A Night of No Return

‘You don’t know that.’

‘But I don’t not know it either, and living with that is hell.’

‘When you left for work did you realise how ill she was?’

‘Of course not. There were no signs she was ill at all.’

‘Precisely. You didn’t know. You had no way of knowing. Nor did you know that your wife wouldn’t pay attention to the signs.’

‘I should have known. She was always very clear about her priorities. Vicky never wanted Elizabeth any more than my mother had wanted me and she never made any secret of the fact that having a baby wasn’t going to affect her life.’ He turned his head to look at her, her features just visible in the semi-darkness. ‘Now you’re shocked.’

‘Not shocked. Sad for Elizabeth. Sad for Vicky, I suppose, for never knowing how wonderful it is to love someone other than yourself.’ She slid her hand over his chest. ‘And sad for you, because you tried to be a family and it went badly wrong. But that wasn’t your fault, Lucas.’

‘I made her pregnant. That was my fault. I trusted her to show some responsibility towards our daughter that day and she didn’t. I should have known she wouldn’t. That was my fault too.’

‘Your fault that another person put her own needs before that of a poorly child? I don’t think so.’

‘I knew what she was like.’

‘You said you trusted her to show responsibility towards your daughter, which proves to me you still had faith in her. She let you down and that’s terrible but it doesn’t make it your fault.’

‘Even if you’re right, it doesn’t make it better. My head is permanently filled with what-ifs. You name it, I thought it. I still think it. In the end none of it matters. All that matters is that I let my daughter down. I wasn’t able to help her or protect her and she deserved so much better.’

‘You’re so wrong about that.’ Her voice rang with sincerity, but her words of comfort slid off his skin like raindrops off a window, unable to penetrate the thick wall of guilt that had locked him in for years.

‘I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you’re the one who is wrong. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Yes, I do. You’re forgetting I saw the photograph. I saw a little girl with her arms around her daddy—a daddy she clearly adored. She didn’t want or deserve better. She had everything she wanted and needed. You didn’t let her down, Lucas.’

‘If I’d been there she’d still be alive. Maybe I wasn’t looking closely enough when we ate breakfast together. Maybe I missed something a better father would have noticed.’

‘You were having breakfast with your daughter. I can tell you that from a child’s point of view it doesn’t get much better than that. You have to forgive yourself, Lucas. You have to accept that you did everything that could have been done. You have to accept that you were a good father but that even the best father can’t protect a child from everything. Sometimes bad stuff happens and it’s rubbish, but it’s no one’s fault and we have to stumble on the best we can until we start to function again.’

‘I function. I’ve built a highly successful business.’

‘But you don’t have a family.’

‘I don’t want a family.’ He’d made that decision in the weeks that had followed that terrible night. ‘I tried. I failed. I don’t want any of that. I certainly don’t want the responsibility of a child.’

There was a long silence and then she pressed her lips to his shoulder. ‘It must be terrifying, to have had that only to lose it. You dare not love because you loved so deeply and so fiercely and you lost.’

He grasped her hand and kissed her palm, breathing in the scent of her. ‘I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you feeling anything for me.’

‘What if it’s too late? What if I tell you I already feel something?’

‘I’d tell you it’s the sex that makes you feel that way.’

‘Really? I wouldn’t know because it isn’t something I do very often.’

‘Which makes it even more likely that what you’re feeling is linked with the physical intimacy.’

‘Or that what I feel is genuine. I have felt something for you for ages. Probably the reason I put up with your unreasonable demands in the office.’ She took a deep breath and Lucas closed his eyes, willing her not to say what he guessed she was about to say.

‘Emma, please don’t—’

‘Please don’t say I love you? The trouble is, I do. I love you, Lucas.’ She said it softly and then again, more firmly. ‘I love you. And I’m not saying it because I want you to say it back or anything like that, but I want you to know how I feel. I know you don’t like people saying it.’