She’s stunningly beautiful sitting there in the sunset, and I can feel my hunger for her rise yet again, even as the feeling of shame at how I’ve treated her tightens still further.
She raises her head at my approach, and I catch the flicker of anxiety in her blue eyes before it vanishes. And in a moment of sudden clarity I realise that her anxiety is because of me. Because she’s afraid of what I might do, of what I might ask of her, and she has reason to be afraid. Especially considering what I’ve already done.
‘Don’t tell me,’ she says before I can speak. ‘You’re the father.’
‘Yes.’ I move over to the table and sit down opposite her.
She lifts one golden brow, still trying to hold on to her ice-queen mask. ‘What? No snide comments about what a liar I am? Not even a gloat about how you did what your father couldn’t?’
She’s angry still, and I don’t blame her for it.
Apologies are difficult, yet I can make them when I know I’ve been in the wrong, and I can admit that I am in the wrong here.
‘I’m sorry, Beatrix,’ I offer, because she deserves this at least from me. ‘I’m sorry for my behaviour towards you earlier. It was unconscionable.’
She blinks, surprise crossing her face. ‘You’re sorry? Seriously?’
‘I’m never anything but serious,’ I tell her. ‘I meant what I said, that I didn’t want to hurt you, that I didn’t want to make you cry. And I’m sorry I did both.’
She blinks again, a fleeting look of bewilderment crossing her face. ‘What brought this on?’
I don’t want to explain myself, but I make myself do it, because, once again, she deserves this from me. ‘I have…reflected on my actions,’ I say slowly. ‘And realise that I haven’t been fair to you.’
Her gaze narrows. ‘I see. If I’d known all you needed was a blow job to be nice to me, I would have given you one earlier.’
I’m irritated she would thinkthathad anything to do with it, but, considering I didn’t reflect on my behaviour until after that had happened, she has a right to question me. ‘It wasn’t the blow job,’ I say. ‘It was your tears.’
She stares at me a second, shock in her eyes, then abruptly glances down at her teacup and the fragrant, steaming liquid in it. ‘If you’re expecting me to apologise in return,’ she says after a moment, ‘then I’m afraid you’ll be waiting until hell freezes over.’
‘Why would you apologise?’ I ask. ‘You did nothing wrong.’
She keeps her gaze on her cup. ‘And yet you keep punishing me.’
My muscles are tight, my jaw aching. Because as much as I don’t want to, I have to acknowledge this truth too, that Ihavebeen punishing her, and for the most childish of reasons: she chosehim, not me.
‘I apologise for that also,’ I say stiffly. ‘That was wrong of me.’
She doesn’t respond, and a silence falls, heavy, weighted.
I don’t like the quality of that silence, how it gets under my skin and stays there, making me think of all the things I’ve done to her, all the things I’ve thought about her, and how wrong they were, and I don’t like it. Especially when we have other, more important things to discuss.
‘As to the baby,’ I say finally, into the quiet, ‘now I have all the facts, I can make a decision about it.’
She looks up at that. ‘We,’ she says, blue eyes full of determination. ‘Wewill make a decision.’
Chapter Eleven
Beatrix
Santiago’s black gazeis direct, his expression granite hard. Sitting across from me in his exquisite dark blue suit, with his hard stare and his handsome features, he’s like a wall of immovable, masculine stone. A wall I want to take a sledgehammer to and break down.
After he left me in the sitting room, I didn’t know quite what to do. His sudden change of mood from fury to controlled politeness was bewildering. He said he didn’t want to hurt me, but he didn’t actually mean that, I know he didn’t. It’s never stopped him before, after all. He never seemed to be a man moved by tears, either.
Not long after he’d gone, Helene entered the room, smiling at me and telling me in English that I looked as if I needed to sit down and rest with some hot tea and a pastry or two.
Her kindness was a balm to my wounded soul, and so I let her mother and fuss around me as she sat me in the beautiful garden, then brought me tea and the pastries she’d mentioned.
I hadn’t realised how much I needed both until after I’d had a few sips of tea and a couple of bites of a pastry. The tea and food at least revived me enough to prepare myself for the return of the test results and whatever ‘decision’ Santiago was going to make.
