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He swallowed the dark emotions he was feeling away. “And the third time,” he prompted, wondering how he could erase that pain from her expression forever.
She nodded. “The third time was after his accident.”
All the air rushed out of Hendrix’s chest. “His accident?”
“Yes,” she nodded, moving back to the seat opposite him. She eased herself into it with a grace that he now knew came naturally to her. “He was thrown from a horse. His family has a home in Maine. He used to go there whenever he could.”
“And you didn’t accompany him?”
“No.” Something flickered in her expression. “I had an obstetrics appointment. I was pregnant with Ellie.”
And Eleanor had also been pregnant with another of William’s children. Were there more out there? More descendants of this out and out bastard?
“I felt awful, of course, when he came back all bruised and out of sorts.”
“It must have been some accident,” Hendrix drawled, his cynicism something he was struggling to conceal.
But Chloe was too absorbed by the recounting of the past to notice. “Bruised ribs, a few gashes to his face.” Her smile was reminiscent. “He was never a great equestrian.”
Hendrix’s hands balled into fists in his lap.
“In any event, he sulked for a week, and I kept to myself. He was a terrible patient, far better left to the nurse I hired.” Her face darkened, and the words that had been falling from her lips with a level of cathartic freedom clung to her mouth now.
“I need to know it all,” Hendrix said, though it was not just from a legal perspective. He wanted to know it all. He wanted to understand what her married life had been like.
“I’d been out with a friend, to see a movie.” Her cheeks coloured. “A male friend.”
Hendrix’s interest spiked. “Romantic?”
“No.” She cast him a distracted look. “You should know, better than anyone, that I’m not cut out for infidelity.”
The reminder of the other night was a flame licking at his flesh.
“I knew my husband struggled with the idea of monogamy. But I was prepared to accept it.” She lifted her hands to forestall any remark he might have wanted to make. “I was young and stupid. I still believed, and hoped, that our fairy tale would come true.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what I was thinking, if I’m honest.”
“So you saw a movie with a platonic, male friend.”
“Yes. David is his name. We’re still friends. He’s from London. We get together and eat scones and drink tea and watch tennis and laugh at Ricky Gervais.”
“I think Ricky Gervais is funny on all continents,” Hendrix couldn’t resist teasing, though his mood was not jocular in the slightest.
“Of course he is. In any event, I’d got home, and William was absolutely livid. He accused me of cheating. He told me the baby could be anyone’s. That he didn’t want to raise another man’s child.” She sucked in a deep breath for courage and spoke, but her words were slightly high pitched. “I could see that he was in one of his rages. So I went to walk away.” Her brow furrowed. “When Will got in those moods, he wasn’t worth being around.”
Hendrix was struggling with what to say, so he said nothing.
The robot had returned. Her next statement was without emotion, without pain, though he knew how badly William had hurt her.
“He punched me, in the face, and he kneed me in the stomach. Then he pulled my hair and shouted that he didn’t want the baby. That he’d never want it.” Her fingers rubbed together. “He told me to get rid of it, or that he’d do it for me.”
Hendrix stood, his powerful frame feeling constrained by the conservative office he was in. He’d grown up as a wilding in the countryside, and in that moment, he wanted to run like a cheetah, fast and furious, across this concrete landscape.
His fury was the wind at his feet. He needed to do something physical to release the catatonic rage that was bursting inside of him.
“I presume he meant that he’d hit me until I … lost her.” Now her voice shook with emotion. “You can imagine, then, Hendrix, why I ‘abandoned’ my husband with no intention of returning.”
Hendrix’s feet carried him to her, and he crouched down so that their eyes were at a level. “And yet still you want to protect him.”
“I want to protect Ellie,” she whispered. “She can never know that her own father felt that way about her. That she was so unwanted by him. For her sake, I need to keep some part of the fairy tale alive.”
