Kit knew why. Alex. Her constant worry whether he would accept their baby into his life. Her constant worry whether he could overcome his demons. It was starting to take its tol . He was worth fighting for, but not at the expense of their baby’s health.
Just give him one more week.
For a moment tears made his face blur. She swal owed and blinked hard. She couldn’t find a smile and she didn’t try. ‘I see you’ve made a miraculous recovery.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Kit, I can’t do this. I can’t be what you want me to be. I cannot be a father to your baby.’
Her hands clenched, her stomach tightened. ‘You don’t need to make a decision about that right now.
We can talk about it and—’
‘No!’
The word snarled out of him. Al the hairs on her arms lifted. The skin at her nape and her temples chil ed.
‘Every child reminds me of Chad. Every child is a source of pain. Remembering Chad every single day, remembering what it was like to lose him, it wil drive me insane, Kit.’
His eyes dropped to her stomach and al she could do was stare at the white lines that slashed deep on either side of his mouth. Lines that spoke of grief and pain beyond her understanding.
‘That’s why I can’t be a father to your child.’
For a moment, everything stil ed, hung suspended
—him, her, those words with their awful meaning.
Then her stomach fel and fel and kept fal ing. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.
He’d warned her, he’d tried to tel her, he hadn’t made her any promises. For the moment, though, it was his pain that touched her and not her own. She forced herself forward, sat in the chair opposite. ‘Tel me about Chad,’ she pleaded.
The darkness in his eyes didn’t abate. He shook his head. ‘There’s no point.’
She reached out to touch the back of one of his clenched fists. ‘There is a point, Alex, it’s—’
‘I can’t!’ he burst out, pul ing his hand away.
She didn’t know how one moved on after they lost a child, where one found the strength to pick up the pieces. Already she’d do anything to protect her baby and it wasn’t even born yet. Chad might not be dead, but he’d been removed from Alex’s world as surely as if he were.
surely as if he were.
She swal owed. She might not know what Alex was going through, but she did know that bottling it up would only hurt him more.
‘You don’t understand, Kit. This life of yours—the same life my parents led—it can never be my life. I don’t have the openness of heart for it. I don’t have any confidence in its permanence. If I stayed here with you and the baby I would ruin it al . I’m like my grandfather.’
‘No, you’re not!’
How could he believe that? She searched her mind for something that would prove him wrong.
‘Look at how you were with Davey that day you were painting. He brought back memories of Chad, but you weren’t unkind to him. What would your grandfather have done—yel ed at him and frightened him, that’s what.’
Alex shook his head. ‘That doesn’t change the fact that to survive living in my grandfather’s house I had to kil off something in my nature that makes it impossible for me to…to do al this.’ He waved a hand to indicate the interior of her house.
‘You did it with Jacqueline.’
‘If I’d done it successful y, she would never have left!’
For a moment Kit couldn’t catch her breath.
Alex slumped. His eyes turned black. ‘I wil finish the work on your house, Kit. After that, I’l return to Sydney. My solicitors wil arrange child support payments.’
Panic launched through her in a series of half-formed phrases and pulsing nausea. She surged to her feet. ‘You can’t leave just like that, Alex! I’m sorry, more sorry than I can say about Chad, but…’ She gripped the air, searching for the words that would make him see sense. Words that would make him stay. ‘Don’t you see? Our baby deserves a father too.’
Alex rose. He stood wooden and stiff in front of her. He looked like a man who’d been dealt a body blow. ‘I’m sorry, Kit.’
She reeled away from him as comprehension cleared the fog and confusion from her mind. Fear settled in its place. She swung back. ‘You’re doing with Chad what you did with your parents—blocking out every memory, good and bad, in an attempt to block out the pain. You think by avoiding those memories you’re protecting yourself, but you’re wrong. The same goes for love and family and commitment. Doing your best to avoid those things just means you’re going to keep losing and losing.’
Couldn’t he understand that? Her heart ached and ached for him, and it ached for their unborn child.
She lifted her chin. ‘I know you care about me.’
Please, please, don’t let her be wrong about that.
Colour stained his cheekbones a dark, deep red.
Hope washed through her. ‘Walking away from al of this…’ she lifted her arms out in an attempt to encompass the house, the life they could have here
‘…can you honestly tel me that’s going to be easy?’
‘It won’t be easy.’ His voice was pitched low but she caught every word. ‘It won’t be gut-wrenchingly impossible either. It won’t be tear-your-heart-right-out-of-your-chest bad.’
She understood then the pain he’d suffered in missing his son.
‘It wil be for me,’ she whispered.
Alex nearly caved in then. Kit’s admission was a knife to his heart.
He’d never meant to hurt her. He’d do anything to take away her pain, but staying…that was out of the question. It was better to hurt her now than hurt her more later.
He should never have married Jacqueline. He knew that now. He’d worked long hours, driven to provide Jacqui with al the nice things she’d wanted
—the big house, the antique furniture. She’d grown bored and restless, though, in al those long hours he’d spent away from her. She’d become lonely.
She hadn’t been a bad person. She’d lied to him, and it had been a terrible lie, but she’d been too afraid to tel him the truth. If he’d put as much effort and time into his marriage as he had into making a name for himself in the business world…
But he hadn’t. The harsh bitterness he’d suffered at his grandfather’s hands had leached into his own soul. He couldn’t do family. He didn’t know how.
Unbidden, that image of his father waltzing his mother around their back garden rose in his mind.
With a swift shake of his head, he banished it.
That was a lost dream. He wouldn’t hurt Kit by making the same mistake twice.
Kit gulped. He wanted to pul her into his arms and let her sob the worst of her pain into his shoulder. He hardened his heart. She had her family and her friends. She didn’t need him. She would be better off without him.
‘You real y aren’t going to change your mind, are you?’ Her voice wobbled but she held his gaze.
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Kit, for everything, but I’m not going to change my mind.’
‘Then I was wrong,’ she said slowly. ‘You didn’t love me after al . You don’t real y care about me or the baby. Al this—’ she gestured to the house ‘—
has simply been a salve for your conscience.’
Her eyes suddenly spat fire. ‘Get out, Alex! Just pack your things and get out. It’s not our job to make you feel better for leaving.’