‘How did Bruno react when you refused to have the abortion?’

‘I didn’t,’ Carina said, lifting her eyes to the moon. ‘I knew how he would react, and I knew he would force me to do it. I took everything that I could, and I left, I never went back.’

‘That was… very brave of you,’ Ivy said. ‘You must have been scared.’

‘Before I was with Bruno I survived on my own for years. With a child it was… it was difficult and then I met Ray, and he was so good with Dax, they loved to spend time together. Dax was no more than a toddler when I met Ray, but they went everywhere together, they were like peas in a pod and… Ray made it look so easy.’

‘So you abandoned Dax? Why?’ Ivy’s sympathy for Carina waned when she considered whether she could walk away from her child, the child she had already sacrificed for before.

‘I… I don’t have an excuse. I was exhausted and… things weren’t working out with Ray, he loved Dax more than he loved me. I thought it was important for a boy to have a father, that he have that male influence. I had struggled for so long, and I was still terrified that Bruno would find out I’d had the baby, if he found us… I didn’t know what he would do. Ray and I were living in a trailer, struggling to make ends meet and… I got an offer from my cousin, she offered me a job in Boston… I couldn’t have looked after a child and worked as well. So I just left…’ Rolls of moisture slid out of her eyes, and she made no attempt to brush them away.

‘A child needs a mother too,’ Ivy said. ‘Ray sold him off to the fighting circuit when he was eight… I guess looking after a child that wasn’t his took its toll on Ray too. Mauri didn’t find him until he was thirteen.’

‘Mauri told me,’ Carina said, twisting in her seat to reach over and put a hand on the arm of Ivy’s chair. ‘He told me everything that he knew… Mauri found out that his wife was cheating, I don’t think that he ever knew who her lover was, if he did then I suspect he’d have turned his back on Bruno too. Trystan was only five or six when she died.’

‘How did she die?’

‘Mauri didn’t tell me,’ Carina said. ‘But it wasn’t long after he discovered her affairs… read into that what you will.’

‘You think that Mauri…?’

‘I know that he was a ruthless man in his hey-day, even Bruno feared him, and he had a reprehensible reputation of his own.’

Would Mauri have killed his wife for having an affair? It was a possibility and one that Ivy would have to ask Dax about. There was only a year between him and Trystan, given that, he wouldn’t have been in the Stark mansion when Mauri’s wife died, so he might not know anything about what went on.

‘Wait,’ Ivy said aloud. ‘There’s only a year between Dax and Trystan…’

Carina said nothing to the unspoken question and it would be impossible to know if Bruno had knocked up two women a few months apart. Now she had a secret of her own, Ivy would have to tell Dax, she couldn’t know all of this and not tell him. If it turned out that Trystan was his half-brother then Dax would go into self-destruct mode, he hated the guy.

But now that she thought about it, Trystan was nothing like Mauri and Brad, they were both dark haired and had a similar build and work ethic. Trystan was an anomaly, but maybe that came from being the youngest, he was spoiled. She had no idea what Mauri’s wife looked like, what her colouring was, or her upbringing, but Dax might.

‘I have to call Dax,’ Ivy said, Carina caught hold of her.

‘He’s been through so much…’

‘Yes, he has,’ Ivy said. ‘But he has to know the truth.’ Except with this bounty hanging over their heads now perhaps wasn’t the time to split his focus.

‘I’m glad that he found you, that you two… that he has a woman in his life who loves him for who he is.’

‘I do,’ Ivy said. ‘None of this explains why you came back now.’

‘Dax was in his teens by the time I heard that he was staying with the Starks. I thought about approaching him, but I was too afraid of Bruno and what he would do if I tried to get into Dax’s life. I didn’t know what they had told him about me… The Starks are quite a force to reckon with, and if they decided that I wasn’t allowed to have contact with Dax, then they had the means to keep us apart.’

‘You were worried for your safety but didn’t consider Dax’s?’

‘Mauri has so much money and… he could give Dax a life that I couldn’t. I didn’t know anything about how he was raised or where he was living. I knew that the Stark mansion was impenetrable, what should I have done?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ivy said.

She didn’t know what she would do in that scenario. Ivy had struggled to encourage Dax to stand up to Mauri when he was a fully grown man with nothing to fear. As a teenager, Dax would have been ensconced in the Stark ethos, and if Mauri had told him to cast out his mother, then he probably would have.

But in spite of that, Ivy tried to imagine what it would be to have a child in that place. If Mauri took her child from her and Dax, she wouldn’t just walk away from him or her without a fight. But she also wasn’t the type of woman to leave her son with a random boyfriend when she got bored of raising him.

‘So you knew he was there, and you never tried to contact him?’ Ivy asked.

‘I thought it was easier, that he had the life he wanted,’ Carina said, resting back in her seat and closing her eyes. ‘There are so many things I would have done differently, that I should’ve done differently. But Mauri made me think… he told me that now was my time to mend those mistakes.’

‘He got in touch with you?’

‘I was surprised at first when I got the phone call. I was working in an accounting office, and Mauri just called me up and told me that he wanted me to visit. I shouldn’t have been surprised, after a few more calls I agreed. I just got into town this week. I had dinner with Mauri, and he told me that he’s been tracking me for a while.’

Tracking her, it made her sound like prey being hunted, but Carina didn’t seem to be affected in the same way that Ivy was. ‘How long is a while?’

‘I don’t know. But he knew about my life, about things that have happened to me through the years. I don’t know if he was watching me then, or if he somehow found out more recently. Mauri isn’t the type of man to leave things to chance, he has full faith in what he does and likes to be prepared.’

‘Were you ever married?’

‘A couple of times,’ Carina nodded.

‘Did you have other children?’ Dax could have siblings out there that he might like to seek out.

‘No other children,’ Carina said. ‘If I couldn’t support my first child, it seemed wrong to… I couldn’t bring myself to…’

Ivy supposed that was sensible. ‘I understand.’

‘You have to believe that it was never my intention to hurt anyone. And when I came back here, Mauri said that Dax was married, he told me about his life and I… I was just desperate to meet him, to tell him how sorry I am. I do want to be a part of his life.’

But how would Dax feel about that. It took a lot out of him to admit his feelings, Ivy was blessed that he chose to be with her when it could easily have gone the other way. If it had then she would be married to Trystan by now, watching as Dax stood on the side-lines accepting Mauri’s commands and carrying on with his life as though they hadn’t fallen for each other in the way that they had.

‘I don’t know if that’s possible,’ Ivy said. ‘I’ll talk to him, but… when Dax makes up his mind…’

Carina’s smile faded in again. ‘Just like Bruno and Mauri too… he’s been surrounded by strong men who believe men shouldn’t embrace their feelings or give in to any kind of weakness. Bruno used to say that caring made a man less formidable.’

‘One word of advice,’ Ivy smiled. ‘If you do talk to Dax or he does decide to let you be a part of his life…’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t compare him to Bruno, he won’t take that as a compliment.’