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Chapter Four

S he was doing this.

Was she doing this?

Blurting out a request for a quick, private word with Troyden felt like she’d subconsciously decided, whether her brain was on board or not.

Maybe she’d been convinced by the warmth the family exuded at breakfast, the teasing and laughter, the way they interrupted and finished each other’s sentences without a second thought.

Maybe it was the easy affection between Troyden and his stepchildren, the way love simply existed between them.

But whatever it was, she’d sat there, quietly watching, and listening. Longing. The warmth, closeness and easy affection on display were what she’d dreamed of having with her mum. All impossible now.

Maybe she was reaching for Troyden because she envied the family he’d built, because she ached to belong to something that solid, that real. Maybe the thought of walking through the world alone, untethered, was too much to bear. Maybe, at the heart of it, it was just loneliness.

Did it matter?

Whatever the reason, she was doing this.

Eden followed Troyden into his study– aubergine-coloured walls, expensive landscapes, dark, heavy wooden desk, leather chairs and green enamel reading lamps– and perched on the edge of a slipper leather chair. She folded her hands and clasped them between her legs, her knee bouncing.

Maybe she should just thank him for his hospitality and walk away.

Panic crawled up her throat and settled on her tonsils. She didn’t think she could do this; she no longer wanted to do this. She wasn’t brave enough to open this Pandora’s box. On the verge of standing, she flashed back to being in Jed’s arms, secure and protected, safe.

She closed her eyes and took herself back there, to when she’d felt like nothing could touch her, that a force field surrounded her. Peace, or something close to it, settled her jumpy nerves.

‘You look just like him, like Thom.’

Eden jerked, her eyes skittering to Troyden’s, half-sitting on the edge of his wide, dark, antique desk.

His head was cocked to the side, and the corners of his mouth lifted, just a little.

He pushed up, walked over to the credenza and lifted a silver-framed photograph of two young men sitting on a wall.

One was Troyden, while the other man sported a masculine version of her face.

‘I thought you looked familiar when we met yesterday, but I didn’t put it together until I walked in here and saw the photograph of Thom and me.’

Eden took the frame and stared down into the face of the man who was her father, her heart missing a beat. ‘Was that his name? Thom?’

‘Thom Castle, two years younger than me, as mad as a box of frogs.’

Eden swallowed. Did he mean mad as insane, or mad as in eccentric? She had so many questions and didn’t know which one to ask first. ‘We do look alike,’ she admitted, her voice shaky. ‘But I’m surprised you made the connection so quickly.’

Troyden took the wingback chair opposite her.

‘Well, it wasn’t that big a leap,’ he told her, his voice soft.

‘The website did inform me I had a close biological match, most likely a niece. But because your settings were private, I couldn’t contact you; I had to wait until you made a move, and I didn’t know if you would…

’ Troyden trailed off. ‘You have the same eyes, the same colouring, the same number of freckles.’

Eden lifted a hand to her face, conscious that she hadn’t any make-up with her to hide the majority of her dots. ‘He was also a redhead?’

Troyden nodded.

She frowned, taking in his olive complexion and dark eyes. ‘You aren’t.’

‘We were half-brothers. I took after our mum, and Thom was the spitting image of his dad.’

Eden nodded and looked down at the expensive Bukhari carpet beneath her trainers, taking in its cream and hunter-green swirls. She felt embarrassed and jumpy. ‘I’msorry about gatecrashing your house, and your breakfast. I really didn’t know I was allergic to horses. It wasn’t a ploy or anything.’

‘You could’ve set up a meeting or sent me an email, but you chose to come here. Why?’

There was no judgement in his voice, so she opted for honesty. ‘I wasn’t sure if I wanted to meet you. I thought that if I came to the polo match, if I saw you, then maybe I would know whether I wanted to or not.’

‘Why wouldn’t you want to meet me?’ Troyden asked, gently. ‘I’m not so scary, surely?’

She could lie, but she’d already decided to keep her personal life and her connection to the Bancrofts from him, so she needed to be as honest as she possibly could. ‘I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough to risk you rejecting me.’ Okay, maybe that was a bit too honest, Ennis.

‘And you’ve experienced quite a bit of that,’ he stated.

How was she supposed to respond to that?

‘Yes, all my life’ sounded overly dramatic.

But wasn’t it the truth? Her dad had left before she was born, and her mum had avoided any emotional connection with her by treating her like just another foster kid needing ongoing care.

Then she left for a goddamned convent… Uh, could a convent be damned by God? Probably not.

Now she was married to the Church, and it was a possessive bastard.

No, she wouldn’t bore Troyden with her shitty childhood, but she could ask him about the man who gave her half of her DNA. ‘Can you tell me about my father?’

Troyden steepled his fingers and banged the tips against his lower lip. ‘What do you know?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Right.’ Troyden crossed one leg over the other and lightly clasped his hands around his knee. ‘Well, Thom was a decade younger than me, so we weren’t that close. He was… wild.’

‘You said that before,’ Eden frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

He twisted his lips. ‘He did whatever he wanted to do. He was all about himself, all the time.’

Eden bit the inside of his lip. ‘So he’s dead?’

Troyden nodded. ‘Yes, I’m sorry. He died in a car accident thirty-odd years ago.’

‘So, while my mum was pregnant with me or shortly after I was born.’

Troyden tapped the arm of his chair with his index finger. ‘I can find the exact date,’ he assured her. ‘I have his death certificate somewhere.’

‘How old was he when he died?’ Eden asked.

‘Thirty… -four or -five?’

Eden’s eyebrows shot up. ‘My mum was eighteen when she fell pregnant, nineteen when she had me.’

Troyden winced. ‘Yeah, he was nearly double her age. He was also…’ he hesitated.

Eden knew what he was about to say. ‘Married?’ Did she have any half-siblings? Finding an uncle was enough of a shock. ‘Did they have children?’ she demanded.

Troyden shook his head, and Eden experienced both relief and disappointment, an odd combination. ‘No, they didn’t. They had a tumultuous relationship, mainly because Thom couldn’t be faithful. I didn’t have much to do with him after I left home, Eden, but I heard about his exploits from our mum.’

Eden grimaced. Her father sounded like he caused a lot of drama for everyone in his life. ‘Do you know anything about my mum, how they met?’

Troyden lifted one shoulder. ‘I don’t. But I got a call from him a week or so before he died.

He said that he’d got someone pregnant and that she wanted to get married.

I reminded him he was already married, and suggested an…

’ His words rolled to a stop, and he looked away.

He pulled in a deep breath and carried on, his cheeks pink.

‘I suggested an abortion, but he said that he’d tried to convince her, that she was religious and wouldn’t consider one. ’

It felt like they were discussing someone else, someone wholly unconnected to her.

‘A week later he rolled his car and died on impact.’ Troyden gripped the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. ‘It was a bad time for me. There was so much death to deal with. My first marriage was on the rocks and my business was taking off. I was juggling quite a few balls.’

She got it: her pregnant mum was low down on his list of priorities. ‘Did my mum ever make contact with your family?’ she asked, feeling incredibly tired.

Regret passed through Troyden’s eyes. ‘She didn’t, not as far as I know.’

Eden stared out of the tall window. It was a bucolic English scene, perfect for a tourist brochure extolling the virtues of the English countryside in the spring, but all she could see was her mum, eighteen, pregnant, and scared.

Being religious, sleeping with Thom would’ve been a big deal for her.

She wouldn’t have done it unless she genuinely believed he was the man she was going to marry.

But why didn’t she choose to give her up for adoption? Why did she keep her?

‘It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?’ Troyden said, his tone kind.

She met his eyes and nodded. ‘There are so many unknowns, and no one to give me the answers.’

He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I can tell you about my parents, about what your father was like growing up, about where we came from, how we lived?—’

‘Have you always been rich?’ she interrupted.

He laughed. ‘God, no . We were solidly middle class. Before he died, my father was a telephone technician, and my mum a nurse. My stepfather was a truck driver. Thom never bothered to study, but I managed to work my way through uni. I was always the driven one, wanting more. My parents never understood why I couldn’t be satisfied with the life they’d created. ’

Eden looked around the room, taking in the bronze sculptures, the expensive furniture and the impressive paintings on the wall. ‘You did alright for yourself.’

‘I did better than alright. But, unfortunately, none of them got to see my success.’

‘Oh?’

‘My real dad died when I was a kid, and my stepdad when I was twenty-two. My mum was in the car with your father when he crashed. They were both killed instantly.’

Eden lifted her hands to her mouth, shocked. ‘Oh… shit. I’m so sorry. You lost your entire family in one hit.’