‘Please, don’t cry, Phoebe. This is all in the past—none of it matters any more.’
Her smile was twisty, a haunted reflection as she studied him intently. ‘Doesn’t it?’
Her words haunted him as he fell into a sleep that was fractured by memories of an upbringing he wished to forget.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘THISISALLin the past—none of it matters any more.’
Phoebe replayed those words through her mind over and over again in the days that followed. Days that turned into nights and bled into days, which all took on a predictable, comfortable pattern. Days separated from Octavio—often he was gone by the time she woke up, but that was fine, she’d come to expect it. Even when she craved him and wanted to see him, she refused to feel disappointed, because this was the schedule they’d tacitly agreed to stick to.
Besides, in the evenings, she received her compensation. They shared dinner each night, and then they shared a bed, and it was in bed that she felt as though pieces of her were slotting into place—pieces she hadn’t even realised were missing. It was there that she felt as though all their barriers slipped away and they were just two people communicating in the most basic and essential way. Neither sought to protect themselves, they were both totally open to and subjugated by the passion they shared. It commanded and controlled them; itwasthem.
It was in bed, a week after their troubling conversation on the matter of his upbringing, that Phoebe lay with her head pressed against Octavio’s chest, listening to his heart, and she felt her own heart beating in perfect unison. As though they had been designed to run at the same time, to the same beat. As thoughthey had their own beat, and her heart had somehow managed to find his.
It was a thought that came totally out of nowhere and almost took her breath away with how fully formed and strong it was. But also, howwrongit was.
There was no such thing as a silent matching of hearts. How fanciful.
Besides, her heart had nothing to do with Octavio and their marriage. Her heart had nothing to do with anything—Christopher had made sure of that.
But the next night, curled around him, naked and covered in a slight sheen from their lovemaking, her body stretching with the new life they’d created, she felt it again. This time, a physical tug in the region of her heart, as though her body were trying to force her to reach out and grab him. Not just grab him, but to take his broken heart in her own and make it better.
She fell asleep with a small frown on her lips and the undeniable sense that things were morphing beyond her control, in a way she was entirely uncomfortable with.
And then, she had the dream.
The dream that had perhaps been forming on the periphery of her mind for some time. A dream that was born of all the experiences she’d had recently. Her feelings on becoming a mother, her missing her own mother, Octavio’s admissions about his treatment at the hands of his uncle.
‘All I want is for him to be loved,’a woman’s voice whispered through her mind.
Phoebe was standing beyond the palace, looking through a locked glass window at Octavio. He sat in a chair in the middle of an empty room, staring straight ahead, not seeing her. Phoebe went to knock on the glass, but her hand couldn’t quite reach it.
‘As a mother, it’s what you want most for your child, Phoebe. To know that someone sees them as they are and loves themfor that person—flaws, dreams, ambitions, all of it. My Tavi deserves to be loved.’
All Phoebe wanted was to make Octavio see her. She tried for the glass again, but it was as though an invisible barrier was holding her just far enough away that she couldn’t break through.
And then, in that way dreams had, everything changed, and suddenly Octavio was fading before her eyes, slowly losing colour and becoming invisible.
‘I could accept dying but for one thing. Leaving my child behind, knowing that he would be alone and how he would miss us. I hoped someone would love him, would hug and hold him and make the hurt better. But no one did. He hurt so much, for so long.’
She could only see his eyes now…jet-black, staring straight ahead. The rest of his body had faded into nothing, leaving the most haunting, awful sense that churned Phoebe’s insides.
Then even his eyes disappeared, and Octavio was completely gone…
She woke, screaming, so Octavio woke, too, reaching for her instantly, looking around to ascertain if there was a danger.
‘Phoebe?’
‘It’s—’
Her heart was racing, her body was covered in sweat. She stared at him, reaching for him, sobbed when her fingers connected with warm flesh. There was no barrier here. Octavio was in their bed, close enough to touch. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him, listening to his heart again—racing now at the shock of being woken by a scream, as her own was racing from the shock of watching him disappear.
‘Are you okay?’
She nodded, her throat thick. She wasn’t sure she could speak.
‘It was a dream. A terrible dream.’
