‘We need to talk.’
She frowned again. ‘But I thought we’d already said it all. We had an agreement. You swept me off my feet and I can rubber stamp your dating skills. And now it’s all done and dusted.’
‘There’s a lot more to say,’ he said, ‘but I don’t want to do it on your doorstep.’
Her head was in a whirl. ‘Sorry. I’m being rude. Come in. Can I get you a drink or something?’
He shook his head. ‘I just want to talk.’
She gestured to the sofa. There wasn’t anywhere else to sit, unless she opted for one of the metal dining chairs at the small table in the kitchen part of the flat, so she sat next to him.
‘I don’t know where to start,’ he admitted.
‘Try the beginning,’ she said. ‘Or wherever you feel like starting and you can go back and forth.’
‘Then I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone—not even my family or my best friends.’ He took a deep breath. ‘It’s about Lyn. Everyone thinks I’ve been mourning her for the last two years.’
‘And you haven’t?’ she asked, surprised. But Lynette had been the love of Roland’s life and he’d lost her in horrible circumstances. Of course he’d been mourning her. He didn’t even have any of the wedding photographs on display in his house because it clearly hurt too much. And the way he’d reacted to the photographs Lyn’s friend had sent had signalled very clearly that he was still in love with Lyn.
‘More like nearly three,’ he said.
He’d mourned her for a year before she’d died? But why? Grace bit her lip. ‘Was she ill but you hadn’t told anyone?’
‘Sort of.’ He sighed. ‘She wanted a baby.’
Which wasn’t remotely the same as being ill. Or did he mean a different sort of problem? But Roland hadn’t seemed the selfish type. She didn’t understand. ‘I take it from that, you didn’t want a baby?’ Grace guessed.
‘No, I did,’ he said, ‘but I always thought love would expand along with my family. With Lyn, it narrowed. Right from the moment we first talked about it and started trying, she changed. All her friends who started trying fell pregnant the very first month, which made it even harder for her when she didn’t.’
‘Did you talk to a doctor about it?’
He nodded. ‘He said we were both young and they wouldn’t even consider offering us fertility treatment until we’d tried for at least another year. And it broke her, Grace. Every month when her period started, it was like the end of the world. And every time we made love, it was timed by her ovulation chart. I tried taking her away for the weekend and being spontaneous to take her mind off things, but nothing worked. She was driven. It was as if our relationship was only there for the sole purpose of having a baby, and I hated that I was letting her down all the time.’
She took his hand. ‘Hey. You tried. You were there for her.’
‘Not enough,’ he admitted, ‘and that’s the really shameful bit. I don’t like myself very much, Grace.’
‘Hey. We all have things that make us feel that way,’ she said gently. ‘I’m not squeaky clean, either. I broke off my engagement three weeks before the wedding day, remember?’
‘Which was the right thing to do,’ he said. ‘Whereas I...’ He sighed. ‘We stopped seeing my family. Will and Susie have a little girl, Matilda, and when Lyn couldn’t get pregnant she couldn’t handle being around children. It made her feel a failure, even though I tried to tell her that she wasn’t a failure and nobody was ever going to judge her. But I couldn’t exactly explain to everyone why Lyn didn’t want to be anywhere near Tilda, not without telling people the truth—and she’d sworn me to secrecy because she didn’t want anyone pitying her or judging her. So we used my work as an excuse, saying I was too busy for us to see people.’ He grimaced. ‘My mum even rang me to say she was worried about us—she said that I was neglecting Lyn for work and she asked if she could do anything to help. I hated having to lie to my family.’
‘But you weren’t neglecting Lyn—you were trying to protect her,’ Grace protested.
He shook his head. ‘Actually, my mum was right. Because it got to the point where I was glad to have an excuse to be away. I did end up neglecting Lyn. I accepted invitations to give lectures abroad so I didn’t have to face all that pain. And that’s why I was away when the accident happened.’