Lea was right. They’d end up hating each other the way he suspected his parents did. His feelings for her wouldn’t be enough. And Molly and the new baby wouldn’t be any more oblivious to the undercurrents than Reilly had been as a child.
He would not be responsible for inflicting that on another child.
‘Mr Martin?’ A nurse shouted from the hospital doorway. Reilly snapped his burning eyes toward her. She backed up a step. ‘They’ve not been able to stop the labour. We’re prepping the theatre for a C-section.’
His heart hammered against his ribs. Surgery. His son or
daughter would be born tonight, for better or for worse. The fantasy family of the past months was over. Lea wouldn’t be staying. Molly wouldn’t be staying. He knew in his heart that he couldn’t take this new child from Lea or Molly, contract or no contract.
His family was finished.
He turned and walked into the darkness.
‘Mr Martin…?’
A dull cloak settled back over his heart, muffling the pain as he stumbled down to the car park. Reilly recognised the sensation the moment it returned: the numbness that had got him through his childhood. His father’s numbness.
He barely heard the confused nurse call him a third time.
He hadn’t realised the deadened sheath had lifted at all. But he saw it clearly now, blowing up and away when Lea had walked up his stairs that first day.
Maybe the survival anaesthesia would take him through his life just as it had his father. He slid the metaphorical cloak back on, retried it for size—Reilly Martin, king of the circuit. Heart of stone. Untouchable.
It fit so snugly he didn’t even feel the rain as he walked stiffly off towards the darkness of his future.
Alone.
‘G
OOD
morning, Mummy.’
Clammy hands touched her face sweetly, drawing her out of a deep, exhausted sleep. She struggled to sit up.
Molly?
‘Shh. Just relax, Lea.’ Warmth from a second touch spread through Lea as the soft voice and smell of apples trickled into her consciousness.
‘Anna?’ She scanned the room through groggy eyes: no Reilly. Her heart sank. Why was she surprised?
‘I’m here. Molly’s here. You’re going to be fine, Lea.’
She’d come
. Anna was in a hospital, the place she hated above all others. ‘Jared?’
‘We’re leaving for India next week. Jared’s getting everything ready; he sends his love.’
Love
. The closest she’d be getting to it, anyway, the platonic affection of a brother-in-law. Lea pushed herself to a sitting position. The ache of emptiness in her lower body and the pull of surgical staples reminded her of why they were here. Her eyes flew open.
‘The baby…’
Creases formed between Anna’s blue eyes, concerned. Confused. But there for her. ‘He’s doing fine, Lea. He’s small, but everything works. He’s breathing on his own.’
Invisible fists squeezed her heart painfully.
A boy
.
Reilly had a son.
‘Why won’t you see him, Lea?’ Anna’s voice was low, conscious of Molly now playing in the hallway with someone else’s little girl.
Avoidance. ‘The stem cells?’
Anna’s lips tightened, not fooled. ‘On their way to Perth. He was a good match.’
Tears sprang into both their eyes. They both knew what that meant for Molly.
‘Your son, Lea. Why won’t you…?’
‘Not
my
son.’ She knew her tone was bleak, knew she should be pulling herself out of it, but unable to.
‘Reilly’s.’
Anna stared at her silently, assessing. Then she changed tack. ‘Reilly. Now he’s an interesting one. He looks just like Molly.’
The tears spilled over. ‘You’ve met him?’
Anna nodded, folding a tissue into Lea’s cold fingers. ‘He’s here. He brought Molly in first thing.’
Lea’s heart squeezed. Here—but not
here
.
‘He called us late last night. Asked us to come.’ Anna was relentless when she wanted something. Lea studied the dull, beige room. Anna leaned closer, a glint in her eye. ‘He’s very good-looking.’
Lea smiled, though it was weak. The sisters had grown up with a similar eye for quality males. It had been something of a hobby in their younger years. Back before life got serious.
The glint evaporated. ‘Your baby needs you, Lea.’
Lea knew exactly how difficult this would be for Anna. Babies. Hospitals. She loved her husband but she had a raw place in her heart that was forever reserved for the baby she’d lost. A boy.
She blinked furiously. ‘God, Anna.’
Just like that, strong arms were around her and Lea felt the familiar screen of toffee-coloured silk drape around them. Anna’s hair smelt of sunshine and straw. Lea’s tears tumbled.
Anna’s voice was raw, pained. ‘You need to see him. He needs his mother.’
‘I can’t. I can’t look at him.’
‘He needs to feed, Lea. He needs you.’
‘I’ll express.’ She stumbled on. ‘Or formula. I can’t get close. He’s not mine to love.’
She told Anna about her arrangement with Reilly, pausing to breathe raggedly between tears.
Anna’s blue eyes widened with disbelief. Her long fingers shook. ‘You signed that?’
Shame speared through Lea. ‘It was for Molly.’ Her eyes dropped. ‘I would have signed anything.’
Blue fire crackled under a deep frown. ‘And Reilly wants this? Wants to take your child away?’
Lea immediately fired up, fierce, ferocious. ‘He has as much right to this baby as I do. It was part of our agreement. He needs it.’
Anna stared at her, eyes wide.
Lea bristled. ‘What?’
‘You love him.’
Lea swallowed. Sudden tension filled the room.
‘You love him enough to give your baby up. Oh, my God.’
Lea broke, hot and angry. ‘Don’t say it like that. Is it such a surprise that I know how to love?’
‘Oh, Lea. No.’ Anna hurried to fix her gaffe. ‘I just…I had no idea.’
Me, neither
.
‘God, it must have been so hard all these months. You were made to love someone, Lea Curran. Someone worthy.’
‘He is worthy,’ she whispered.
‘But?’
Lea breathed in deep. ‘But he doesn’t love me. He likes me.’ Her laugh was a shade hysterical. ‘He’s attracted to me.’ Her voice softened and she pressed her hand, complete with IV drip attachments, to her pained heart. ‘He really loves Molly.’
Both women glanced out at the dark-haired poppet in the hall. She looked up and smiled brilliantly through deathly pale lips: Reilly’s smile.
‘What’s not to love?’ Anna whispered. ‘And he still wants this baby? He’s said that?’
Lea frowned. ‘I signed a contract.’
‘Months ago, Lea. What about recently?’
She gingerly told her about Reilly’s proposition that they be a family. Anna’s eyes saddened, Lea’s eyes prickled dangerously again.
‘You need to talk to him, Lea. He’s right outside.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t. I’ve hurt him too much.’
‘You’ve hurt
him
?’
‘He wanted this so badly. A family. He deserves a real one.’
Anna frowned. ‘But you love him. Molly loves him. How is that not real?’
Had motherhood turned Anna obtuse? ‘He doesn’t love me, Anna.’
Anna watched her carefully. ‘So?’
The fists squeezed again. Critically hard. ‘Am I the only one who believes I’m worthy of being loved? Is it so unrealistic? First Dad, then Reilly, now you.’
Anna’s head came up. ‘How long are you planning on wallowing in that, Lea? How many lives are you going to mess up because you had a terrible relationship with our father?’
Lea felt her sister’s brutal words like a slap across the jaw.
Anna barrelled on passionately. ‘Dad made a lot of mistakes. He wasn’t perfect. He was just a man; he lost his way when he lost the woman who gave him strength. He had to raise two tiny daughters in man’s country and he didn’t have a clue where to start.’ She leaned in closer. ‘You were older, so he did all his learning on you. By the time Sapphie and I came along, he’d already worked out what didn’t work through trial and error. Mostly error, I’ll concede.’
She stared at her sister.
‘You showed him, Lea. Over and over. Every day he knew he’d messed up with you, and you never forgave him.’ Her eyes dropped. ‘I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you, keeping his secret, but I can imagine how it must have been for him. How much shame he carried around, knowing that you knew. That you judged him. He would have seen it every time he looked in your eyes.’
Lea swallowed past the large lump in her throat. ‘Jared told you.’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘You think it’s my fault?’
‘No, Lea. It is what it is. But you can’t let the past destroy things in the present. Affect Molly. Affect your son. You need to break the cycle.’
Lea rubbed confused eyes. ‘You think I should stay with Reilly despite the fact he doesn’t love me? How is that better for Molly? What lessons would she learn from that?’
‘No. I agree you can’t do that. I did it for five years before Jared and I worked it all out, and it nearly broke me. But if you’re leaving you need to tell him why. From what you’ve told me, he could benefit from knowing someone loved him, too.’
A cold fist tightened around Lea’s intestines.
Anna stood stiffly, her eyes glittering dangerously. ‘And then one of you needs to step up for that little boy. Someone needs to hold him and love him. I don’t care which of you it is; he’s already gone too many hours with only the nursing staff to cling to.’
Anna walked out as Lea burst into tears.
‘Lea? Anna said you needed me.’
Bloody Anna
. But even as she thought it, Lea knew it was unfair. Anna was the only one working for their baby right now. Shame washed through her.
‘Lea, don’t cry.’ Reilly sank down onto the bed next to her, tired, cautious. ‘Everything will be okay.’
‘Have you seen him?’ Lea asked, swiping at the escaped tears. She needed to know something about her baby. His mother’s hair or his father’s? Whose eyes? Everything where it should be?
Reilly studied the bed linen. ‘No.’
Lea’s face came up. ‘Why not?’
His eyes were unreadable. ‘I’ve destroyed the contract, Lea. I’m not going to take him from you. From his sister.’
Her stomach contracted painfully.
‘A family should stay together. I won’t be responsible for pulling one apart. The nurses are bringing him up to your room.’
It was all happening so fast. It was what she wanted—of course it was—but not at any cost. The cost of Reilly’s heart. She could see the pain etched into his features. He was giving up two children.
‘Reilly, what about Molly? The baby?’
‘I’m going to go before he comes in; it’s the easiest way. I don’t think I can see him just yet. I just wanted to say goodbye. We’ll talk by phone about maybe sorting out access visits. I want to see them both, sometimes.’
A rock-ball of emotion lodged in her chest. This was it, the thought of never seeing Reilly again. Or, worse, seeing him once a year on Molly’s birthday, still loving him. Seeing him every day in the smiles of her children. Suddenly, that seemed a very real possibility.
He stood, his eyes heavily shielded. ‘Good luck, Lea. You deserve to be happy. Tell Molly I’ll ring her.’ He gently kissed her forehead and walked out of the room. Out of her life.
The heart-rate monitor hooked up to her went berserk.
‘Reilly!’
His footsteps disappeared down the hall.
‘God damn you, Reilly Martin.’ The furious curse helped power her up. She struggled free of the covers on the bed and swung her legs over the side, wincing as the row of surgical staples bit savagely into her flesh. The cables connecting her to a half-dozen monitoring devices tangled like parachute cords as she tried to remove them. In the end she ripped all but the IV drip off her skin and threw them to the floor. Her skin bled where the fixings should be.
The wheeled stand holding the IV-drip proved a terrific walking stick and she used it to haul herself onto shaky legs and propel herself out the door as the heart monitor went into alarm behind her. A concerned nurse tried to intercept her but Lea pushed past with a brisk apology.
Her flimsy hospital gown fluttered open at the back but she didn’t care. The whole world could look at her naked butt if it meant catching up with Reilly.
She couldn’t let him walk away thinking he wasn’t loved by
someone, no matter how humiliating for her. She’d been doing things the easiest way for too long.
The automatic doors opened out into the hospital car-park that was awash with seasonal rain. The cool splatter immediately hit her. ‘Reilly.’
He turned, far across the car park, and sprinted back towards her when he saw her lurching out, unprotected, into the rain. Her heart thumped like a drum, high on adrenaline and thrilling one last time at the sight of his powerful body coming towards her. In seconds she was drenched, her light gown slaked to her naked skin, covering nothing. Her staples pulled painfully too.
She didn’t care about either.
Reilly peeled off his jacket as he got closer and wrapped it around her, pulling her close to him. ‘Are you trying to kill yourself, Lea?’
His voice was furious but his body was warm and familiar. And like home. That didn’t make this any easier.
Warm rain poured down on them both. Reilly’s body and thick oilskin coat shielded her from the worst of it. It was such a beautiful, tragic metaphor for their whole relationship. Would anyone ever protect her like this again? She pushed the thought away.
‘I’m sorry, Reilly. I’m sorry I can’t stay.’ She appealed up into dark eyes. ‘I don’t want you to be alone…’
He shook his head, shutters dropping on those beautiful eyes. ‘It’s not your problem, Lea. I’m not some kind of charity case.’
She bled for the pain in his voice. She could hear the child behind the man. ‘I know how it feels, Reilly. It’s why I kept Molly.’ She shivered even though the rain wasn’t cold. He pulled the coat tighter around her. ‘I told myself all kinds of things. Justified going ahead with the pregnancy a hundred ways. But I did it for selfish reasons, because I wasn’t strong enough to be alone. I should have been stronger.’
Her eyes fell from his and touched on his lips before settling somewhere around his throat. ‘I’m trying to be strong now, Reilly. I’m trying to do the right thing, not the easiest thing. Staying with you would be so easy. But, in time, it would only hurt both of us.’
He lifted her chin with a gentle finger. His gaze was tragic. ‘I know, Lea. I understand.’
‘No, you don’t.’ She took a breath as rain trickled down her face, over her lips. ‘Staying is so seductive because I could see you every day, smell you, watch you with our daughter. Our son.’ Her voice broke on that one. ‘I’ve even caught myself thinking—just for a nanosecond—that if our baby wasn’t a match for Molly I’d get to stay with you longer.’ Her heart bled. ‘What kind of person does that make me?’
Reilly shook his head but she rushed on. ‘But, ultimately, staying would kill me. I love you, Reilly, but I need to be loved back.’
His eyes flared like her wild horses’, and he opened his mouth to speak. Lea cut him off. ‘I can’t go back on my commitment to myself. Even though it’s hurting you. I’m so sorry.’
She let her head fall forward to rest on the strength of his chest. She felt his words rumbling in his body as much as heard them. His hand came up to thread through her saturated hair. His strength rushed into the vacuum within her.
‘You’re leaving because I don’t love you?’
She lifted her face back to his scowling one. ‘I’m not trying to blame you. I just want you to know why I’m leaving. I wondered if just knowing I
could
love someone would be enough, because I was seriously starting to wonder, but it’s not. I want to be loved, Reilly. I need to be loved. I know that seems weak.’