No Strings Attached

Chapter Eleven

The slight nod in his head shifted her hair against her scalp – she knew he was listening – but he couldn’t trust his voice not to break her heart when he opened his mouth so he said nothing. “When I left that hospital,” she went on, in a hoarse whisper, “I felt like ... wasteland. After everything, it was ... it was not being able to give her the life that I should have, not being able to sustain her until she could look after herself – failing to do something that I felt my body was made to do – I just felt ... damaged.”

She pulled back suddenly, and looked up into his eyes as she ran her fingers over the tears underneath them. “I couldn’t tell you then, I just ... I couldn’t say the words out loud. I felt like I let you down not being able to bring you the beautiful, healthy baby girl that I should have been able to ... It just made ... what you said – it just made it so much more real.”

He closed his eyes in pain, and shame, because he knew she was right. Yes, he was angry that she never came to him, but he could understand ... everything – given the way Mr. Keller had treated her, she would have felt like it was her fault, as though her emotional damage had somehow inhibited her ability to nurture a child.

And after what he’d said to her, she’d probably believed he would have felt the same way.

He framed her face with his hands, rubbing his thumbs against her high cheekbones as he looked back into the large hazel eyes – so that she could see the truth in his own as he spoke.

“Sometimes, these things – they just happen. I wish you would have told me – oh God, I really do, you have no idea, but I can ... understand why you didn’t.”

“But I ...”

“No,” he broke in quickly, laying a simple, soft kiss on her lips to silence her, “There’s no ifs and buts, it’s ... it won’t change anything now. I should have been there, I shouldn’t have pushed you away ... you should have told me, we should have been together ... we’ll go around and around with these regrets and we won’t get anywhere. I finally ... I see that we can’t go back now, I don’t think I realised before that we couldn’t just pick up all the threads we left on the beach that day ...”

Her dark eyes stormed with emotions – sorrow, despair – but he could see need in there, and something deeper, darker than it should be.

“I was going to tell you that night,” she whispered, “I promise I was going to tell you ... but when you said ... those things, I knew you deserved so much more than me, you were right. You should have a fairy tale romance, a love affair with somebody ... someone that’s pure, that can take everything that you are and appreciate you for that, love you for it ... give you beautiful children, a house back home – you should have what Tor and Jayden have got.”

“Why can’t I have that with you? Why do we have to be the ones that lose everything?” he brushed a dark fall of hair behind her ear gently.

“How much harder have you had to work because it was me that you chose? How much have you lost because it was me? It’s like what we have just ... it binds you to me, it doesn’t set either of us free, it locks us both up.”