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His laugh was just a dry, throaty husk of a sound. ‘A baby is not really anything like a pet, so I wouldn’t let that bother you too much.’
‘You know what I mean. I’ve never had the responsibility of keeping something alive, something totally dependent on me.’
She heard the words a second too late, before she could catch them, but as soon as they landed in the atmosphere she wished she could gobble them right back up. ‘I’m sorry.’ She leaned across the table and put a hand on his, sympathy softening her expression while his own features tightened to the point of breaking.
‘Don’t be. I know what you meant.’
She nodded, but the easy air of conversation had dissipated.
‘Being nervous is normal. You just have to trust that you will know what to do when our baby is born.’
‘And you have experience,’ she said, watching him carefully.
‘Yes.’ He nodded, curtly, placing his napkin on his side plate and sipping his wine. Then, he stood, fixing her with a level stare. ‘Marina will show you to your room when you are finished. In the morning, a stylist will arrive to take your clothes order, and then a jeweller will come to offer you some rings to choose from.’
She blinked up at him, his abrupt change of temperament giving her whiplash. He was obviously hesitant to discuss his first wife and son, but jeez!
‘Leonidas...’ Hannah frowned, not sure what she wanted to say, knowing only that she didn’t want him to walk away from her like this. ‘I can’t ignore the fact you had a family before this. I get that you don’t like talking about it, but I can’t tiptoe around it for ever. You had a son, and I’m pregnant with your daughter. Don’t you think it’s natural that we’ll talk about him, from time to time?’
‘No.’ He thrust his hands into his pockets and looked out to sea, the expression on his face so completely heartbroken that something inside Hannah iced over, because it was clear to her, in that moment, how hung up he still was on the family he’d lost.
And why wouldn’t he be? They’d been wrenched from him by a cruel twist of fate, by the acts of a madman. Nothing about this—his situation—was by his choice.
Nor was it Hannah’s, she reminded herself. She knew more than her fair share about cruel twists of fate.
The sky was darkening with every second, but pinpricks of light danced obstinately through, sparkling like diamonds against black sand. She followed his gaze, her own appetite disappearing.
‘I don’t want to force you,’ she said gently, standing to move right in front of him. ‘It’s your grief, and your life. But I will say, as someone who’s spent a very long time bottling things up, that it’s not healthy.’ She lifted a hand, touching the side of his cheek. He flinched, his eyes jerking to hers, showing animosity and frustration.
Showing the depths of his brokenness.
It called to Hannah; she understood it.
‘You are an expert in grief, then?’ he pushed, anger in the words.
‘Sadly, yes,’ she agreed quietly.
‘Do not compare what we have experienced,’ he said. ‘To lose your parents is unbearable, I understand that, and I am sorry for you, what you went through. You were a child, robbed of the ability to be a child. But I caused my wife and son’s death. As sure as if I had murdered them myself, I am the reason they died. Do not presume to have any idea what that knowledge feels like.’
* * *
That Hannah slept fitfully was hardly surprising. Leonidas’s parting shot ran around and around her mind, the torment of his admission ripping her heart into pieces. To live with that guilt would have driven a lesser man crazy.
But it wasn’t only sadness for the man she’d hastily agreed to marry.
It was worry.
Fear.
Panic.
Stress.
And something far, far more perplexing, something that made her nipples pucker against the shirt he’d given her to sleep in, that made her arch her back in her dreams, and meant she felt warm and wet between her legs when she finally gave up on trying to sleep, before dawn, and stood, pacing to the window that overlooked the ocean.
Memories.
Memories of their one night together and fantasies of future nights were all weaving through Hannah’s being, bursting upon her soul and demanding attention.
