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Marco, behind me, grunts. “What do you mean, made a bargain.”
My mom looks down, her fingers twisting the scrap of fabric that she’d been using as a napkin.
Her silence makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “Mum…”
“The bargain was… God. Just know that I love you, Roisin. My Rosie. I’ve always loved you. Every second of it. And when I walked away, it killed me,” she says.
There are tears in her eyes.
“What do you mean, walked away?” I whisper.
My mum looks down at the tea service. “The bargain was… he paid me to have you. To have a child. I got to pick which of the child’s life I wanted for ten years. I got to decide, and I decided the first ten, and then after that…” she stops, her throat thick with tears.
“After that, the terms of the contract were fulfilled,” Marco growls from behind me.
The realization of what’s being said sinks into me.
“You… sold me?”
My mum’s crying now, tears falling down her face. “It wasn’t… I didn’t… it was already done…”
“But you left me with him,” I say.
My voice sounds small. So, so incredibly small.
“I… it was the contract,” she whispers.
“You could have fought him. We could have left.”
They’re not suggestions. They’re accusations. I know what I would have done in her position. She was fully aware of who my father was. Of what she was doing.
She made a deal with my father to bear him a child. An heir, of some kind. Someone for him to destroy, just like he’d destroyed Liam and Killian.
She made me because he paid her to.
Then she sold me, when the time came.
My heart, which broke the night she brought me to him, feels like it’s shattering all over again.
My mom looks up, her fingers stilling. “He wasWilliam MacAntyre, love. He was the bogeyman, the monster that everyone around here has always been afraid of. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he or one of his evil sons would kill me.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I sit back, the tea nearly forgotten. “You knew about Kieran?”
She snorts. “Everyone knew about Kieran. He was only a teenager, but he was vile,” she whispers.
“And you left me with him anyway?”
Her eyes get round. “Roisin…”
I stand, looking at Marco. “I think I’d like to go now.”
My mother starts to protest. “No, love, I’m so sorry. I just… when I saw your face on the news, I decided to start heading back toward the manor, just to see if you were there…”
“We’re a several hour’s boat ride from that place,” I say dully. “Were you planning on staying here forever?”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s not like that, darling, please, you have to believe me…”
“I don’t,” I say sharply.