GREEK HUSBAND

Chapter 48

'Were you aware that your mother was an addict?' Edward asked curiously.

'Yes, of course, but I was told to never mention it again once I moved in with my uncle and aunt. They were ashamed of it,' Bella confided ruefully. 'Mum got into drugs when I was a baby but I didn't know that she'd gone into rehab before I was a year old.'

'Your father got her onto a drug rehabilitation program but it didn't work.'

No, indeed it hadn't, Bella recalled, her disturbing memories of her late mother including many of her lying comatose or doing inappropriate things because she was out of her head on drugs.

'It must've been challenging for him as a doctor to live with an addict, who was the mother of his child.'

'Yes, and of course, he inevitably met someone more suitable, another doctor he worked with, and deserted us.'

'But he did take your mother to court first in an effort to gain custody of you...'

That fact was news to Bella. The story she had grown up with ended with her father Tony's departure from their lives and his marriage to another woman. Now she bent her head over the file and learned that her father had failed to win custody of her from her mother because Keira Donovan had impressed her social worker with her apparent desire to turn her life around. Although her father had been granted access visits to his daughter, there had been continual cancellations and arguments, which had prevented his visits from taking place. By that stage, her father had gotten married and Bella reckoned that her mother's bitterness over that reality would have known no bounds. In an obvious effort to stop the visits, Keira had accused Bella's father of assault and that accusation had plunged Tony into a damaging slew of investigations by the police, the social services, and even the General Medical Council. During that period Keira disappeared and changed her name to ensure that she couldn't be tracked down.

Having failed to trace Keira and their daughter, her father had eventually given up the search. By then he had become a father for the second time and had a new family to focus on.

'Your mother took you to live in a commune in Wales,' Edward remarked. 'What was that like for you?'

'Ironically it was better than living alone with my mother,' Bella admitted a shade guiltily. 'There were other people around to look out for me and make sure I went to school and had regular meals.'

'You had it tough.'

'I wish my father had found me. I wish he hadn't stopped looking but he was probably afraid that Mum would make more allegations against him and that that might wreck his career.' Bella sighed as she finished reading up to the point where her uncle and aunt had given her home after her mother's death from an overdose. 'I can't really blame him. Mum was incredibly difficult. She hated him with a passion and she was very bitter.'

'And how do you feel about your father now?' Edward asked levelly.

'That he probably did the best he could and obviously he didn't deliberately abandon me. At least you were lucky enough to have both your parents growing up,' Bella reminded him, closing the file and replacing it on the table with finality. Yet a little burst of warmth had touched the cold, hollow place in her heart where her belief in her father's lack of interest had lodged in childhood. It was good to know that he had cared enough to fight for her even though he had ultimately lost out. For the first time ever, she wondered if she should try and contact her father.

Edward's expressive mouth quirked in receipt of her innocent comment. 'Having both parents never felt lucky to me. Anatole married my mother, who was a very spoiled Greek heiress, primarily for her money.'

Bella gazed back at him in shock. 'That's an awful thing to accuse your father of!'

'But regretfully true. Although he married my mother he was actually in love with a waitress called Athene. He set Athene up as a mistress and she became pregnant with Bastien only a few months after my mother conceived me,' he confided grimly. 'Eventually, my mother found out that she wasn't the only woman in her husband's life. I must've been about six by then. I still remember her screaming, sobbing, and throwing things and the drama went on for days. Anatole duly promised to give up Athene and we lived in peace for a while. But of course, Anatole was lying and the truth came out again. That same destructive pattern just kept on repeating and repeating—'