LITMIR.BIZ

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happened in its entirety, and you know why it happened. That makes you unique.’

      ‘What happened?’ he repeated, his eyes scanning her face as though he was looking for permission to say what needed to be said and finding it. ‘What happened was that I was half a world away from London when my mother collapsed with a brain aneurysm. Dad had sent me over to Mumbai to negotiate with the owners of a start-up technology firm, so I was in India when Mum’s friend called me out of the blue. It was the middle of the night, but there’s nothing like hearing that your mother’s been rushed to hospital to wake you up pretty fast.’

      ‘How awful. No one should have to take a call like that when they’re so far away.’

      ‘The next twenty-four hours were probably the longest and most exhausting of my life. But if anything it got worse when I finally arrived. Cassie had met me at the airport. I’ll never forget walking into that hospital room. I hardly recognised her. She had tubes coming out from everywhere, she was surrounded by medical staff, and I couldn’t understand why she was still comatose. She looked so lifeless, so white and still.’

      He shook his head and closed his eyes as Lexi moved closer towards him.

      ‘I think I must have been too exhausted at that point to take things in, because I remember asking Cassie if she was sure there hadn’t been some terrible mistake—this wasn’t our mother after all. But then the doctors whisked us all out to one of those beige and green so-called relatives’ rooms and the truth finally started to hit home.’

      He half opened his eyes as Lexi looked into his face. ‘Our lovely, beautiful mother hadn’t come to London to stay with her old friend and talk charity fundraising. She’d come to have plastic surgery. She didn’t tell us in advance because she knew we’d try and talk her out of it. According to her friend, she’d planned the surgery months earlier, as a Christmas present to herself. Because she needed the boost to her confidence.’

      ‘Oh, Mark.’

      ‘She had the operation Monday morning, collapsed on the Monday evening, and slipped away from us on Thursday morning. While I was standing in a police station in central London, being cautioned for attacking a member of the press. Your father.’

      Mark snapped his fingers, and the sound ricocheted out into the serene calm air and seemed to penetrate Lexi’s body. She jerked back in shock.

      ‘That’s how fast your life can switch.’

      Lexi felt tears roll down her cheeks, but she couldn’t speak. Not yet. Not until he was ready.

      ‘The surgeon kept telling us that if she’d survived the aneurysm she could well have been brain-damaged or disabled, as if that would help in some way. It didn’t.’

      ‘How did your dad get through it?’ Lexi asked.

      ‘He didn’t,’ Mark whispered. ‘He fought off cancer a few years ago, and was in remission until her death destroyed him. He’s never been the same since. It’s as though all the light went out of his world. He’s fighting it, but he’s determined to do it alone and there’s not one thing Cassie or I can do except make his days as bright and positive as possible.’

      ‘And do you think this book will help? Is that why you agreed to do it?’

      ‘Cassie thinks it’s the one thing keeping his spirits up. He wants it to be a celebration of her life instead of some nonsense tabloid journalists will put together from media press kits to make a profit from some scandalous headline.’

      ‘But what about you, Mark? What would help you to grieve for her?’

      ‘Me? I don’t know where to start. Sometimes I can’t believe that I won’t ever see her again or hear her voice. I don’t want to think about all the future events and special occasions in my life where there will be an empty chair with her name on it. And then there’s the guilt. That’s the toughest thing of all.’

      ‘Guilt? Why do you feel guilty?’

      He closed his eyes. ‘Let me see. Never having time to spend with my own mother one-to-one because of the obligations I took on when Edmund died. Always cancelling lunch dates with my biggest fan at the very last minute or having to cut short telephone calls because of some business meeting. Oh, yes, and let’s not forget the big one. The reason she had plastic surgery in the first place.’

      Mark lifted his head and looked directly at Lexi. She could see moisture glistening at the corners of his eyes, but was powerless to speak in the intensity of his gaze.

      ‘She told her friend that she was having the surgery because she didn’t want to let me down at my engagement party. She didn’t feel beautiful enough to stand next to me and my future bride’s aristocratic family. So she went to London on her own and went through surgery on her own. For me. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous in your life?’

CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘OH MARK,’ Lexi whispered in amazement. ‘Why do you think your mother felt that way? She was stunningly beautiful.’

      Mark looked up as a flock of seabirds circled above their heads before flying over to the cliffs to nest. ‘Pressure. Competition from other actresses for work in TV and movies. Every time we met she talked about the disappointment of being turned down for the roles she really wanted to play.’ Mark sighed. ‘She couldn’t get work, and it was obvious she was finding it tougher and tougher to bounce back from each new rejection. Her agent gave up even trying to interest the movie studios. There was always another beautiful starlet just waiting to be discovered, and in the end it wore her down.’

      ‘But Crystal Leighton was still a big star. People loved her.’

      ‘Try telling that to the casting directors. The truth is she’d been desperately unhappy for a very long time and it showed. She’d lost her spark. Her vitality. Her joy. And it was there on her face for the world to see.’

      ‘So it wasn’t just about your engagement party, was it? That was just an excuse for having the work done. Please don’t feel guilty about something you have no control over. From what you tell me, it doesn’t sound like you would’ve been able to change her mind.’

      Mark exhaled slowly and Lexi felt his breath on her face. She lifted her right hand and stroked his cheek with her fingertips as his eyes fluttered half-closed. ‘I didn’t realise you were engaged,’ she whispered, desperate to prolong the sensation of standing so close to him for as long as possible. Even if there was a fabulous fiancée waiting for him back in London.

      ‘There’s no reason why you should. It never happened. It’s over now,’ Mark replied, his brow furrowed and hard. ‘We’d known each other for years, we mixed in the same circles, and I think it just became something other people expected us to do. I never proposed and she didn’t expect me to. It was simply a convenient arrangement for both of us. We were friends, but I wasn’t in love with her. Two months ago she found someone she truly cares about, which is how it should be.’

      ‘Did your mother know you felt that way?’

      ‘I don’t know. We never talked about it. We don’t talk about things in our family. We skate over the surface for fear of falling into the deep icy water below. And all my father cared about was making sure there’d be another Belmont son to inherit the title.’

      Mark shook his head, his mouth a firm narrow line. ‘I thought for a while that I wanted the same thing. That perhaps having a wife and a family might bring the Belmont family back together again. But it would only have made two more people miserable and led to an embarrassing divorce down the line. I can see that now.’

      Lexi’s brain caught up with what Mark was saying and a cold hand gripped her heart in spite of the warm breeze. ‘You were prepared to do that?’ she asked, trying to keep the horror of his situation out of her voice and failing. ‘To marry a girl whom you didn’t

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