The Wife He Couldn't Forget

By the time she’d made it to the end of the beach and turned back again, she had worked the worst of her anger and, yes, her indignation, off. Olivia sat down on a park bench in the shade and waited for her breathing and heart rate to return to normal.

What had driven Xander to such a decision? she asked herself as she tried to rationalize his stance. This cold distance he insisted on maintaining was not something she recognized from the man she loved. She knew he could be distant and independent. He could also be stubborn and insanely detailed at times. But he wasn’t the kind of man who could reject a child. Even as angry as he was about her pregnancy with Parker, he’d loved their son with an intensity that had often taken her breath away. Surely he couldn’t not love another child of his?

She watched a lone gull as it circled on the thermals in the air before changing its direction and swooping down to the water. Was it that he wanted to be free like that gull there? Answerable only to himself? Had her lies and losing Parker the way they had made him incapable of loving ever again?

The answer that repeated in her mind was an emphatic no. In the weeks before he’d regained his memory she knew to the depths of her soul that he’d loved her. But if he was capable of love, why then would he withhold it from this baby?

Fear.

The word—so small, so simple and yet so powerful—came to her with blinding insight. He was afraid to love again—certainly afraid to love their baby but maybe even afraid to love her, too. After all, wasn’t love based on trust? And hadn’t she destroyed his trust in her not once but several times over?

Had she given him her shoulder to lean on in the wretched dark days after Parker died? No, she’d been filled with recriminations and pain and projecting her own guilt onto him. Had she tried to stop him leaving that first time? No, she’d been too numbed by grief to do anything.

She knew a little of his family’s circumstances, even though Xander had never discussed it much and Olivia had never been close with her mother-in-law. Knew how his father had so grieved the loss of his firstborn son that he’d completely withdrawn from the family he’d had left. Understood that Xander’s mother had worked hard every day she could to support her surviving son and her husband. His mum may not have shown her love with hugs and kisses, but she’d done the best she could to ensure their family was secure.

Was it any wonder then that Xander hadn’t known how to express his grief? Why had she never thought about that before? He’d grown up with two complete extremes of how to cope with loss. Had anyone ever asked him how he’d felt about losing his brother, let alone his son?

She knew she certainly hadn’t.

Where to now? How was she going to break through the armor Xander now protected himself and his emotions within? She’d already lost his trust, so was it even possible for him to forgive her and allow her back into his heart?

There were no secrets left between them now. She could only try. They’d made a child together out of love; that had to count for something. She owed it to Xander, to their baby and to herself to fight for what was right—to fight for their love and the chance to start again.

* * *

It was late when Xander listened to the latest message from Olivia. He’d been putting it off most of the day. Once he was home, he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer. She’d been blunt and to the point. She’d acknowledged receipt of the offer through his lawyer, but she wanted to discuss it with him face-to-face first. She said that if he agreed to meet with her again, she wouldn’t delay any further. Everything he wanted signed would be signed and returned at that meeting.

He knew he should call her back. Instead he dropped his phone on the coffee table in front of him and stretched out on the wide sofa that faced the view over the harbor. Lights sparkled in the inky darkness, like the stars of a distant galaxy. Distant, now there was a word. It described exactly how he felt when it came to just about everything in his life. Distant was safe; distant didn’t flay a man’s heart into a thousand shreds, nor did it betray a man.

He’d thought that distance was what he needed, what he wanted, and he’d tried to throw himself back into his work to gain emotional distance the way he always had when faced with personal upheaval. But in unguarded moments thoughts of Olivia kept creeping in. Her image when she came to the hospital, and he saw the love and concern so stark and clear on her face. Her determination to see him through the physical therapy he needed to do each day to regain muscle tone and strength after his coma. The sweet, soft sigh she made as he entered her body, as if, in that moment, everything in their world was perfect. And it had been.