Page 79 of Give Him a Chance

“But your mother—he could have saved her…”

“As I said,” and Bernard knew his condemnation of his father was perhaps too harsh, but he would never forgive him. Never. “He did not wish to risk anyone else.”

Lucy sank into a cross-legged position before him on the shingle. “Oh, Bernard. I… I am so sorry.”

And it was her presence that brought him back to the moment, to the living. It was only now that he realized how lost he had been in the past, how desperately he had tried to outrun it.

Outrun the man whom Bernard had never been able to respect.

“I was sent to school the following year, and after that, university, and then I chose to leave my country. I left Mo—I left the place I had grown up as soon as I could.”

“And you and…and your father?” Lucy bit her lip. “You don’t have to tell me. I just wondered…”

“We have never been close.” That was an understatement. “And while I was…well, let us say, away, I received news that my father had died.”

Lucy’s inhale caught in her throat. “So you have no one, then. You are alone.”

Bernard blinked, and saw before him: home. Family. Connection, a wife in the future if all things went to plan, aperson who knew him and saw him without even needing to know his name. A woman who cared, deeply, and would do almost anything for those she cared about. A woman whose heart was so big, she was willing to extend it even for the man she’d never met who’d made a mistake he could never take back.

And he smiled. “I am not alone. I have you.”

The kiss was gentle, and it was restoring in a way Bernard had never believed possible. Lucy tipped herself into his arms and he clung on to her like a port in a storm, like a lifeboat tossed about the sea, and she was his harbor, the one place he felt safe, the one place he knew he could always come and just…be.

When the kiss ended, and it was a shame it had to, it was because of the footsteps.

“Oh, Lord,” Lucy muttered, grabbing her gown and tugging it over her head.

It was less easy for Bernard, but he made a decision to pull on trousers first, not shirt, and so it was with a nervous smile that he greeted the two gentlemen clearly walking back from a night in a gaming hell or one of their clubs.

“Vagrants,” one of them muttered after a single glance at the pair of them.

“These working poor are all the same,” the other returned with a snort. “Look at them; they’ve never eaten a good meal in their lives. It’s sad, really.”

Bernard could not help but laugh as Lucy stared indignantly after them.

“Did you hear—did you hear what they called us?!”

“I mean, we are lying about on the beach,” he pointed out reasonably.

Lucy swelled with indignation. “That’s no reason to be so cruel. So judgmental.”

“Just be grateful they didn’t recognize you for the refined lady you are,” Bernard said, pulling his shirt over his shouldersand chuckling as he saw her face. “Be grateful they didn’t recognize you as Lady Lucy Chance.”

The hackles clearly lowered. “Oh. Yes. That was probably a good thing.”

“Now, I have absolutely no desire to return to the ocean,” Bernard said with a small shiver he could almost blame on the breeze, which rose up around them at just that moment. “But I do have a desire to return to your bed.”

That was sufficiently distracting. Lucy grinned as she pulled on her shoes. “Oh, do you, indeed?”

“Only if I am welcome, that is,” Bernard shot back, the tension that had built at the base of his skull melting away and taking with it the pain and apprehension of thirty years.

Lucy’s eyes glittered with desire as she grabbed his hand and started pulling him along the street. “Oh, you’re most welcome…”