Нина Харрингтон – British Bachelors: Gorgeous and Impossible: My Greek Island Fling / Back in the Lion's Den / We'll Always Have Paris (страница 19)
‘Oh, Mark.’
‘She had the operation Monday morning, collapsed on the Monday evening, and slipped away from us on Thursday morning. While I was standing in a police station in central London, being cautioned for attacking a member of the press. Your father.’
Mark snapped his fingers, and the sound ricocheted out into the serene calm air and seemed to penetrate Lexi’s body. She jerked back in shock.
‘
Lexi felt tears roll down her cheeks, but she couldn’t speak. Not yet. Not until he was ready.
‘The surgeon kept telling us that if she’d survived the aneurysm she could well have been brain-damaged or disabled, as if that would help in some way. It didn’t.’
‘How did your dad get through it?’ Lexi asked.
‘He didn’t,’ Mark whispered. ‘He fought off cancer a few years ago, and was in remission until her death destroyed him. He’s never been the same since. It’s as though all the light went out of his world. He’s fighting it, but he’s determined to do it alone and there’s not one thing Cassie or I can do except make his days as bright and positive as possible.’
‘And do you think this book will help? Is that why you agreed to do it?’
‘Cassie thinks it’s the one thing keeping his spirits up. He wants it to be a celebration of her life instead of some nonsense tabloid journalists will put together from media press kits to make a profit from some scandalous headline.’
‘But what about you, Mark? What would help
‘Me? I don’t know where to start. Sometimes I can’t believe that I won’t ever see her again or hear her voice. I don’t want to think about all the future events and special occasions in my life where there will be an empty chair with her name on it. And then there’s the guilt. That’s the toughest thing of all.’
‘Guilt? Why do you feel guilty?’
He closed his eyes. ‘Let me see. Never having time to spend with my own mother one-to-one because of the obligations I took on when Edmund died. Always cancelling lunch dates with my biggest fan at the very last minute or having to cut short telephone calls because of some business meeting. Oh, yes, and let’s not forget the big one. The reason she had plastic surgery in the first place.’
Mark lifted his head and looked directly at Lexi. She could see moisture glistening at the corners of his eyes, but was powerless to speak in the intensity of his gaze.
‘She told her friend that she was having the surgery because she didn’t want to let me down at my engagement party. She didn’t feel beautiful enough to stand next to me and my future bride’s aristocratic family. So she went to London on her own and went through surgery on her own.
‘OH MARK,’ Lexi whispered in amazement. ‘Why do you think your mother felt that way? She was stunningly beautiful.’
Mark looked up as a flock of seabirds circled above their heads before flying over to the cliffs to nest. ‘Pressure. Competition from other actresses for work in TV and movies. Every time we met she talked about the disappointment of being turned down for the roles she really wanted to play.’ Mark sighed. ‘She couldn’t get work, and it was obvious she was finding it tougher and tougher to bounce back from each new rejection. Her agent gave up even trying to interest the movie studios. There was always another beautiful starlet just waiting to be discovered, and in the end it wore her down.’
‘But Crystal Leighton was still a big star. People loved her.’
‘Try telling that to the casting directors. The truth is she’d been desperately unhappy for a very long time and it showed. She’d lost her spark. Her vitality. Her joy. And it was there on her face for the world to see.’
‘So it wasn’t just about your engagement party, was it? That was just an excuse for having the work done. Please don’t feel guilty about something you have no control over. From what you tell me, it doesn’t sound like you would’ve been able to change her mind.’
Mark exhaled slowly and Lexi felt his breath on her face. She lifted her right hand and stroked his cheek with her fingertips as his eyes fluttered half-closed. ‘I didn’t realise you were engaged,’ she whispered, desperate to prolong the sensation of standing so close to him for as long as possible. Even if there
‘There’s no reason why you should. It never happened. It’s over now,’ Mark replied, his brow furrowed and hard. ‘We’d known each other for years, we mixed in the same circles, and I think it just became something other people expected us to do. I never proposed and she didn’t expect me to. It was simply a convenient arrangement for both of us. We were friends, but I wasn’t in love with her. Two months ago she found someone she truly cares about, which is how it should be.’
‘Did your mother know you felt that way?’
‘I don’t know. We never talked about it. We don’t talk about things in our family. We skate over the surface for fear of falling into the deep icy water below. And all my father cared about was making sure there’d be another Belmont son to inherit the title.’
Mark shook his head, his mouth a firm narrow line. ‘I thought for a while that I wanted the same thing. That perhaps having a wife and a family might bring the Belmont family back together again. But it would only have made two more people miserable and led to an embarrassing divorce down the line. I can see that now.’
Lexi’s brain caught up with what Mark was saying and a cold hand gripped her heart in spite of the warm breeze. ‘You were prepared to do that?’ she asked, trying to keep the horror of his situation out of her voice and failing. ‘To marry a girl whom you didn’t love? Then have a baby with her to provide a son to inherit the estate?’
‘Oh, yes. The old rules are still in force. Even Cassie’s boys don’t stand a chance. Unless I persuade some poor girl to give me a son, the next Baron Belmont will be my least favourite cousin. And both of
Lexi sucked in a breath and exhaled slowly. ‘How can you stand it? How can you live like that?’ she asked in a trembling voice. ‘Bringing a child into this world should be something for two people to celebrate—not an obligation you can tick off the list.’
Then she looked into Mark’s sad eyes and all of her fight drifted away. ‘Sorry. That was unfair. You have a duty to your family and they need you.’
His response was to rest his forehead against Lexi’s and take her hand in his, stretching out each of her fingers in turn, as though they were the most fascinating objects he’d ever seen.
‘Now do you understand why I’m struggling to finish her biography?’ he asked, his voice low and trembling. ‘People will expect my mother to have enjoyed a fabulous life full of fun and happiness and excitement. Movie stars like Crystal Leighton aren’t supposed to end up living a bitter, cold existence, racked with disappointment and low self-worth. With a son who was never there for her.’
He clasped both her hands between his and held them prisoner before asking the question Lexi had been dreading but had somehow known would come.
‘How will you write
‘That has to be your decision, Mark,’ she replied, in as low and calm a voice as she could manage. ‘I can tell you how to make this book a true celebration of her life. And I know that the dark and the shade only make the happy times seem brighter. That was a part of her life and you can’t avoid the truth.’
‘The truth? That’s a strange concept from someone who writes stories for a living. Let me tell
And then Mark released her fingers, pressed one hand to her cheek, tilted his head and, with the most feather-light touch, kissed her.
Lexi was so startled that she was rendered speechless. The pressure of his lips was so warm and soft that her eyelids fluttered closed and she almost leant forward for more—only to find him gone. And she immediately cursed herself for being so weak and foolish.
‘Thank you for listening. I can’t finish this book, Lexi. I can’t put my family through the pain.’ He took a step back and looked out over the cliffs to the wide blue ocean in front of them. ‘Sorry, Lexi. The biography is cancelled. I’m going to return the advance to my publisher. I can deal with the fallout with my family, and it’s better to do it now rather than later, in the full face of the media. Thank you for helping me to decide to move forward in my life, not backwards, but I don’t need your help any more. You can go back to London. Your work here is finished.’