and no. It was nothing to her but a kind gesture to the housemaid’s poor daughter. But to me … that little statue became my talisman. I kept it as a reminder of where it came from and where I came from. But, you know, it doesn’t matter that it broke.” She gave a little shrug. “I don’t need it anymore.”
Maybe not, but there was something about her explanation’s matter-of-fact tone that belied the lingering shadows in her eyes. She could shrug it off all she wanted now, but he’d been there. He’d witnessed the extent of her distress.
Damn it all to blazes, he’d caused it by backing her into the corner and shocking her with his kiss.
And here he was, forgetting himself again. Standing too close, infiltrating her personal space, breathing the sweet scent of roses and aching with the need to take her in his arms, to touch her petal-soft skin, to kiss every shadowed memory from her eyes and every other man from her rose-pink lips.
The physical desire he understood and could handle. It had been there from the outset, crackling in the air whenever they got too close. But this was more—dangerously, insidiously more—when he needed less.
“You mightn’t need it,” he said gruffly, “but it matters.”
“No. What matters is how Stuart wanted his wealth distributed. We talked about this—about which charities and the best way to help—but everything is tied up because of your legal challenge. Why are you doing this?” Her eyes darkened with determination. “Why, Tristan? Is it only about winning? Is it only about defeating me?”
“This isn’t about you.”
“Then what is it about?”
The first time she’d asked about his motivation, Tristan had turned it into a cross-examination. And she’d answered every one of his questions with honesty. The least he could do was offer equal candor. “It’s about justice, Vanessa.”
“Justice for whom?”
“My mother.” He met her puzzled eyes. “Did you know she got nothing from my parents’ divorce?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Deadly. After fifteen years of marriage … nothing.”
“Is that how you count yourself, Tristan? As nothing?” Her voice rose with abject disbelief. “Is that how your mother counted what she took from Stuart?”
He’d heard the same message from Liz Kramer. She took you, Tristan, the most valuable thing.
But the other side to that equation set his jaw and his voice with hard-edged conviction. “She counted herself lucky to gain full custody.” Except to do so, to prevent an ugly court battle and a possible injunction preventing her move to Australia, she’d ceded her claim on a property settlement. “I guess that kind of payoff made me worth a hell of a lot.”
For a long moment his words hung between them, a cynically-edged statement that conveyed more of his past hurt than he’d intended. He could see that by her reaction, by the softening in her expression and the husky note in her voice. “He thought Andrea would reject that offer. He thought they would negotiate and reach an agreement of shared property and shared custody. He didn’t want to lose you, Tristan.”
“Then why didn’t he fight to keep me?”
She shook her head sadly. “He didn’t want to take you from your mother. It broke his heart to lose his whole family like that.”
“He kicked us out. He divorced my mother. His choices, Vanessa.”
“I was under the impression that Andrea was at fault,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “That she had an affair … which Stuart found out about and forgave. The first time.”
Tristan went still. “What do you mean, the first time?”
“I mean …” She paused, her face wreathed in uneasiness. “How much of this do you know? I’m not sure it’s my place—”
“You don’t think I need to hear this?”
She nodded once, a brief concession to his point, and moistened her lips. “He took her back because he still loved her and because she promised it was a once-only thing, because she was lonely, he was working too hard. He took her back and when she announced she was pregnant, he was ecstatic.”
“I know the twins aren’t Stuart’s,” he reassured her grimly. “I know they’re only my half sisters.”
“And that’s what broke his heart, don’t you see? She never told him. She let him believe they were his and she kept seeing the father before they were born and afterward.
When he caught her out again, when he did the paternity test and discovered the truth … that’s why the marriage ended, Tristan. And that’s why Stuart felt so strongly about adultery.”
He didn’t have to believe her but he did. It made too much sense not to. It tied everything together in a neat bow … and brought them looping back to his reason for being here in Eastwick. His reason for wanting, so vehemently, to defeat her.
“That’s why he added that clause to his will,” he said slowly. Not a question, but a statement.
Not because he suspected Vanessa of cheating, as Tristan had believed, but because of his own mother’s infidelity. Not one mistake, as she’d led Tristan to believe, but repeated betrayals. Which put her subsequent choices into perspective, too.
Her acceptance of the divorce settlement.
Her flight to Australia, in pursuit of the twins’ father.
Her objection to his challenge of Stuart’s will.
“Does Andrea know why you’re doing this? Is it what she wants?”
Vanessa’s soft voice cut straight into his thought process, as if she’d read his mind.
And when he didn’t answer, she added, “I thought as much.”
That jolted him hard. The initial questions, the way she’d read him so accurately, the knowledge that she’d turned his beliefs inside out.
Yet this had been his pursuit for two years, his conviction for longer. He would not toss it without hearing the truth from his mother. Not without considering all he’d learned this morning, away from the influence of steady green eyes and rose-scented skin.
Resolve tightened his features as he nodded to her bundle of flowers. “Shouldn’t you be putting those in water?”
She blinked with surprise, as if she’d been so intent on their discussion that she’d forgotten her morning’s purpose. “I … yes.”
“I need to go. I have some decisions to make.”
Hope fluttered like a bird’s wing in her eyes. “You’ll let me know … once you’ve decided.”
“You’ll be the first.”
He nodded goodbye and had gone maybe ten strides before she called his name. He paused. Turned to look over his shoulder and was floored again by the picture she made with the sunlight silhouetting her body and legs through that filmy pink robe.
Like the roses, he figured she’d forgotten her state of dress. Or undress. For both their sakes, he wasn’t about to point out what was clearly defined by the unforgiving light.
“The letter I told you about, from your father—I kept a copy. It’s yours, Tristan. If you like, I can go and get it for you.”
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