WHEN THEY ARRIVED at the villa Leo helped Margo out of the car, one hand on her elbow as he guided her inside.
Xanthe, Ava and Maria all met them in the foyer.
‘You’re all right?’ Ava asked, her face pinched with anxiety.
‘Yes—and, more importantly, the baby is all right,’ Margo said, and smiled when Maria muttered a prayer of thanksgiving and crossed herself.
‘I’m going to get Margo upstairs,’ Leo cut across his sisters’ anxious chatter. ‘It’s been an incredibly long twenty-four hours, and I don’t think either of us slept well last night.’
Actually, Margo had slept better than she had in months, wrapped in Leo’s arms. But she could imagine Leo had spent a considerably less comfortable night, cramming his large body onto the narrow bed, still in his suit.
They went upstairs, and as Margo came into her bedroom she breathed a sigh of relief. She wanted to crawl into the big, soft bed and stay there for about a million hours—good night’s sleep or not.
Behind her, she heard Leo close the door. ‘I need to shower and change,’ he said, ‘and I imagine you’d like to freshen up. And then we’ll talk.’
His tone was implacable, leaving no room for arguments. Still, Margo tried. ‘I’m very tired, Leo—’
‘There will be plenty of time for you to rest today. But I won’t let you put me off, Margo.’ He hesitated, seeming to want to say more, but then simply turned and left the room.
Margo went into the bathroom, stepping into the huge two-person shower with its marble sides and gold fixtures. As the water streamed over her body she had a sudden image of Leo joining her there. They’d showered together a few times during their stolen weekends away, but that felt like a lifetime ago. She felt like a different person from the insouciant, carefree career woman she’d been back then, embarking on a no-strings affair.
But then she was a different person—because that carefree woman had been nothing more than a part she’d played, a mask she’d worn. She hadn’t dared try to be anything else. Anything deeper or more lasting.
In just a few minutes Leo was going to demand answers, and if she was brave enough she would drop that mask for ever and tell him everything. She knew he deserved to know.
She rested her head against the cool marble, willing herself to be strong enough for that kind of hard honesty.
A few minutes later she was dressed in a pair of loose yoga pants and a soft hoodie, curled up on the window seat that overlooked the villa’s gardens, the grass now coated with a thick rime of frost.
Leo tapped once on the door that joined their bedrooms before poking his head in and then coming through completely. His hair was damp from his shower, and he wore a soft grey tee shirt and faded jeans that were moulded perfectly to his muscular legs. Wordlessly he walked over and joined Margo on the window seat.
Neither of them spoke for a long moment; the only sound was the wind rattling the bare branches of the trees outside.
Finally Margo spoke, and each word felt laborious, even painful. ‘I’m not who you think I am.’
‘Who do you think I think you are?’ Leo asked quietly.
‘The woman you met in that bar. That glamorous, confident, sexy woman.’ She let out a shaky laugh. ‘Not that I’m trying to be arrogant, but that’s how I wanted to be...to seem.’
Leo was silent for a moment, then finally he asked, ‘Who are you, then?’
‘A street rat from Marseilles.’ She glanced at him, expecting to see if not disgust then at least surprise. But Leo looked completely unfazed.
‘How did a “street rat from Marseilles” end up as a confident career woman in Paris?’ he asked after a moment.
‘Luck and hard work, I suppose.’ She tucked her hair behind her ears and gazed out at the wintry afternoon. ‘But I’ve always felt like a street rat inside.’
‘That doesn’t mean you are, Margo. I don’t think anyone feels like the person they present to the world all the time.’
She pretended to look shocked. ‘You mean you don’t feel like an arrogant, all-powerful CEO all the time?’
He smiled and gave a little shrug. ‘Well, obviously I’m the exception.’
She laughed at that, and then shook her head. ‘Oh, Leo.’ She let out a weary sigh, a sound of sadness. ‘If you knew about my childhood...’
‘Then tell me,’ he said.
And although his voice was soft she knew it was a command. A command she should obey, because she’d already come to the decision that she needed to tell him the truth. But truth was a hard, hard thing.
‘I grew up one step away from the street,’ she began slowly. ‘And sometimes not even that. My mother was a drug addict. Crystal meth—although I didn’t realise that until later. But it...the drug...controlled her life.’
Now, surely, he would look shocked. But when Margo looked at him his expression was still calm, although his mouth had pulled down at the corners with sympathy.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I.’ She let out a wobbly laugh that trembled into a half-sob. ‘Oh, God, so am I.’
‘Was she able to care for you?’
‘No, not really, and sometimes not at all. At the beginning, yes. Before she became an addict. At least I think she did. I survived, anyway. But my father left when I was four—I only have a few fuzzy memories of him.’
‘That must have been hard.’
‘Yes.’
The few fuzzy memories she had were precious—of a man who’d pulled her into a bear hug and swung her in the air. Why had he left? It was a question that had tormented her for years. How could a man walk away from his family? Had she not been lovable enough?
‘After he left my mother went very much downhill.’
She lapsed into silence then, because she did not want to tell him how grim it had been. The sheltered housing, the stints in various homeless shelters, the weeks when she’d been taken away from her mother and sent from one foster home to another. Some of them had been good, some of them mediocre, and some of them had been very bad. But always, in the end, she’d been brought back for her mother to try again, having promised she’d stay clean, and for a few days, sometimes a few weeks, she had.
Life during those periods had been normal, if fragile, and sometimes Margo would begin to believe it was going to be okay this time. Then she’d come home from school to find her mother strung out, or manically high, the promises all broken, and the whole cycle would start once more.
Until Annelise. But she really didn’t want to talk about Annelise.
‘Margo?’ Leo prompted softly. ‘Tell me more. If she couldn’t care for you, how did you survive?’
She shrugged. ‘Sometimes not very well. I was in and out of foster homes my whole childhood. When I was old enough I learned to take care of myself.’
‘And how old was that?’ Leo asked in a low voice.
‘Seven...eight? I could use the gas ring in our bedsit and I could make basic meals. I got myself to school most days. I managed.’
‘Oh, Margo.’ He shook his head, reached for her hand. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘I don’t talk about my childhood to anyone,’ she said, her voice thickening. ‘Ever. It’s too awful. And in any case, Leo, we didn’t have that kind of relationship.’
His fingers tightened on hers. ‘Do we now?’
Her heart lurched at the thought. ‘I...I don’t know.’
Which was what he had said to her yesterday morning. So much uncertainty, for both of them, and yet here she was confessing. Trying.
‘Tell me more about your childhood,’ Leo said after a moment.
She closed her eyes briefly. ‘I could go into details, but I’m sure you can guess. It...it wasn’t pretty, Leo.’
‘I know that.’ He was silent for a moment, his fingers still entwined with hers. ‘But there’s something more, isn’t there? Something you’re not telling me?’
‘Yes.’ She took a deep breath. ‘When I was eleven, my mother had a baby. My half-sister. There was no father ever in the picture.’ Another breath to keep herself going. ‘Her name was Annelise.’
‘Was?’ Leo said softly, his fingers tightening on hers. ‘What happened to her?’
‘She...she died.’
She closed her eyes against the memories, but they came anyway. Annelise cuddled up to her in her bed, one chubby hand resting on her chest. Annelise toddling towards her with a big toothy grin, hands outstretched as she called Margo ‘Go-Go’. Annelise with her arms wrapped around her neck, her cheek pressed to Go-Go’s.
‘I’m so sorry, Margo.’
‘My mother was lucky not to have Annelise taken away from her right at the beginning,’ she said, the words just barely squeezed out. ‘With her history. But we’d flown under the radar for a couple of years by then. I was managing to get myself to school, and my mother seemed like she could control her addiction.’
She held up a hand to stop Leo saying anything, although he hadn’t even opened his mouth.
‘Which is ridiculous, I know, because of course an addiction can’t be controlled. But she...she functioned, at least, and then when she found out she was pregnant she cleaned herself up for a while—enough for Annelise to be born and brought home.’
‘And then?’
‘As soon as Annelise was home she lost interest. I didn’t mind, because I took care of her. I loved taking care of her.’
‘But you had school—’
‘I stopped going to school. I had to, for Annelise’s sake. I told them we were moving, and nobody bothered to check. It was easy. Honestly, if you don’t want to be noticed by the authorities it can be remarkably easy.’
‘And so you stayed home and took care of Annelise?’ Leo was silent for a moment. ‘What did you do for money?’
‘We got a little bit from the government. And my mother would sometimes...’ She hesitated, not wanting to admit just what her mother had done to score her drugs, but Leo must have guessed because his mouth tightened.
‘She found a way to get money?’ he surmised.
She nodded. ‘Yes.’ And then, because now that she’d started the truth-telling she felt she needed to say it all, she blurted, ‘She sold herself. To men. For money.’
Leo nodded, his jaw tense, and Margo wondered what he thought of her now. In and out of foster homes, her mother a prostitute... She hated him knowing it.
‘So what happened to you and Annelise?’
‘I was her mother,’ she whispered. ‘I did everything for her. Everything.’ She blinked rapidly and managed, ‘She called me Go-Go.’
She stared down at her lap, at their entwined hands. And she thought of Annelise—her soft baby’s hair, her gurgle of laughter.
How, after seventeen years, could it still hurt so much?
‘How did she die?’ Leo asked quietly.
‘The flu. The flu.’ Her voice choked and a tear slipped down her cheek. ‘She just had a fever at first. I was taking care of her. I gave her some medicine and had her sleep in my bed, but...’ She drew in a gasping breath. ‘The fever spiked, and I was so scared, but I knew if I took her to hospital the authorities would get involved and they might take her away. I couldn’t bear that, so I just bathed her in cool water and gave her more medicine.’
‘And then...?’ Leo asked softly.
‘And then she started having convulsions. I begged my mother to take her to hospital then, but she...she wasn’t herself.’ She’d been high on drugs, barely aware of her children. ‘So I took her myself. I carried her to the hospital in my arms. When I got there a nurse took her from me. She...she was already dead.’
She bowed her head, the memory and the pain and the guilt rushing through her.
‘It was my fault, Leo. My fault she died.’
She’d never said those words aloud—never even admitted her guilt to herself. And saying it now made her feel both empty and unbearably full at the same time. She bowed her head and tried to will back the tears.
‘Oh, Margo.’ Leo’s arms came around her and he pulled her towards him, her cheek against his chest. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
He didn’t speak for a moment and she simply rested there, listening to the steady thud of his heart, letting the grief subside.
‘It wasn’t your fault, you know. You were twelve. You never should have had to bear that kind of responsibility.’
‘I wasn’t a child. And it was my fault. If I’d gone to the hospital earlier they could have given her antibiotics. Brought her fever down. Maybe she’d have been taken away, but she’d still be alive.’ She spoke flatly, dully, knowing it was the truth and that nothing Leo could say would change it.
‘What happened after that?’ he asked after a moment. His arms were still around her, her cheek still against his chest.
‘I was put into foster care—a few different families.’
She spoke diffidently, not wanting to admit all the terrible details. The foster mother who had dragged her by the hair into the bathroom because she’d said Margo was dirty. The family who had left her, at fourteen years old, in front of the council offices with nothing but a cardboard suitcase because they hadn’t wanted her any more.
‘It was tough for a few years,’ she allowed. ‘I missed Annelise so much... I acted out. I was hard to deal with.’ And so people had chosen not to deal with her.
‘When I was sixteen,’ she continued after a moment, ‘I finally calmed down. I stayed with a family for a year. They were good to me. They helped me find a job, saw me settled.’
‘Are you still in touch with them?’
‘No. It wasn’t that kind of a relationship. They had a lot of different foster kids. I was just one of many. We wrote letters for a while, but...’ She gave a little shrug. ‘I am grateful to them. And really,’ she continued quickly, ‘I don’t blame anyone except myself. The people who fostered me all tried their hardest. They didn’t have to take children in. They were doing their best. And I really was difficult. I can’t blame anyone but myself for that.’
‘But you were a child,’ Leo protested, ‘in an incredibly difficult situation.’
‘Yes, but I was mature for my age. I’d had to be. I could have...controlled myself.’ Except she hadn’t wanted to. She’d been wild with grief, wanting and needing to strike out. To hurt someone as she’d been hurting.
‘And this is why you’re so afraid now of something happening to the baby?’ Leo said slowly. ‘Because of what happened to Annelise?’
She nodded. ‘I know it’s not rational, but everyone I know has left me at one time or another. And Annelise...losing Annelise was by far the worst. I don’t think I could survive something like that again, Leo. I really don’t think I could.’
‘You won’t have to.’
‘But you can’t know—’
‘I don’t have a crystal ball to predict the future, no.’ Leo took her chin his hand, turning her face so he could look her in the eye. ‘But do you believe me, Margo, when I tell you I will do everything in my power—absolutely everything—to keep you and our child safe and healthy? I won’t let you down, I swear to you. You can trust me.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and although she didn’t know if she had the strength to believe him she was still glad he’d said it.
Then, simply because it felt right, she leaned forward, closing the small space between them, and brushed her lips with his. It was barely more than a peck—a kiss that wasn’t sexual or even romantic, but something else entirely. Something deeper and more tender.
Leo stilled under her touch, and then he eased back, his expression serious. ‘Thank you for telling me. For trusting me that much.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t before.’
‘Like you said, we didn’t have that kind of relationship.’
And did they now? Margo still didn’t know. She didn’t know what she was capable of, or what Leo wanted.
‘You should rest,’ Leo said as he stood up from the window seat. ‘It’s been a very long couple of days.’
‘Yes...’
But she didn’t feel tired, and after he’d left she paced the room restlessly, her mind starting to seethe with doubt and worry. She’d just unloaded a huge amount of emotional baggage onto Leo. When they’d struck their business deal he hadn’t expected to have to cope with all that. What if he decided she was too much work? Or if he withdrew emotionally rather than deal with all the neurotic fears Margo had just confessed? Going back to being businesslike would be even harder and more painful now she’d confessed so much.
Tired with the circling questions she knew she couldn’t answer, she decided to keep busy instead of simply pacing and worrying. She went to the adjoining bedroom that was meant to be a nursery and started sketching ideas to transform it into a space for a baby.
It had been weeks since she’d exercised her mind or her creativity, and it felt good to think about something other than the current anxieties that revolved around Leo and the baby. To remember that she’d had a career, one she’d enjoyed, and could still put to use, if only in this small way.
And as she sketched and planned she felt her uncertainties fall away, as if she were shedding an old skin, and she knew that she wanted to move forward from the past, from the pain. She wanted to move forward with Leo and have a real marriage. A loving one.
If she dared.