by Stacy Gail
“My point,” she went on, oddly touched that he was furious on her behalf, “is that I’ve been through this kind of thing before. This is like Vishous 2.0.”
“No. Goddamn it, no. I am nothing like that piece of shit.”
Debating the point would be about as pointless as rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, so she shrugged it away. “What I’m trying to say is that if there’s a barrier between us now, then… okay. I’ll cop to it. But I had a lot of help in putting it there.”
“Scout.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, his jaw knotting in what looked to be an epic struggle for control. Then he opened his eyes once more, gripping her hand hard enough to hurt. “I know that barrier is there because of me, and I know I deserve your mistrust. But I am nothing like that… that scum who laughed at you. Do not dare to even think of that prick when you look at me, do you hear me? He is not here. I am. That is the difference between us. If you just give me a chance, you will see that.”
Her pulse paused. “Why do you even want another chance? Wouldn’t it be easier to just walk away?”
The scowl came back full force. “What the hell? Why would I do that?”
Because the true Cinderellas of the world never really attract the Prince Charmings.
“Look,” he went on when she couldn’t make the words come out. “If I were to give up on you now, not only would the rest of my life be utter shit, but it would also send you a message that is completely wrong.”
“Message? What message?”
“It would be like telling you that you are not worth the effort it takes to earn my way back into your life. That, I think, has been done to you far too many times, and I refuse to do it. I refuse to add my name to the list of assholes who never saw your worth. I will never abandon you, ma fleur. And I will never, ever give up.”
A shiver quaked her spine while the vow reverberated through her, lighting up corners inside her that were so dark she didn’t even know they were there. It was shockingly wonderful to hear he’d decided not to be a temporary person in her life, when no one had ever bothered to put such a commitment into words before. It was unnerving that he understood her so well and knew that she needed to hear it. Then again, she’d never hidden who she was.
That was his specialty.
“As nice as that is to hear,” she said, carefully choosing her words, “that wasn’t what I was going to say.”
“What did you want to say?”
“Sliding your way into my life under the cover of a lie was just about the worst thing you could have done with me. I’m telling you this not to hurt you,” she added when his eyes flinched and the hand holding hers tightened. “I’m saying it because I need complete and total honesty between us from this point on—honesty from both of us, so I’m not going to spoon-feed you any lies. The only thing you’ll hear from me is the ugly truth.”
“From this point on.” His free hand came up to cup her jaw, lifting it so that her gaze locked with his. “Sounds like you are willing to go down this path with me to see where it goes.”
Holy crap, that was exactly what it sounded like. “I honestly don’t know. I guess it all depends on you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve got wounds in you, Ivar. Wounds that are so deep they affect everything you do. You might not even be aware of how much they bleed into all the other facets of your life, but they do. That means they’re in control of you, and they always will be until you can find a way to heal yourself.”
“You have it all wrong.” Firmly he shook his head, his eyes glittering with a ferocity that shook her. “I get it now. The past only screws with me, so I have left it behind where it belongs—in the past. I know what the most important thing is in my life, and I am looking right at it.”
Despite the statement knocking the wind right out of her, she did her best to rally. “I can’t believe that you can just leave it all behind like it’s nothing.”
“You cannot believe it because you carry your own scars. They make you think there is no place for you in this world, even when I try to show you that there is. I know I have earned your doubts. But you are also getting bogged down by your own past, and it keeps you from me now.”
“Nothing is keeping me from you except you.” She said it so firmly she was positive she believed it. “Luckily, I’m very good when it comes to scouting out any kind of trouble that could lead to problems down the road, and the biggest trouble I see right now is that you have no idea where you come from. That’s been used as a weapon against you, to the point where it’s keeping you from living your life. Therefore, the only solution is to get you the answers you need. Once you have them and things settle down a bit, we’ll see if you still have any interest in me.”
His face turned into a granite mask. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’ve never been more serious.”
“I told you, I no longer give a damn about my origins. It has fucked with me for the last time.”
“What if I told you that I’ve found your answers?”
“If this is a test, it will not work. The past is done. What matters is convincing you that my present, plus your present, is going to equal one hell of a future.”
“Then I guess I went to all that trouble for nothing.” Stunned that he’d turn his back on the possibility of obtaining the object of his obsession without even a blink, she could only stare at him. He wasn’t really choosing to focus on her, making the grand gesture of ignoring his need to know where he came from in favor of having her in his life…was he? “Nevertheless, I want you to have the answers you’ve been looking for.”
“Forget them. Just focus on me, on what we can be.”
“I believe I am.” She took a deep breath, pushed her office door open and led the way inside.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The tranquil silence of her office was a lie. Scout felt that the moment she entered, with Ivar trailing close behind. Her ears told her he shut the door behind him while she headed straight for her desk, then listened to his footsteps come to an abrupt halt. As she seated herself, she looked up to see he stood, as still as a statue, in the middle of the Tiffany blue and white floral-themed rug, staring at a thin wand of a woman. Her dark blonde hair was smooth and elegantly cut, her makeup photo-shoot perfect, and her knit dress and matching houndstooth fur-trimmed jacket was probably worth more than what Scout made in a month.
Eliane Chantal Fournier-Rundstrom looked every inch the former-model aristocrat she was.
Except for the eyes.
In the dark blue eyes that drank in her son for the first time in almost three decades, Scout could see her crippling anxiety.
“Allow me to make the introductions.” Placing the folders on her desk in front of the chairs facing her, Scout gestured toward Ivar to take a seat. He remained rooted to the spot, his face bloodless.
Not the greatest beginning, but it was early yet.
“Ivar, may I present your biological mother, who has always wanted to be a part of your life and has loved you from the moment you were conceived with the young man she adored. Eliane, I’d like to introduce you to your long-ago kidnapped son Ivar, who never tried to commit suicide over the prospect of having you in his life. In fact, as far as I know, he’s never been suicidal, period.”
Ivar’s icy eyes slashed to her, looking almost savage in his shock. “What?”
“You both have been raised in a world of lies, which is going to explain my next statement.” Scout leaned over to tap the two folders. “I’m hoping today will be the first day of your lives together as a family. As such, you need to be truthful with each other, because as I’m sure you both know, nothing good and lasting can be built on lies. Nothing.” She looked again to Ivar, who was watching her with such intensity it was a wonder she wasn’t knocked flat by it. “Ivar, would you like to join us?”
“What the fuck, Scout,” he grated, teeth bared and looking like he needed to punch something. “I to
ld you how I upset this woman, yet you throw us in the same room together? I know you once told me your middle name could be heartless, but I never thought it could be true.”
“Ivar—”
“And kidnapped? Have you lost your damn mind?”
“I know more about you than you do, so if you decide to turn your back on this now, you would be the only one around here who could be called crazy.” When he simply continued to glare pure death at her, she did her best to maintain a calm façade and gestured once more to the chair. “Please have a seat.”
Looking like he’d be happy to toss both her and the chair out the window, he did as she asked, his attention veering to the woman he sat next to. Scout didn’t fail to notice that he took the long way around to reach his seat, making sure he stayed as far as possible from Eliane. Not because he hated her, but because he’d been told she hated him.
Lies. All lies.
“First and foremost, Ivar,” Scout began, while mother and son simply stared at one another, “you were punished throughout your childhood because you were supposedly the result of a violent, traumatic rape. Like I told you earlier, I’ve known kids who were born under that exact same set of circumstances, and they refused to feel ashamed for existing. After all, they didn’t ask to be born, so there is no shame in being alive. That said, your grandmother lied to you. Eliane, would you like to explain who Ivar’s father was, or would you like me to do it?”
“No, it should be from me.” Like the rest of her, Eliane’s accented voice was cultured, elegant and oddly fragile. She tried to smile that patented blank Fournier smile, but there was too much turbulence in her eyes to pull it off. “When I was nineteen, I was desperate to get away from my mother and my modeling career for… well, f-for various reasons—”
“No lies, and no hiding the truth,” Scout murmured, trying to be gentle but also determined to clear away all the crap. And dear God, was there a lot of crap to clear. “Ivar, your mother essentially lived the same life you were coerced into enduring—forced from one casting couch to another so the baroness could live off her daughter’s ever-increasing paychecks. And, like you, Eliane couldn’t take it because she’s a decent person who was saddled with a narcissistic sociopath for a mother.” She nodded to Eliane. “Go ahead.”
Eliane seemed startled by Scout’s description of her mother, but she nodded gamely and turned back to Ivar. “I ran away with a young photographer, a man by the name of Ivar Gunnar. We were together a mere four months before I became pregnant. I had you, and together our little family was very happy for nearly a year. Then your father was killed by a drunk driver and I had nowhere else to turn to for help, except my mother.”
“But…” Ivar frowned at her before shooting a sharp glance Scout’s way. “No. This is all wrong.”
Scout shook her head. “It’s not wrong. This is the truth. It’s always been the truth.”
“Then why was I told I was the result of a rape?”
“Because Lady Albertine is the monster in this tale, not you,” she responded, keeping her tone even through sheer force of will. It cost her one hell of a lot, considering the damage the baroness had done. “It just so happens I had your mom’s permission to drop in on Lady Albertine, after I went up to Montreal to speak with Eliane.” And it was one meeting she’d never forget. “I must say, despite the stroke Lady Albertine had, that old bitch really can spin a tale when she wants to.”
“You what?”
“In her mind, both you and Eliane were put on this earth to serve her, did you know that? In fact, she honestly doesn’t see that she’s done anything wrong by doing whatever she wanted with the two of you, because she doesn’t think of you as actual people. You’re objects, and you exist for her amusement. As such, she believes she has every right to wring you dry mentally, emotionally and financially because she—and this is a direct quote—owns you.”
“I always knew she was the real monster.” Ivar’s face twisted in disgust before he nailed her with a hard look. “You are never to speak to her again, Scout. I will not allow her poison to touch your life.”
“Not a problem, Trouble. Lady Albertine makes my dandelion stomper look like a sweet little angel.”
Eliane frowned. “Forgive, me, but… Trouble?”
“Just a nickname your son’s earned for himself.” Scout shrugged, before returning to Ivar’s question. “As for why Lady Albertine told you that you were the product of a rape, she did it for a couple of reasons. One, it made you—a normal, rambunctious kindergartener—more manageable. Whenever you acted up, all she had to do was mention that being a monster was in your blood, and you’d go out of your way to prove what a good boy you were. And two, it made her laugh.”
He looked like he wanted to throw up. “What?”
“Her words—it made me laugh. Apparently it tickled her funny bone whenever she thought of what Eliane’s reaction would be if she knew her much-adored son had been told this horrible, crippling lie. Albertine never gave a thought to the damage it would do to you. She did it because it amused her.”
“Fucking bitch,” Ivar grated, then shot his mother an apologetic look. “Forgive me.”
“No. She is a fucking bitch.” She smiled tentatively at him, though her eyes still reflected horror over what Scout had revealed, giving her an almost bruised look.
Ivar seemed to be of the same mind, because he inched closer to her, his face softening. “What happened after Ivar Gunnar died and you returned to Albertine? My first memories are of growing up in my nanny’s care before Albertine took me at the age of five.”
“I had you with me for the first six months while I tried to recover from your father’s death—a near impossibility with that woman around. Then one day she introduced me to Rupert, the man who would become my husband. While he was not aristocracy, or even French, she approved of him because he had more money than even she knew what to do with. I also thought a marriage to Rupert would be a way to gain more freedom, but… it was not. All I did was trade one prison for another, and in that trade, I lost you.” Eliane’s hand fluttered up, as if she wanted to touch him, before it balled into a fist and retreated to her lap. “I never wanted to be separated from you, Ivar. That was not how it was supposed to be, but I understand if you forever hate me for abandoning you to that demon of a woman.”
“She didn’t abandon you, though,” Scout felt compelled to add, because the pain radiating from the broken woman was too much to bear. “Rundstrom wanted Eliane but not her kid, so apparently he paid your granny an insane amount of money to get rid of you while they were away on their honeymoon. When they returned, the baroness refused to give you back, and since Rundstrom kept Eliane on such a tight leash she couldn’t get out from under his thumb long enough to report to the police that you were missing. It doesn’t matter that a blood relative took you from your mother, Ivar. According to the letter of the law, that’s kidnapping. You were a stolen child.”
To say that he looked stunned would have been a vast understatement. “I never knew.”
“How could you? No one questions where they come from, so why would you? But I promise you were never a mistake, or the product of a violent act, and you were never unloved and unwanted. You’ve always been loved by the woman sitting next to you, just like you’ve always loved her. So much so, you’ve refused to go near her out of fear that your so-called monstrous existence made her suicidal.”
“Another lie.” This was ground out from Eliane with a ferocity Scout hadn’t thought the woman wasn’t capable of. But there seemed to be a mama tigress prowling beneath a lifetime of enforced docility. “I was told very much the same about you—that you had tried to kill yourself when you were informed that I wanted to see you and be a part of your life. When you began to appear in magazines, I feared you would be exposed to the life I had been forced to live, and I wanted to protect you from that. But clearly, my mother had found a new cash cow in you, and she was not about to relinquish her control.”
>
The fury in Ivar’s expression was so hot Scout could feel the burn. “That bitch needs to pay for everything she has done.”
“I’ve looked into that, and you do have legal recourse.” Scout nodded to the untouched files. “Eliane, no criminal charges can be brought against your mother at this time for stealing your earnings when you were modeling, as the statute of limitations has run out, but that doesn’t preclude a civil suit. Ivar’s case, however, is much more recent. Aside from the kidnapping charges, according to Canadian child labor laws you can file charges against your grandmother for grand larceny, thus bringing everything this so-called aristocrat has done into the spotlight. In doing so, though, understand that you’ll also be unveiling the private lives of both you and your mother and making it a part of public record. That’s something you’re going to have to decide what to do as a family.”
“A family.” A bubble of nervous laughter escaped Eliane before she looked shyly to Ivar. “I know you are much too old to need a boring old mother in your life, but I do like the sound of… of family.”
Ivar reached over and grasped her hand, plowing right through that invisible barrier Eliane hadn’t been able to get around. “I will always want you to be a part of my life, as long as you are willing to be in it. I hope you feel the same way about me.”
Eliane’s smile was brilliant, and the nervy tension flowed out of her body like magic. “My darling, beautiful boy, I do. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” He pulled her into a hug, then looked to Scout from over his mother’s frail shoulder. Scout blinked, startled by depth of emotion in his pale eyes. She’d thought she’d seen contentment and happiness in him before, but she now realized that had just been scratching the surface. “My Scout. Thank you.”
“Thank your mother. She’s the one who set this whole crazy train in motion when she paid Marcel Dubois to approach you.”
Ivar pulled back to stare at Eliane. “What?”
