Her mouth was dry. “What about your mother?”
“Lana generally backed up Gerald in whatever arrogant, shortsighted comments he made on any topic. I don’t think she actually liked him very much, but she didn’t want to deal with problems in the household.”
“Problems.” The welfare and well-being of her own child.
“I was left in the care of a nanny most of the time.” Dominic’s tone was typically matter-of-fact. “She wasn’t exactly Mary Poppins. Thank God,” he added. “I can’t imagine anything worse than spontaneous outbursts of daily musical theater.”
He had noticed her tendency to bust out random lyrics when she was deep in concentration; his look was both sarcastic and amused, and invited a retort.
For once, Sylvie couldn’t oblige.
Her life so far had been punctuated by periods of soul-shattering loss, but that grief had come amidst decades of warmth and love. She’d known herself the light and center of someone’s existence. No, she’d never experienced hatred.
But as she wrapped her fingers tighter around Dominic’s, she could feel the flickering beginnings of it for two strangers who didn’t deserve to be called parents, and a woman who ought to have been a child’s only hope of comfort.
She was under shrewd observation. “You know some of this already,” he said, and it was a statement, not a question.
“Only that you had a nanny. Dolores didn’t say much more than that.”
His expression didn’t change. “She doesn’t know much more than that. Isobel worked with my mother and used to come around to the house when I was very small. She would always have something for me in her bag. A chocolate bar. A small toy. I’ve never forgotten the scent of her perfume.” A flicker of a smile. “She still uses it now.” There was deepening warmth in his voice. “I’m thirty-eight years old and she still occasionally presents me with a bag of sweets.”
Sylvie was very conscious of the feel of his hand in hers, the skin so silky-warm along his fingers, so shivery-rough on the tips. “Is Pet your only sibling?”
“I have another sister, Lorraine, who’s four years younger than I am. Gerald doted on her, and she’s still his carbon copy in every way. But Pet, she was an unexpected, very welcome surprise, born when I was twelve.”
“And you loved her.”
Another of those semi-smiles. She’d do quite a lot to see a real one. “From just a few months old, she was such a cheeky, happy little kid. Once she started crawling, she followed me everywhere. She almost made living in that house tolerable.” He was looking at their linked hands again, turning them slightly, absently measuring his fingers against hers. “Almost. But when I turned thirteen, I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d been saving scraps of money doing odd jobs around the neighborhood. I was tall for my age. People usually thought I was older. On my birthday, I managed to get a train ticket, and I left for London. I came here. To Magnolia Lane, to find my grandfather. Who took me in without the slightest hesitation. Like your aunt, I don’t think he ever regretted it.”
Opening the door of De Vere’s that day must have been like walking through the Narnia wardrobe: a whole new world and way of life.
Ultimately, the way home at last.
“And Pet?”
“Initially,” Dominic said, “I left a note and took Pet with me. She was still a baby, not even walking yet.”
“You . . .” Sylvie pursed her lips with a silent breath. Barely aware of what she was doing, she stroked his fingers.
“I wanted the only member of my family who felt like my family to be with me. I thought my grandfather could adopt us both.” His thumb ran along her palm before he suddenly released her, sitting back with a grimace of self-derision. “As we weren’t living in a Disney film, however, it didn’t quite work out that way. Lana and Gerald had Pet back by dinnertime, and Gerald contacted the police to see if he could have me charged for abduction, as a minor—”
“Oh my God.” Sitting on the edge of a stool, she stared at him, appalled.
“After Pet was returned home, Sebastian went to see them and spent over an hour talking to Lana. When he came back to the bakery, they’d agreed to abandon any punitive course and sign over full custody of me. I think the former required considerably more finesse and persuasion than the latter,” Dominic added wryly.
There was a slight burn behind Sylvie’s eyes. She blinked it away almost viciously. He’d think she was offering pity. And of the multitude of emotions she’d felt listening to the bare bones of his early years, pity didn’t enter into it. But she was intensely sorry, and helpless, that it was impossible to somehow reach back, to help. “And your grandfather started training you in the family business.”
“A gold-plated legacy to live up to.”
She was quiet. Then: “Sebastian was a marvel. An absolute icon. But you’ve made De Vere’s your own, you know. You’re forging a new legacy here. And I suspect your grandad would be pleased as punch about it.” There was a glimpse of something in his eyes, then, that made her stomach explode into flutters. She looked back at him steadily. “You were happy with Sebastian.”
This was her main professional rival. The man who’d repeatedly insulted and undermined her work. Whose own aesthetic she belittled in return. The man she had, at one time, profoundly disliked.
And if he still hurt, it mattered.
“Yes, I was.” No hesitation now. “He’d been alone since my grandmother died five years before, and my mother rarely contacted him. She’d both inherited and made enough money that she had no use for him or De Vere’s. There was very little emotional attachment on her side. On his, she was a constant absence, a forever loss. He wanted me. He was always interested in what I’d done, what I thought, what I wanted to be. And he made it possible.”
The Dark Forest encouraged confidences, and not just because buckets of alcohol were consumed amongst these tree branches. Sylvie knew from experience that it was easier to talk down here, to open up in the dim light and dancing shadows, to be truthful; with others, with yourself.
Carefully, she said, “In the archives, you said that you and Sebastian had a rocky beginning—”
When he finally responded, she was very aware of how far he was stepping out on the precipice with her right now.
“When I moved in with Sebastian, he enlisted an excellent therapist for guidance in how best to . . . redirect the emotional path I was on. And, hell, did he try. He pushed himself out of his comfort zone in every way to counteract as much of my previous life as he could. He was incredibly generous with his time, no matter how busy he was, and provided everything I needed in a material sense. Including a piano and music lessons, because he believed everyone needs at least two creative outlets for their mental well-being. But . . .” Dominic’s jaw shifted. The tinge of dull red under his cheekbones could have been a reflection from the pink cauldron, but she didn’t think so. She folded her fingers together to avoid slipping a hand back across the counter. In clipped staccato, he confirmed a little of what she’d begun to suspect. “I was a very guarded teenager. I found it almost impossible to initiate any gesture of physical affection. I would want to, sometimes very badly, and I couldn’t. I struggled less on the receiving end, but—that, too. Sometimes.”