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CHAPTER 13
Dylan
“I’m sorry I missed your call a few days ago,” I told my mum as I chatted with her from the master bedroom of the beach house.
It had taken me a few days just to get up the nerve to call my own mother, even though I’d been relieved that she’d finally reached out to me at all.
I wasn’t sure what to say to her or how to apologize for the idiotic things I’d done over the last two years.
All I knew was that I’d missed her and that I needed to man up to be the son she’d raised me to be.
“I’m not going to pretend I wasn’t disappointed in you, Dylan, but you’re still my son,” Isabella Lancaster said warily. “I have to know that you’re all right.”
Bloody hell!I would prefer that she slapped me silly than to tell me she was disappointed in me, but I deserved her censure.
“I’ve really done it this time, haven’t I, Mum?” I asked, not expecting an answer. “Damian and Leo hate me, and I’m sure you’re not overly fond of the son you raised right at this moment, either. Saying that I’m sorry doesn’t feel like it’s good enough, but I regret everything. All of it. I’m afraid I went too far this time to make things right again.”
I sat down on the bed, feeling desperate to make my mother understand how much I wished I could take back every stupid thing I’d done.
“Oh, Dylan,” Mum said in a more sympathetic voice. “You can’t change what happened in the past. All you can do is move on and do better. Isn’t that what your father and I always told you? When you hurt, I hurt for you,” she explained. “If you’re truly ready to be part of this family again, you must know that all any of us want is to have you back. I’ll admit, you pushed Damian to his limits, but he’s your twin, Dylan. He’s been worried about you for two years, and so has Leo, but you’ve never stopped being a brother to either one of them. They understood that you were hurting. They just didn’t approve of your recovery methods.”
I raked a frustrated hand through my hair. “I know,” I answered huskily. “I’m not proud of the way I checked out myself. It was selfish, and I never gave a thought to my family. For a while, all I wanted to do was escape from everything—even the Lancaster name.”
I had no doubt that Charlotte had targeted me because marrying a Lancaster would make her family happy and much more willing to embrace the child she’d been carrying. Had I been anyone else, she may not have been as eager to trap me into a hasty marriage.
“And now?” my mother queried softly.
“Now, I’ve remembered how damn lucky I am to have a family like mine,” I confessed. “No more heavy drinking. No more antics. No more escape. I’m done neglecting the people I should have appreciated and should have let help support me when I wasn’t coping well on my own.”
“Why do I think there’s something you weren’t telling all of us about why you had a difficult time?” she asked in a probing, motherly voice.
At that point, I broke down and stammered through the whole story of what had happened between Charlotte and me.
I stumbled over my words at first, but because I’d already done this once before with Kylie, it was a little easier this time.
I also told her about Kylie simply because it was impossible not to talk about her. Whether she knew it or not, she’d played an important role in helping me start to feel normal again.
“I blamed myself for Charlotte’s death. Sometimes, I still do,” I finished. “Even though she was no innocent, she didn’t deserve to die. I wasn’t sure how to feel when I found out the child she was carrying wasn’t mine. I grieved, but I was angry at her, too. How is a man supposed to understand why she did the things she did?”
“None of that was your fault, Dylan,” she reassured in a soothing voice. “You were just trying to do the right thing, and no one can fault you for being man enough to step up. Charlotte had…issues. Her mother and I talked sometimes. Charlotte’s psychological difficulties were nothing you could have fixed or could have recognized without dating her longer. There are really no rational answers for what she did, Dylan. Her mind didn’t work in the usual ways. There were many times her mother thought she was getting better, only to find out that Charlotte was just hiding her disorder better. Had I known you were contemplating a serious relationship with her, I would have told you. Now I wish I would have said something from the moment you told me you were seeing her. I guess I thought it was a passing attraction and would just fizzle out quickly because you two had nothing else in common. I also wasn’t sure if she was even having issues anymore. She was diagnosed with a personality disorder before she went to university. Her mother helped her get into several treatment programs, but nothing seemed to help Charlotte permanently turn things around back then. Her fixation with her married, older professor obviously became an obsession, Dylan. A very unhealthy one.”
“Everything just happened too fast,” I replied in a raspy voice. “I was going to tell all of you about her and the baby at the family dinner that week. Well, the baby I thought was mine.”
“Oh, my poor boy,” Mum crooned. “You were heartbroken about the baby, weren’t you?”
I let out a self-mocking laugh. “Ridiculous, right? I was mourning a child who wasn’t even mine.”
“You didn’t know that. It was yours in your mind,” she said defensively. “And I know you, Dylan. It’s understandable now why you were so distraught that you didn’t want to talk about it. It was too horrific to even comprehend, much less put into words.”
“It’s been two years, and it’s still hard for me to get the words out, as I’m sure you noticed. Please don’t mention the truth to her family if you speak to Charlotte’s mother,” I requested. “Charlotte was her only child, and I’d rather they didn’t know. I disposed of those journals, so they’d never have to know.”
“I won’t,” she agreed. “I haven’t spoken with Charlotte’s mother since her daughter’s death. I don’t think she’s gotten over losing her only child. You’re right, Dylan. It’s much kinder not to reveal the real story, but I’m glad you told me. It’s incredible that even though you were suffering, you still did everything you could to protect her family. I feel so horrible that I wasn’t there for you, son.”
“Don’t, Mum,” I requested firmly. “I didn’t allow anyone to be there for me, and I was so detached that I wouldn’t haven’t listened to anyone.”
“When it comes to emotional pain, it rarely works to ignore it. Had I known just how bad things were for you, I probably would have followed you everywhere until you were ready to talk,” she informed me.
I smiled. Likely, she would have done exactly that. “Which is one of the reasons I didn’t tell anyone,” I explained. “I didn’t want to draw attention of any kind. I just wanted to be alone and not talk about it.”
