Free Divided Hearts by Susan R. Hughes Page B

parent.”
    Simon eyed her speculatively. “You told me your parents had a nasty divorce, and you’re not close to your mother. I take it she wasn’t one to put her daughter’s needs first?”
    Faye felt her stomach dip at the question. She preferred not to think about her relationship with her parents if she could help it. “That’s putting it mildly. She was wronged, but she should have been able to put it behind her for my sake. She made retribution more important than my best interests. For that I won’t ever really forgive her.”
    “And your dad?”
    Faye shrugged. “We get along all right, but I guess I still blame him a little for what happened. He’s the one who had the affair. But he’s suffered for it—and in the end his mistress left him for a younger man.”
    Simon nodded his understanding. “Sounds like it’s been rough for you.”
    Releasing a gentle sigh, Faye waved a dismissive hand. “It was, but I’m on my own now. I don’t need them anymore.” Her words didn’t quite ring true, but it was what she’d been telling herself for some time, and she couldn’t stop now.
    “How I’d hate for Hannah to say that about me one day,” he remarked.
    Faye turned to him, regretting that she may have inadvertently cast an unfavourable light on parenthood. “She won’t. You’ll make mistakes, but I don’t see you messing up that badly.”
    His hand still on the wheel, Simon settled next to her on the bench, squinting against the sun as he studied her face. He paused before speaking. “This morning, when Hannah was having her fit, it really rattled me. Until then I thought I had this parenthood business figured out.”
    “Don’t be hard on yourself,” Faye said. “She’s really a lad-back kid, but it’s not an easy job for anyone. They test you over and over again, in a million ways.”
    Simon nodded. “I know. But you see, I’m the type of person who needs to feel he has control over all aspects of his life. I suppose it could be a reaction to having so little control over what happened to me as a child. First my father disappeared, then my mother took us to a new country, none of which I had any say in.” He leaned forward, resting his elbow on his knee as he continued. “Finally, though, I had my career in my own hands and I felt comfortable in my life. Finding out about Hannah, suddenly the bottom dropped out of my cozy existence, and I’ve been scrambling to regain my footing ever since—if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphors,” he added with a half-smile. “It certainly has been a test, in more ways than one.”
    Faye sat dumbstruck for a moment, his honesty touching her as it surprised her. She understood just what he was saying; she, too, had felt powerless as a child, not knowing from one day to the next whether the whims of her parents or the courts would pluck her out of her current home and place her in some new arrangement in which she had no say . All at once she felt deeply curious about Simon Blake’s past, and the influences that had shaped him into the person he now was … a person she quite liked spending time with.
    “Think of it as a growing experience,” she offered at last, “a chance to learn that you just can’t have control over everything in your life. That is, if you really had any to begin with.”
    Letting out a slow breath, Simon straightened. “I’ve already learned a few things about myself. My mother isn’t so wrong, you know. In my relationships, it’s always me who backs away. I’m thirty-four years old and still looking for excuses not to settle down. I have to wonder, is it that I’m afraid to surrender my heart to someone else’s command?”
    Faye felt a heavy thudding beneath her ribs, his words resonating within her own heart. Could it be that she was the same way? Unlike Jenna, she hadn’t dated much until university, and to this day couldn’t say she’d ever truly been in love.
    “Do you think that’s true?” she