve told Lane and Caroline about our relationship. They ripped her away from me and it killed her.”
And with her, any dream Tiernan might have kept safe from his brutal father at the deepest corner of himself that he might one day have love and family.
Fuck, life was brutal.
It didn’t matter if you were born wealthy or poor, beautiful or scarred. Tragedy was the great equalizer.
It hurt to admit I could believe both Caroline and my dad capable of doing something like that. Caroline with her need for obedience and perfection, and my dad with the ability to put himself and his loved ones above all else. It had always been something I admired him in him, but now, I was horrified to see its dark side.
“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” I told him, deciding against caution as I embraced him fully. He was broad and tall, especially in his black overcoat, but I did my best to wrap him up in my arms before I canted my head to look up into his haunted eyes. “I’m not sure if there’s any part of you that believes you deserved that, maybe some part that Bryant forced you to believe, but if there is, it’s absolutely not true. No kid deserves to be hurt like you were hurt.”
Tiernan just stared down at me, still and handsome as one of Michelangelo’s statues.
I reached up with one hand to cup his cold cheek, fingers curling around his ear so I could tug him farther down to me. When he was close enough, I went to my tiptoes and pressed our foreheads together the way he had done in Inequity.
“I get that you would want revenge on Bryant, even on the Constantine family for their part in it, whatever it was. I understand the need for it, Tiernan, and I forgive you a hundred times over for seeking it with Aida, Brando and me. It led us to where we are now, and I have to believe everything happens for a reason.” I sucked in a deep breath and locked my gaze to his cold green eyes. “But I think the best way to get revenge against your father is be everything he isn’t, to show him that even when he tried to take everything good away from you, you still found your way to love and peace.”