LITMIR.BIZ

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gruff, ‘I’m sorry,’ while wiping away the moisture from her face with the back of both hands. ‘I would like to tear her hair out... She’s dead, that probably sounds terrible, but I don’t care!’ she cried.

      ‘I know terrible, and, trust me, that is not.’ He studied her pale face. ‘You look like you could do with a drink,’ he said, losing the battle to hide his concern.

      ‘You should have told me.’

      ‘Why? You think I want to advertise the fact I was a fool? I’ve never told anyone before—the whole world but you swallows the party line.’

      The contempt in his voice made her wince. It was clearly aimed at himself. She didn’t say anything because there was nothing she could say. Instead, she watched him pour brandy, wondering how she could refuse without it seeming odd.

      ‘No, thanks, I won’t. Actually I think Naomi knows.’

      ‘Naomi?’ He thought about it and nodded. ‘I suppose she might know some—she and Lucy were close at one time, though I think she dropped her before the end,’ he recalled with an uninterested shrug. ‘And Lucy liked to boast about her triumphs.’

      ‘I know now is not the right time, but I really don’t think there’s ever going to be a good time.’

      ‘You want to make arrangements to leave.’ Eyes dark and bleak turned her way but his shrug was casual. ‘There’s no hurry.’

      ‘Good, no, I mean...’ She took a deep breath and thought, It’s now or never. ‘That is not what I wanted to say. I’ve been trying to speak to you for a while... You see... Actually there’s a...complication.’ She swallowed. ‘Oh, Raoul,’ she husked out. ‘I’m so sorry.’

      His jaw clenched. ‘Will you stop saying sorry?’

      ‘Sorry.’ She bit her lip to stop another sorry falling out. At least sorry was better than I’ve fallen in love with you. The words were so clear that for a moment she thought she’d spoken them out loud.

      He arched a brow.

      ‘I didn’t lie to your grandfather.’

      Comprehension spread across his face—how like the Lara he had come to know to get hung up over a lie. ‘You lied for the right reasons.’ He reached for her hand but she didn’t take it; instead she brushed a few fiery, silken strands of hair from her brow.

      ‘Our marriage was a lie.’ On more levels than he knew.

      Her use of the past tense deepened the frowning line between his dark brows.

      ‘At times a lie is the kindest thing.’

      ‘Not a kindness. You see, I am pregnant—not pretend, for real.’

      The delivery was everything she had intended, measured, calm, but then she spoilt it all by bursting without warning into tears, loud sobs that seemed to be dragged from somewhere inside her. ‘I’m s-sorry!’ she managed between choking gasps.

      Raoul didn’t move; he just stood there with the look of a man who could see a ten-ton truck approaching and couldn’t get out of the way.

      Lara’s knees folded and she sank down into the nearest chair. ‘A shock, I know, and I’m sorry, but when you’ve had time to take it on you’ll realise as I have that it doesn’t have to change anything.’ He still didn’t love her.

      Raoul, who had been standing silent, surged into motion, dropping down on his knees beside her chair.

      ‘It changes everything.’ He knew this, though the details of these changes remained beyond him at that moment. His brain just kept coming up against baby and stalling. ‘And will you stop saying sorry?’

      The absent afterthought made Lara lift her head. ‘I can’t stand women who cry all the time,’ she sniffed, wiping the moisture off her face with the backs of her hands and missing the tender expression that momentarily broke through the shock on Raoul’s lean face.

      ‘Here.’

      She took the laundered man-sized handkerchief and with a prosaic sniff she straightened her spine and looked into the face that was level with hers. She forgot what she had been about to say as a wave of love washed like a soul-deep sigh over her.

      ‘I know this is the last thing you need right now—I—’

      ‘We! It’s not as if you didn’t have a bit of help.’ When...? Raoul pushed away the thought. It didn’t really matter when it had happened; the way forward was to deal with this reality. He pushed against a crushing tide of guilt—he had done this to her.

      ‘It’s not really so terrible. I quite like the idea of being a young mother. If you like, I can keep you in touch with what is happening, milestones, you know, the birthdays and—’

      ‘Keep me in touch...?’

      ‘If you want?’ Was she assuming too much?

      ‘Where do you think I’m going to be?’

      She made herself look at him, while struggling for a modicum of composure—better late than never!—and shook her head, not wanting to think about where he might be or, more specifically, with whom.

      He dragged her to her feet then slowly but inexorably pulled her towards him until they stood thigh to thigh. ‘Has it not occurred to you that I might want this child too?’

      ‘To replace the one she took away?’

      He didn’t say anything but the words hung between them.

      It was Lara who broke the silence. ‘No, it hadn’t occurred to me,’ she admitted honestly. ‘How could it? You’ve just finished telling me that you want to live your life alone.’

      ‘This is about responsibility.’

      ‘Is that all it is to you?’ she flung back, wishing as much for him and their unborn child as for herself that it could be more.

      ‘I’m not going to lie to you, Lara, pretend things I do not feel, but I had a no-hope father who always put his own needs ahead of his children’s. I will not do that to any child of mine.’

      ‘And if that’s not enough...?’

      ‘For who...you?’

      ‘Yes,’ she admitted in a quiet voice.

      ‘It might turn out that way,’ he admitted. ‘But don’t you think we should try...for the baby?’

      ‘What do you mean by try? Do you mean that we should stay married? Because that was not part of the plan.’

      ‘Having a baby wasn’t part of the plan either,’ he retorted.

      ‘I thought you’d be angry.’ Weirdly it seemed to her he was recovering from the shock quicker than she had.

      ‘People get married because of babies, they don’t get unmarried.’

      ‘You wouldn’t be suggesting this if there wasn’t a baby, would you?’

      ‘No.’ She deserved a truthful answer, but she also deserved a man capable of love.

      ‘No.’

      Lara tried to tell herself that if he’d lied she would have refused his offer, but she knew she wouldn’t. She simply didn’t have the strength.

      ‘I’ve actually come to appreciate what Grandfather meant when he spoke of continuity, of wanting to pass on the name, the genes...’

      ‘Oh, how convenient, now you suddenly want a baby? When did this happen? In the last five seconds?’

      ‘I would never have made the conscious choice to have a child.’ He would never have brought a child into the world merely to give his life meaning; the selfishness of the idea repelled him. ‘But now that I am going to be a father I will be the best one that I can.’ It would never

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