Yes, of course. He’d almost forgotten that Raina had her own home and that she’d be going back there tonight. ‘I’ll make some coffee, then.’
He walked through the wide arch and down the step that led into the kitchen. Turning the lights on full to make the coffee didn’t make the slightest difference. Raina was just as beautiful as she’d been by candlelight.
He made the coffee good and strong, to bring him to his senses. There was still work to do this evening. But the spell still lingered, and when he sat back down at the table and poured the coffee, he couldn’t help it. This had been bugging him for too many years.
‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’
‘No, of course not. About the computer system?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
She took a sip of her coffee and glanced up at him. Maybe she saw Alistair’s hesitancy, because her eyes darkened suddenly. ‘Ask me anything.’
‘It’s about...what happened. Six years ago.’ Maybe Raina had put that in the past now, and she didn’t want to revive it. He should give her the chance to shut him down.
‘Go on.’
‘Did you feel...? Did I make you feel that I didn’t care? When we lost the baby.’
She clasped her hands together, her gaze falling to the tablecloth. ‘You didn’t make me feel anything, Alistair. I felt the things I felt all by myself.’
No. If Raina was blaming herself for anything that had happened then she could stop. Right now.
‘I never told you, Raina. What else could you be expected to think?’
Suddenly her gaze was on him, seeming to devour him in its intensity. ‘You said that you felt guilty...about not being there when I lost the baby. And I told you that there was nothing you could have done.’
That had hurt. The thought that he was of so little use to her that it hadn’t mattered whether he was there or not. Alistair bit back the pain. ‘Yes?’
‘I lied. I needed you there so badly, Alistair. I was just afraid to admit it.’
A feeling of warmth spread across his chest. Raina had wanted him. But then the sick feeling of guilt reasserted itself. ‘I wasn’t there, though.’
‘If you’d known, you would have been. I blamed you for not caring enough about our child, but I know that was wrong of me.’ Raina stretched out her hand, letting her fingertips touch his. ‘I know that you grieved as much as I did.’
Alistair swallowed hard. But this was what he’d done all along, swallowed down his feelings, and it had done them both such damage.
‘I felt...unequal to it all. Helpless. You were so unhappy and I didn’t know how to make things better for you.’ He moved his hand, tangling his fingers with hers. ‘I really wanted our child, but I was just worried. That I’d be a terrible father.’
‘You...?’ Raina looked shocked. ‘What made you think that?’
‘I wanted to give you everything, but we didn’t have much money to spare at that point, and I couldn’t see how I’d be able to provide for you and our child without turning into the kind of father who’s never there.’ Alistair shrugged. ‘Like my father.’
She stared at him uncomprehendingly. ‘You never talked much about your father, Alistair.’
Yeah. One of the many things he’d chosen not to talk about. ‘There isn’t a lot to say. He had his own business, and worked all hours. We had a great childhood, he provided us with everything that money could buy. Apart from himself, that is.’
‘You never saw him?’
Alistair huffed out a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh at all. ‘Put it like this. When we were teenagers, my brother and I had a joke. We reckoned that it was impossible that my father could have been home for long enough to conceive five children, and that at least one of us must owe our existence to our father having...posted his contribution to the process to our mother in an envelope.’
Raina giggled suddenly. ‘I bet you didn’t put it quite so delicately...’
‘No, we didn’t. Rob was fifteen at the time and determined to make it quite clear to me that he knew all about those things.’
‘So...did you ever decide which one of you owed their existence to an envelope?’ Raina was teasing him now and it felt like a cool salve applied to an inflamed nerve.
‘Rachel.’