Good grief… she could feel it again now despite the hundreds,thousandsof days that had come and gone since then. The burn of that touch. The speed with which it had travelled right to her core. The unbelievableheat…
It had taken less than the span of a single breath for Sophie to realise how incredibly wrong she’d been in the moment she’d met Luc. When she’d decided, then and there, that his rough edges and more than a hint of a dark background meant that he didn’t fit. That he could never be allowed to come close enough to become an integral part of her life.
She’d seen, as clearly as if a curtain had been yanked open to reveal a view in the blinding light of high noon instead of an expected gentle dawn, that it wasn’t Luc that didn’t fit. She was the one.
Shedidn’t fit.
The woman who was dreaming about the perfect, safe life in a beautiful house, raising happy, healthy children who had two parents to adore them – with a man she loved more than enough to be ecstatic about the prospect of spending the rest of her life with him – might be the person she desperately wanted to be but…
… but it wasn’t who she really was.
She couldn’t admit that, of course. Even to herself. She’d fought not to be that person since she was no more than a small child trying to navigate a world that had just been shattered. Since she’d made a vow – one that she couldn’t actually articulate until many years later – that she was never going to be weak like her mother and cause unspeakable pain to the people who loved her the most. Right then that included Tom and Hannah, along with the father who’d devoted his life to raising her. Alone.
Neither would she ever admit to the secret, shameful fantasies she had let herself dance around the edges of, thinking she was perfectly safe because no one would ever guess it was even possible she would want to imagine such a thing. They all knew that, while they were both polite and friendly, there was no personal connection between Sophie and Luc, let alone shards of an attraction fierce enough to stop any nearby clocks.
The tacit agreement between the two of them not to give that undercurrent any more power by bringing it out into the open had been kept. Everyone knew that Luc wasn’t thrilled with his best friend’s obsession with Sophie Spencer. That Luc didn’t really like her much at all, in fact.
But that was the other truth that had been shot down in flames in that fragment of time, wasn’t it?
The pull was mutual. Maybe equally compelling on both sides. Somehow, Luc had created a shield that had been strong enough to prevent her, or anyone else, seeing even a hint of that because his best friend – his brother from another mother – had made no secret of his feelings.
‘I’m going to marry you, Sophie Spencer.’
Secrets had done their best to slither away from the harsh light of exposure with a speed that could almost trick the mind into believing they hadn’t been seen at all. Sophie’s secret had been chased by a guilt that was so real it made her feel as if she’d actually cheated on Tom. That safety net, of believing that Luc would never, in a million years, feel the same way so it could never, ever be anything more than a fantasy locked away in her own head, had just been vaporised.
This wasreal.
And the inherent danger was overwhelming.
Nothing needed to be said. They both knew that tiny blink of time was all they could ever have. What they didn’t know was that, in the very near future – eclipsed by tragedy – it would be more than they would ever want.
And maybe that explained the sadness Sophie had sensed in Luc’s gaze. There was a new truth there. Perhaps, as he’d told her during that lunch, he had been toying with the idea of doing wedding photography but she knew that he was working with her for more than the extra income.
For more than his casual friendship with Greg could account for, either.
He was doing this for her.
Because of the memories.
Because of what had been lost?
But that didn’t really make any sense. Unless…
Unless he was doing this because it was what Tom would have wanted him to do?
Yes… Sophie could see Tom’s smile now, as easily as she’d remembered that glimpse into Luc’s soul. What would he wantherto do?
That was easy. Tom would want the same for Luc as he would for her. For him to be helped if he was in trouble. For him to have friends who were his family. Did Luc have people in his life now who cared that much? As much as Tom had? Sophie was pretty sure she already knew the answer to that, too. Because she knew why he would never have let anyone else that close again. How could you, if your heart was too broken to ever risk that kind of loss again? Ifyouhad been broken?
She knew too much, didn’t she? Luc was trusting her not to open old wounds and that was the least she could do. For Tom.
For all of them.
10
TEN YEARS AGO…
‘I’m only doing this because I love you so much, Soph. I’m never, ever doing it again.’
