Page 17 of Riding High

Now she was married to the Church, and it was a possessive bastard.

No, she wouldn’t bore Troyden with her shitty childhood, but she could ask him about the man who gave her half of her DNA.‘Can you tell me about my father?’

Troyden steepled his fingers and banged the tips against his lower lip.‘What do you know?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Right.’Troyden crossed one leg over the other and lightly clasped his hands around his knee.‘Well, Thom was a decade younger than me, so we weren’t that close.He was… wild.’

‘You said that before,’ Eden frowned.‘What do you mean?’

He twisted his lips.‘He did whatever he wanted to do.He was all about himself, all the time.’

Eden bit the inside of his lip.‘So he’s dead?’

Troyden nodded.‘Yes, I’m sorry.He died in a car accident thirty-odd years ago.’

‘So, while my mum was pregnant with me or shortly after I was born.’

Troyden tapped the arm of his chair with his index finger.‘I can find the exact date,’ he assured her.‘I have his death certificate somewhere.’

‘How old was he when he died?’Eden asked.

‘Thirty… -four or -five?’

Eden’s eyebrows shot up.‘My mum was eighteen when she fell pregnant, nineteen when she had me.’

Troyden winced.‘Yeah, he was nearly double her age.He was also…’ he hesitated.

Eden knew what he was about to say.‘Married?’Did she have any half-siblings?Finding an uncle was enough of a shock.‘Did they have children?’she demanded.

Troyden shook his head, and Eden experienced both relief and disappointment, an odd combination.‘No, they didn’t.They had a tumultuous relationship, mainly because Thom couldn’t be faithful.I didn’t have much to do with him after I left home, Eden, but I heard about his exploits from our mum.’

Eden grimaced.Her father sounded like he caused a lot of drama for everyone in his life.‘Do you know anything about my mum, how they met?’

Troyden lifted one shoulder.‘I don’t.But I got a call from him a week or so before he died.He said that he’d got someone pregnant and that she wanted to get married.I reminded him he was already married, and suggested an…’ His words rolled to a stop, and he looked away.He pulled in a deep breath and carried on, his cheeks pink.‘I suggested an abortion, but he said that he’d tried to convince her, that she was religious and wouldn’t consider one.’

It felt like they were discussing someone else, someone wholly unconnected to her.

‘A week later he rolled his car and died on impact.’Troyden gripped the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.‘It was a bad time for me.There was so much death to deal with.My first marriage was on the rocks and my business was taking off.I was juggling quite a few balls.’

She got it: her pregnant mum was low down on his list of priorities.‘Did my mum ever make contact with your family?’she asked, feeling incredibly tired.

Regret passed through Troyden’s eyes.‘She didn’t, not as far as I know.’

Eden stared out of the tall window.It was a bucolic English scene, perfect for a tourist brochure extolling the virtues of the English countryside in the spring, but all she could see was her mum, eighteen, pregnant, and scared.Being religious, sleeping with Thom would’ve been a big deal for her.She wouldn’t have done it unless she genuinely believed he was the man she was going to marry.But why didn’t she choose to give her up for adoption?Why did she keep her?

‘It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?’Troyden said, his tone kind.

She met his eyes and nodded.‘There are so many unknowns, and no one to give me the answers.’

He rubbed the back of his neck.‘I can tell you about my parents, about what your father was like growing up, about where we came from, how we lived?—’

‘Have you always been rich?’she interrupted.

He laughed.‘God,no.We were solidly middle class.Before he died, my father was a telephone technician, and my mum a nurse.My stepfather was a truck driver.Thom never bothered to study, but I managed to work my way through uni.I was always the driven one, wanting more.My parents never understood why I couldn’t be satisfied with the life they’d created.’

Eden looked around the room, taking in the bronze sculptures, the expensive furniture and the impressive paintings on the wall.‘You did alright for yourself.’