And he was always, always hungry. He didn’t really mean for food or indeed sex. But for that security. Because he always felt that threat looming. He had to keep winning. He knew what happened when you lost. When you no longer had any tangible value.
He picked up the fork and fed her a piece of the cake to stop her asking another question. Yet stupidly he couldn’t help from admitting the tiniest truth to her.
‘When I was little, my birthday was never celebrated. It was nothing to be celebrated.’ Back then he’d only known what day it even was, thanks to Ellen. ‘Ellen made me a cupcake once, when I was nine.’
He remembered it clearly. And the repercussions when the others had found out.
Jade was very still on his lap; he could feel her sudden tension. But her eyes had such light to them—they were so clear and vibrant and he couldn’t look away from her even when it seemed that she was looking right into him and seeing the gnarled lump of nothing inside. ‘You knew her then?’ she prompted so softly.
‘I’ve known her all my life,’ he admitted simply and the long-sealed vat of poison bubbled up, bursting through the crust he’d thought indestructible. And he couldn’t stop it. ‘My birth mother was young. Her very uptight parents were horrified and the only reason I was even born was because by the time my existence was discovered, it was too late for me not to be.’ He rested his head on the high-backed chair. ‘She was so young she didn’t even realise she was pregnant. Not too young to have a boyfriend from the wrong side of the tracks, though. A boy her father couldn’t have disapproved of more. So, I was given up.’
‘Adopted?’
‘Not through the usual channels unfortunately. My grandfather didn’t want anyone to know, so they sent my mother away and the second I was born they gave me to Nathan and Lena. Nathan had once worked for him—so it was a private arrangement. They were paid to take me, on the condition that there would never be any communication between my birth family and me. Certainly, there would never be any contact between me and my mother. My connection to the whole family would be denied.’
Jade’s jewel-like eyes softened. Of course, she understood the pain of that—she’d experienced similar in her life with her own mother.
He knew she hated being kept in the dark. And she’d shared her secrets with him. What did it matter for her to know she wasn’t alone? And it was because of that—and the softness in her expression—that more spilled from him.
‘My birth wasn’t even registered at the time. But later on, there was contact,’ he said wryly. ‘Because Nathan and Lena only took me for that monthly pay-cheque. They weren’t interested in me, I was just a complete pain. Nor were they interested in working... They only wanted their next fix. They both left all the cooking and cleaning and caring for me to Nathan’s older half-sister.’
It took her only a moment. ‘Ellen.’
‘She did everything. She had done all her life. Everything for everyone. She’d left school early to care for her mother, who got unwell after Nathan’s birth, so she didn’t get a decent education. When their mum died, Ellen struggled to raise Nathan. He took huge advantage of her for years. Lena then did the same—they treated her like their slave. And they used her to look after me. And she was so...worn, so downtrodden with years of that awful treatment, she just accepted it all.’ It had frustrated the hell out of him. ‘But then the monthly money to cover my costs stopped coming. So one day, when Ellen was at work, Lena and Nathan took me back to my grandfather’s house to find out why.’
The bitterest, smallest details spilled out. ‘It was my ninth birthday when I met my grandfather for the first and last time.’
Jade sat so still on his lap he didn’t think she was even breathing. He wasn’t sure he was either. He couldn’t—because every pulse point in his body hurt.
‘He wasn’t interested, of course. He was irate. Yelling that he didn’t want to see them or me. He’d screwed up some investment. Screwed up his marriage. Sure as hell screwed up his daughter. In the end he just slammed the door. As far as Nathan and Lena were concerned, if there was no money, they didn’t want me any more. So they left me there—outside his locked gates. My grandfather didn’t open them. So I was alone.’
He’d been terrified, because the only people he’d known there had driven off, leaving him in some city miles away from the one person who’d ever shown him any kindness.
‘What happened?’ Jade asked.
‘Ellen came when she realised what had happened.’
‘How long were you waiting?’
‘I don’t know,’ he muttered. ‘Hours. She didn’t have a licence let alone a car. She had to bus and then walk and she’d only found out after she’d been at work all day. When she’d forced it out of a drugged-up, barely coherent Nathan.’
‘You must have been terrified.’
‘Cold and confused and starving.’ The memories twisted inside. ‘Ellen had made me that cupcake in the morning, but Nathan saw and before she left for work, he raged at her for wasting an egg on me. I was nothing but a drain on them then, you see. He smashed it in front of me after she’d gone. He was just so bloody mean.’ Alvaro had hated him. ‘But then, when it was dark, she came.’ Finally, finally, he’d been too relieved to even cry. ‘We never went back. She walked out on Nathan and Lena. She was finally furious enough to get past her own fear. Not for what they’d done to her. But to me. You should have heard how they used to talk to her. I’ll never forget it.’
‘And how did they talk to you?’
Yeah, he didn’t forget that either. How unwanted he’d been. How useless. How, if he wasn’t bringing them money, he wasn’t worth anything.
‘Ellen worked every job she could—taught me how a work ethic enabled a person to survive. Cooking, cleaning, picking crops, bussing tables, stocking supermarket shelves in the small hours...and she wasn’t young then, Jade. And it was hard and some days there was nothing much to make a meal with. And I was so hungry.’
‘So you worked hard too.’
He nodded. But he’d been on his own a lot—learning to cook as best he could, not just for himself, but for Ellen too. So she had something to come home to.
‘My birth mother had been a kid who made a mistake. But her parents? They were wealthy and they could have afforded to do the right thing. They could have gone through a proper adoption agency or something. But they were too obsessed with their own perfect image. So they passed her little mistake—me—off to someone else—never taking responsibility, let alone any kind of care for anyone other than themselves.’
‘What happened to her—your birth mother?’