Were we the reason he stayed away? Liam and I? Did we leave him so broken he couldn’t face returning?
‘I loved you once...’
I hear those tortured words as though he’s speaking them in the room now, and I shake my head to empty it.
He left me. He left us.
Whatever he felt, it wasn’t love—not the kind I felt for him. Because if it had been then he would have stayed. He would have fought it out. And telling him the truth of our baby will be easier if he’s the villain of the piece, the person who abandoned us and broke my heart.
But what if it’s all skewed? What if I’m more to blame than I know? What if the words I threw at him that fateful night cut deeper than I could ever have imagined? What if my marriage—a marriage I have to accept was driven by my anger and pain at losing him as much as it was my lonely childhood and wanting more for my child—kept him away?
Do I run the risk of casting myself in the role of villain?
Am I the villain deep down?
The one to be hated, despised, cast out?
Alone again?
CHAPTER FIVE
I DIDN’T REALLY have a meeting before my eight o’clock with Alexa. I was making excuses, covering my need to get the hell out of there before I lost what scrap of control I had left.
Seeing that photo last night...having the memory of that day in full colour before me...
I don’t know how I missed it when I was in there previously. I sure as hell wish I’d gone on missing it.
I rake my hands through my hair and grip my skull, hoping the pressure will somehow stop the incessant noise inside. The noise, the emotion, the inability to think straight...
It’s useless. Nothing will rid me of her, of our messed-up past and our even more messed-up future.
Because it will be messed up if we can’t get a handle on this. We need to be able to work together. To separate the personal from the business.
But I can’t even look at her now without that photo taunting me. They looked happy. All four of them smiling in front of the registry office, her in a simple white dress, hooked on the arm of my brother, my parents beaming as they toss confetti over their heads.
Seeing it was like being an observer again, watching the scene of happiness unfold from across the street, feeling the pain that ripped through me and having it return twice as hard, twice as fierce, along with the grief I’ve yet to deal with.
I shove myself back from my desk—no, Dad’s desk. This was his office, his space, up until three months ago.
I launch myself to my feet and stride to the window as I feel the familiar churning in my gut, the cold sweat pricking against the collar of my shirt.
I’m surprised to see the windows have latches and I push one open, breathe in the crisp morning air and let it calm my skin. A definite perk to being in a low-rise city, I guess. Something I rarely ever get to be.
I have bases all over the world. But they’re just that—bases. Penthouse apartments in skyscrapers that dominate the streets beneath, hovering above ground level and keeping me apart...distant.
Nothing like this.
Everything feels smaller here, more intimate, and rather than feeling a part of it I feel ever more out of place...on edge. Yet I was born here—lived here for twenty-five years. The building in which I stand is owned by my family’s company—the company I dreamed of being a part of and of which I now own a controlling share.
And still I don’t belong.
Why?
Because Dad didn’t give it to you... Fate handed it over...
And now, more than ever, I need to prove myself, to make myself fit.
I look at the harp-shaped bridge, rising proud over the river, at the early-morning rush starting in earnest now, and take another breath.