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“Are you truly all right, now?” she questioned in a tearful voice.
“Yes, I think that I am. I’m certain there will still be times I wish Charlotte and I hadn’t argued. I doubt my nightmares are gone forever, but at least they’re not as frequent as they used to be. The guilt hasn’t gone away completely, either, but it’s a work in progress. I guess I have to learn to admit that there are some things I can’t control,” I joked weakly.
Mum replied in a lighter voice, “Which is a very hard thing for any Lancaster male to admit. All of you think you can arrange things to your liking. I hope Kylie isn’t letting you get away with too much bossiness.”
“That would never happen, believe me,” I said wryly. “She’s a redhead with a stubborn streak. If I get too cocky, she’s always happy to bring me down off my high horse. She’s been good for me, too. She’s kind but doesn’t always tell me what I want to hear.”
“At least you know when she’s telling you the truth. I think she is good for you,” my mother agreed. “I’m looking forward to meeting her when you two come for the wedding. You are coming, right?”
“That really depends on Damian,” I told her. “If he can’t get over what happened with Nicole, I’m not going to blame him for that. It sounds like he really loves her, and I put him through a lot.”
“He does love her,” she disclosed. “Very much.”
“Then I’m happy for him,” I said honestly.
“I don’t think that happiness will be complete if you’re not here, Dylan,” she mused. “I’d like to share the whole story about Charlotte with him if you’ll allow it.”
I was done running away from what happened in the past. “Of course. Feel free to tell Damian, Nicole, and Leo if you want. It’s not an easy story for me to tell. It still won’t justify my behavior, but they deserve to know. If Damian and Nicole are comfortable with me being at their wedding, I’ll go. I’d never willingly miss it. We’ve always been together for every important event, good or bad, that’s happened in our family.”
“Yes, we have,” she said firmly. “And this one will be no different. I love you, Dylan, and so do your brothers. We’ve all missed you terribly.”
“I’ve missed all of you, too,” I said hoarsely, acknowledging how painful it had been to push my own family away. “So, are you willing to forgive me for being such an idiot for so long?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” she said softly. “I understand why you reacted the way you did now. I knew that whatever happened, you’d work through it. You might be the most stubborn of all my sons, but your responsibilities have always weighed heavily on your shoulders, too. I didn’t doubt that your love of family would win out in the end. It isn’t your fault that you moved away from all of us for a while. You were in so much pain, and you had to do whatever you thought was necessary to survive first.”
“I doubt my brothers have that much faith in me,” I commented wryly. “Not that I blame them. Don’t think that I don’t realize how many of my responsibilities I dumped on Damian. I put him in a difficult situation in so many ways, and what I did to Nicole might be unforgivable for him.”
“Did you know who Nicole was and that Damian was in love with her?” she asked gently.
“No. Even drunk, I don’t think I would have crossed that line if I had known,” I replied. “However, we both know that wasn’t my only offense.”
“Damian managed,” she said. “It was actually good for him to learn how to make that expensive upper management do their jobs, and his reputation never suffered for the things you did in the end. The press is too involved in the fairy tale love story of the duke and his American bride. Really, I’m sure I saw a few female reporters ready to swoon at the last event Nicole and Damian attended. He’s definitely in their good graces for being so in love with his fiancée.”
I shook my head. “I guess it’s hard for me to imagine my twin brother falling that hard for someone. He’s never been into public displays of affection.”
“He wasn’t,” Mum said. “I think he was saving all that for the right woman. I don’t think he can help himself with Nicole. She’s special, Dylan. I think you’ll see for yourself that they’re perfect for each other. She doesn’t put up with his nonsense, but she obviously adores him.”
“I think I’d like to see that,” I confessed. “I’ve already missed the entire courtship.”
“It’s not as if it lasted very long,” Mum said with humor in her tone. “His behavior was much like your father’s when he swept me off my feet. I think once a Lancaster male finds the right woman; they think it’s totally unnecessary to waste any time.”
She was absolutely right about my father. His adoration for my mother was there for all to see until the day he died. “You still miss him, don’t you?” I questioned.
Even though it had been years since my father’s death, my mum still talked about him every day.
“I will until the day I die,” she said firmly. “He was an exceptional man, just like his sons.”
“I miss him, too,” I shared. “All I ever wanted was to make both of you proud, but I haven’t done a very good job of that over the last two years.”
“Dylan,” she said in a fond tone. “Do you really think the last two years have erased all of the good things you’ve done? And considering the circumstances, a few scandals that have already been forgotten, and an ill-advised comment to Nicole doesn’t seem important anymore. Not to mention the fact that Damian had some culpability for what happened during the gala, too. If he’d told Nicole the truth in the first place, I think she would have known that you weren’t Damian. Your father and I were always proud of all three of you, and nothing you can do will change that. I know your heart, my sweet boy, and that tender heart was the very reason you’ve been suffering for the last two years. If you didn’t feel things so deeply, you wouldn’t have struggled so much over what happened.”
I grimaced. What guy really wanted their mother to tell them that they wore their heart on their sleeve or something similar?
“I’ll do better,” I said, repeating the words I’d said since I was a child when I’d managed to screw something up.
“I know you will,” Mum said, giving me her usual response. “Try not to be too hard on yourself, even though I know that won’t be an easy task for you. Stop being so willing to take the blame for all of the bad things that happened to you.”
We spoke for a little while longer about lighter topics, and then I insisted on letting her go since it was getting late in England.
I rose and put my mobile down on one of the side tables, wishing Damian could welcome me back into the family as willingly as my mum just had.
