were too many things out of his control already. And to be in control, he had to remember things he’d rather forget, remember things that had driven him from his home, things that had driven him to live his life alone. “Let’s not pretend that this is anything but the fear and regret a man faces once he sees death coming for him, Dad.”
His father flinched, and this time, nothing pierced Nathan. Not even satisfaction that he had landed a shot. Tears flooded those blue eyes that were so like his own. “I’m so sorry, Nathan, that you felt you couldn’t stay here after she was gone.”
He couldn’t bear this, this avalanche of fear and love, of need and despair that it always brought. “It was so hard to lose her like that, so hard to see my own fate reflected in her death. But to learn that you were with that woman. Can you imagine what that must have done to her?”
“I made a mistake, Nate, a ghastly one. I couldn’t bear to see her wilt away. I let that fear drive me to Jackie. I was so ashamed of myself. And your mother...I instantly told her. And she forgave me, Nate.”
Shock waves pounded through Nate. “I don’t believe you.”
He collapsed onto the settee and buried his head in his hands. There was an ache in his throat and he tried to breathe past it, but his dad’s words already stole through him.
Because Jacqueline Spear was the one thing his mother hadn’t been in that last year—vivacious, brimming with life, an anchor for a drowning man. He had assumed that his dad had done that to his mom. But what if it was the reverse?
What if seeing his mom lose all her will for life had driven his father to Jackie? It was still the worst kind of betrayal, but didn’t Nathan know firsthand what fear could do? How it could turn someone inside out?
His dad reached him. “I don’t blame you for not believing me. All these years, I have regretted so many things and the worst of it was that my cowardice drove you away. How many times I wished I had been stronger for you.”
“If you were sorry, then why did you bring them here? Jackie and Riya? What was that if not an insult to Mom’s memory?”
Wiping his face with a shaking hand, his father met his gaze. “What I did was abhorrent. So much that I couldn’t bear to look at Jackie for years after that, much less marry her. She was my biggest mistake given form. But I couldn’t do anything to hurt Riya.
“I couldn’t turn away from the child who needed a proper parent, and Jackie...she was still reeling from her separation from her husband. It was fear that drove us toward each other, that made us understand each other.
“Riya made me think of what I should have been to you, gave me a chance to rectify the mistake I made.”
Nathan nodded, his throat raw and aching, a ray of pure joy relieving the burden in his chest. Something good had come out of all the lies and betrayal.
Because this man who looked at him now, this man who had cared for someone else’s daughter, he knew. This was the man he remembered as his father before everything had been ruined. “Is that why you gave her the estate?”
“I had no idea what had become of you. I had no way of reaching you. And when I thought I would die...I thought it a good thing that she have it.
“Riya loves this house, this estate, just like Anna did. Everything she touches blossoms. Jackie and Riya gave me a reason to live for, after I lost everything. I thought it fitting that it went to her.”
Nathan shook his head, the most perverse emotion taking hold of him. He should be a bigger man, he knew that. His mother had been generous and kind. She wouldn’t have minded the estate going to Riya, going to someone who loved it just as much as she had. But he couldn’t just walk away, couldn’t sever the last thing that had some emotional meaning to him.
Couldn’t let himself become a complete island severed from anything meaningful in the world. “She can have as much money as she wants instead. The estate is mine. If she’ll listen to you, ask her to stop playing games with me and sign it over.”
His father frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“I asked her to sell it to me, and the condition she put in front of me was that I see you. That I remain here for two months.”
“Oh.” His father sank to the couch, and Nate reached him instantly.
“What is it? Are you unwell again?”
“No. I...” His father sighed, regret in his eyes. “I ended up being another person who leaned on her too much. When she told me you were back, I told her to do whatever she could to keep you here. After all this, tell me you’ll stay for the wedding, Nate.”
Nathan didn’t want to hear the hope in his father’s eyes, fought the sense of duty that he had ruthlessly pushed away all these years. His father had needed him just as much as Nathan had needed him.
But he hadn’t been alone. Gratitude welled up inside Nathan for everything Riya had done for his dad.
The more he tried to do the right thing and stay away from temptation, the more entrenched she was becoming in his life.
Lifting his head, he met his dad’s gaze. “I had already decided to stay for the wedding.”
A smile broke out on his father’s face, transforming it. Clasping Nate’s hand, he pumped it with joy. “I’m so glad. Will you live in the house again? Anna would have—”
Nathan shook his head.
He wished he could say yes, wished he could let his father back into his life, wished the loneliness that ate at him abated.
The bitterness inside him had shifted today. And the estate was the one place that meant something to him. It was also the one that would forever remind him that his time was always on a countdown, remind him of how his beautiful mother had turned into a shadow because of her fear.
Because Nathan remembered that fear, remembered what his father had left unsaid, realized that he thought he could protect Nathan from the bitter memory. But beneath his anger for his father, his fury toward what Jackie represented, Nate remembered his darkest fear now.
For the last year, his mother had become but a shadow of herself. It was what had driven his father, as deplorable as his action had been. It was what had filled Nathan with increasing fear for his own life. She had willed her heart condition to leach her life away, had only dwelled on being gone, on being parted from Nathan and his dad.
And in the end, she had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Her fear had leached any happiness, every joy from her life until death was all that had remained.
His father squeezed his shoulder, his voice a whisper. “You’ve achieved so much, Nate. You won’t become like—”
And Nathan swallowed at the grief that rose through him. How perfectly his dad understood him without words.
Turning around, Nathan smiled at his father. “No, I won’t. And that’s why I can’t stay.”
“I’m strong enough to face anything, Nate. I would never—”
Clasping his dad’s hands, Nate smiled without humor. It was Riya’s face that rose in front of his eyes. “I don’t know that I am.”
Just as he had accepted his own limitations, Nathan accepted this too. Riya was dangerous to him like no other woman had ever been. Already he had broken so many of his own rules; already he was much too invested in her well-being, in her life.
He couldn’t risk more.
He could never care for anyone so much that the fear of being parted would pervade every waking moment. Couldn’t let any woman reduce him to that.
* * *
Over the next week, Nate arrived at the estate every evening to see his father. As if determined to create new memories for Nathan, his father insisted that he was too weak to leave the