Welcome to Mills & Boon. Jennifer Rae

wonder what it was she still had to say. How could there be anything left?

      ‘Fine.’ She grabbed a bag from behind her and thrust it into Zeke’s hands. ‘In that case, you go and pack. We’ll be in here when you’re finished.’ She jerked her head towards the door of the library.

      Inside, Helena seemed perfectly at home in a room he hadn’t even realised she knew existed. With decisive strides, she made her way to the desk and, grabbing two tumblers, poured them both a whisky. Turning, she handed one to Flynn and he could see the uncertainty in her eyes, even as she ran the show.

      She thought he would reject her again, even though she’d sent Zeke upstairs to pack so she could leave him, once and for all. How many more ways were there for them to show each other they weren’t meant to be?

      ‘Okay, look, this is what’s going to happen here,’ Helena said, clutching her own glass with both hands as she sat down in the chair nearest the desk. Raising his eyebrows, Flynn followed suit, settling into his own chair. ‘I am going to tell you some things. Not because I think you deserve to hear them, and not because I think they’ll change anything.’

      ‘Then why are you bothering?’ Flynn asked because he had to try and remember which Helena this was now. It was just harder with her sitting right there, blonde and lovely and tired and hurt.

      ‘Because it matters to me. Because I need to have the full truth out there before I can move on.’ She gave a light shrug. ‘And because Thea told me to.’

      ‘Then by all means,’ Flynn said with excessive courtesy, ‘talk away.’ It wouldn’t make any difference. It couldn’t, not now.

      Helena sucked in a breath then paused as if she hadn’t expected the permission to be granted so easily. She took a sip of whisky before she started to talk.

      ‘When I was sixteen, I snuck out of the house to meet an older boy, one I knew I wasn’t supposed to see. He took me over to his friend’s house, said we’d have a little party.’

      Flynn shifted in his seat. He didn’t want to hear this, didn’t need to hear this. ‘And you were all about the parties, right?’

      Helena ignored him. ‘When I got there, they gave me a drink, then another one. And another—maybe more. I wasn’t used to alcohol so it affected me quickly. But I wasn’t so drunk that I didn’t tell them to stop when they tried to take my top off. I wasn’t so far gone that I didn’t scream when they raped me, one after another. I knew they were lying when they said afterwards that I was plastered, that I’d said yes and I just couldn’t remember. But I was too ashamed to argue.’

      The glass toppled from Flynn’s hand, rolling across the rug and leaving Scotch in its wake. Flynn watched it go, a solitary focus in a world that was shifting around him, spinning until he didn’t know which way was up any more.

      Maybe you didn’t even know who the father was. He’d said that and she’d winced. Because she hadn’t known. Because two men had taken that away from her. Had taken everything. And now she sat here relating the story in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice, as if she were putting herself apart from the memory so it couldn’t hurt her any more.

      He wanted to reach out to her, to touch her, to tell her he was listening now, but what right did he have? And what good would it do when she was leaving him anyway?

      ‘I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t have been able to look at my daughter without remembering that night, without reliving it.’

      ‘And that’s why you thought you couldn’t love your own child.’ The words rasped in his dry throat and Flynn grasped tight on to the arms of his chair to try and stop his world from tilting so far it tipped him off.

      ‘After that day, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to love anyone or anything again,’ Helena said, and when her gaze flashed up to meet his Flynn felt it all the way deep in his soul. ‘But I did. I fell in love with you, even when it was the craziest, riskiest thing I could do. And it still wasn’t enough.’

      Flynn swallowed, unable to find the words to respond. Helena drained the last of her whisky and put the glass next to a stack of paper on the desk before getting to her feet.

      ‘I gave up my child, did everything our parents wanted, and it still wasn’t enough for them. Eight years later, I married you to try and make up for my past mistakes and that wasn’t enough either. So, you know what? I’m done trying to be enough for anyone else. I’m good enough for me. I’m not a monster, whatever you think.’

      ‘Helena—I didn’t—’ Flynn started, but she held up a hand to stop him.

      ‘No. You’re not talking. You’re listening, and then I’m leaving.’ She swallowed and he could see the tears forming in her eyes. Fine. She wanted him to listen? He’d listen. And maybe some of this crazy mess would start to make sense to him at last.

      ‘I was a child, and I was taken advantage of,’ Helena went on. ‘I did the best I could then, and I’m doing the best I can now. And if that’s not enough for you? It’s your loss, Flynn. Because I didn’t want you as a CEO or as an heir. I wasn’t going to push you aside because I found a better option. I just wanted you. I wanted the future you painted for me in your wedding speech. You talked about how you can’t plan for love or schedule romance—and then you went and tried to do just that. But I didn’t want some spreadsheet setting out when we had sex, or had kids, or when you should buy me flowers. I wanted a real marriage—love. And that’s so much more than anyone else has ever offered you.’

       I just wanted you.

      The words echoed in his brain until he could hear nothing else. Grasping at the arms of his chair, he tried to push himself up, to reach her, reason with her. ‘Helena. I...’

      ‘No.’ She shook her head, blonde waves flying, and he knew again that he loved her. He’d used her lies and the adoption as an excuse to push her away before she could hurt or leave him. When all along she’d offered him everything he’d ever wanted—and never believed he’d deserve. ‘I can’t...’ She bit back a sob and Flynn felt like the worst man who had ever lived. ‘Look, read this. Then we can talk.’ She thrust the stack of papers from his desk into his hands and he stared at it, confused.

      By the time he realised what he held, the door had swung closed and she was gone.

      He wanted to follow, wanted to fix things, but he didn’t know where to start. And Helena had just given him the best clue he was likely to get.

      Their marriage contract, except now it was covered in Helena’s handwriting. The same loopy scrawl he’d seen on the back of that invitation on their wedding day, promising they would figure everything out once they were married.

      Well, now that time was here.

      Pouring himself another whisky, Flynn settled down to read and hoped against hope Helena’s words would tell him how to make this right.

      * * *

      It was five days before the doctors finally agreed with Thomas’s protestations that he was ready to go home.

      Ever since he woke up the first day he’d been demanding to be let out, but Isabella kept telling him, ‘I almost lost you, Thomas! So you are staying here until the doctors say it is time to go home.’ The tone in which she said this ranged from calming to almost hysterical, depending on how belligerent he was being that day.

      Helena had stayed back, letting her mother-in-law deal with him, knowing that she was the only woman he’d listen to anyway. But she’d visited every day and even managed some short civil conversations with her father. Thea’s first visit had elicited rapid beeping on Thomas’s heart monitor as he’d berated her, but Thea had taken everything he’d thrown at her without losing any of the serene calm she’d come to possess since running away with Zeke.

      Then she’d told him in no uncertain terms that she was happy, living her life the way she wanted to, and anyway, had Isabella told Ezekiel