“. . . If she’s telling the truth about trying to call you, she may well be telling the truth about everything else, right?” He hid a wince as Lisa verbalized the words he had been unable to speak, and his eyes shut in horror at the mere idea of such an atrocity. God, how could he live with himself if his terrible treatment of her since her return had been unjustified? He met Rick’s gaze, wondering if the misery and overwhelming dread he felt were evident in his eyes.
“She also said that she wasn’t there when I had my accident. That she didn’t leave me to . . .” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it, realizing now how ridiculous it was to believe that his soft-hearted wife would ever leave him, or anyone else for that matter, injured and alone at the scene of an accident. He sat down on the closest chair with a thump, feeling bewildered and sick to his stomach.
“Oh my God,” he groaned. “Oh my God! I was so determined to blame her for this, but what if I was wrong, Rick? Do you know what that means? The things she went through on her own . . . how she struggled to make a decent life for Kayla and herself. She nearly died having our baby, and I wasn’t there for her. Even if she’s lying about everything, there’s just no excuse for letting her go through all of that on her own!” His brother put a firm hand on his shoulder, forcing Bryce to look up to meet his gaze.
“Calm down, Bryce, you tried to find her, remember? Even believing what you did about her, you still tried your damnedest to find her. Let’s just figure out what the truth is before you start with the self-recriminations.”
Bryce covered his face with his hands, not sure what to do next, feeling helpless and completely lost. It was a feeling he was all-too familiar with since losing his hearing, but it wasn’t a feeling he would ever learn to live with. He got up abruptly, his head swimming with chaotic thoughts, his objective clear.
“I have to talk with her.” His eyes blindly sought out his brother and sister-in-law. “I . . . excuse me.” He saw Rick start to sign something but Lisa reached out and stayed his brother’s hands before nodding encouragingly at Bryce.
She was on the nursery floor, playing with an active Kayla, who looked refreshed after her afternoon nap. Bronwyn had her back to the door and didn’t see him at first. In fact, it was Kayla who alerted her to his presence. The little girl saw him hovering in the doorway, and her whole face lit up as she squealed excitedly.
“Daddy!” She toddled toward him, her chubby arms outstretched. Bryce smiled at the little girl as he swept her up into his arms, keeping his eyes on Bronwyn’s slender back, noting how it tensed, before she squared her shoulders and stood up to face him. Bryce was trying to handle the little girl’s effusive chatter and watch Bronwyn’s face at the same time. Eventually he gave up on trying to follow Kayla’s confusing baby talk and focused entirely on Bronwyn, nodding now and then to keep Kayla happy.
“Are you okay?” he asked her quietly, noting the stubborn tilt of her jaw and the unshed tears in her luminous eyes. He felt like an absolute bastard driving her to the brink of tears . . . again!
“I’m fine.” She nodded, folding her arms defensively over her chest.
“I . . .” he began, but Kayla was bouncing up and down, demanding that he play horsey with her. He kissed the little girl, before going to the door and hollering for Rick, immediately quieting Kayla, who looked up at him uncertainly, wondering if her daddy was mad at her. Bryce grinned down at her reassuringly, making airplane noises and flying her around the room for a few moments, before Rick came panting up the stairs.
“What?” he asked urgently.
“Kayla . . .” Bryce planted an affectionate kiss on his daughter’s silky cheek. “This is your Uncle Rick!”
“Unca?” The girl wondered doubtfully.
“Yes and he likes to play horsey!” Rick, who had been grinning foolishly down at the little girl, abruptly stopped smiling and met his brother’s eyes in horror.
“Unca, horsey?” the little girl asked excitedly.
“You want to play horsey with Uncle Rick while Mummy and Daddy talk?” Bryce asked gently, knowing that she wouldn’t understand anything but “play horsey” and “Uncle Rick.”
“Uh, Bryce . . .” Rick began while back-pedaling frantically; he stopped abruptly when Kayla bestowed her most radiantly trusting smile on him and held out her arms.
“Horsey, Unca Wick?” she asked coyly, and Rick swallowed visibly before stepping forward and lifting the little girl from her father’s arms.
“What an accomplished little flirt you already are.” He chuckled before meeting Bryce’s eyes.
“You’re going to have your hands full with this one, in twelve or so years’ time, big brother.” Bryce grinned halfheartedly and shrugged.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Please keep her busy, Rick. Bron and I need to—”
“Say no more,” Rick interrupted cheerfully while Kayla tugged at his hair and shirt, impatient to be off. “Come along, Kayla, let’s go and meet your cousin and your auntie Lisa. She loves to play horsey too!” He carried the friendly little girl, who seemed to have forgotten all about her parents at the prospect of playing with exciting new people, out of the room and left Bronwyn and Bryce to contemplate each other quietly for a few moments.
“What’s the problem this time, Bryce?” Bronwyn asked with what appeared to be sarcasm, if her face was any indication. “I’m so sorry I stormed out and ruined your perfect little party.”
“The night you left,” he began quietly, trying to keep his voice level and calm, not wanting to come across as accusatory or angry. “After my accident, Bron, I swear I saw you in the crowd and, even though I knew that I was the one who had driven you out of the house in the first place, in my mind, abandoning me there was completely unforgivable. I know that my reaction to your pregnancy was cruel and unwarranted, but despite that, you were my wife, the person I depended on the most, the woman who claimed to love me, and you left me there! It made no sense to me and it hurt so damned much. It also gave me an excuse to hate you because feeling anything other than that was just too . . .” He broke off awkwardly, aware of her frown and her confusion.
“Bryce, I wasn’t . . .” she began but he held up a hand.
“Please . . . I . . . let me speak.” He shut his eyes painfully. “I remember it so vividly; I looked up and saw you standing there on the fringe of the gathering crowd. You looked cold, remote, and so beautiful. You were wearing the dress that I loved. Remember? The little black one with the floaty skirt. I tried to call you, but my voice wouldn’t work. I now know that I was shouting at the top of my lungs.” He grinned feebly. “I just couldn’t hear myself. Do you understand why it’s been so difficult to let go of that image? How I can’t ever get the memory of you turning your back and walking away from me out of my mind?”
Bronwyn stared up into his dark and tormented face. She knew how much it must have cost him to come up here and reveal how much he been hurt by her perceived actions that night. She sighed; so much for letting him muddle through it on his own. She couldn’t, not when he had just presented her with the means to refute his repulsive accusation.
“Bryce.” Her throat caught, and she inhaled deeply as she fought back the ever-present urge to cry. “I have something to show you.” She led him into the master bedroom and toward the huge walk-in closet that housed her old wardrobe. She opened the door and rifled through the contents briefly before lifting a padded hanger with a flimsy scrap of black chiffon hanging from it.
“This dress?” she asked gently, and he winced as if the dress brought back cripplingly painful memories. He nodded. She shut her eyes tightly as she fought for composure, so did not see the slight movement he made toward her before stopping himself.
“Bryce,” she murmured unsteadily, opening her eyes again. “I was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt when I left that night. I left with nothing but the clothes on my back.
This dress . . . it’s been hanging here for the last two years.” Bryce shifted his gaze to the dress and shook his head, unable to believe that he had gotten something so very crucial to the well-being of their relationship so totally wrong. He took the dress from her and ran the flimsy material gently through his large hands.
“Rick could have packed . . .” he began, but she touched his hand to get his attention and shook her head slowly, keeping her eyes level.
“Why don’t you ask Rick? I’m sure he’d remember a dress like this among the endless amounts of toddler-proof wear he packed for me.” She nibbled at her lower lip. “I left on a Tuesday night, remember?”
He nodded.
“This is a cocktail dress, Bryce,” she pointed out. “Were we at a party that night?”
He hesitated before responding.
“No. You called me at the office and told me you were cooking a special meal because you had something exciting to tell me . . .” His voice broke and he was trembling from head to foot. Bronwyn was the one who remained rock-steady for a change, while Bryce looked like he was on the verge of tears. “I came home and found you wearing your tattered blue jeans and one of those T-shirts you’d bought in the Seychelles. You said that you didn’t feel like dressing up for dinner.”
“So you changed your clothes and we had a picnic in the conservatory. After dinner I told you I was pregnant and you . . .”
He swallowed painfully.
“I reacted in the worst possible way,” he grated. “I told you to leave and you did.”
“Wearing the same jeans and T-shirt that I’d been wearing all evening,” she finished. His face contorted savagely, and he flung the dress aside with a vicious curse. Bronwyn flinched at the sudden movement, unable to gauge his mood, not sure if he believed her or not. He brushed past her abruptly to slam his way into the en suite, and she was shocked to hear the sound of violent retching coming from behind the closed door. She hovered outside, unsure if she should venture in or wait for him to come back out. She had just made up her mind to go in, when the ghastly sounds stopped and she heard the toilet flush, followed by the sounds of water running and gargling.
He opened the door slowly, and she found herself staring up at him warily. He looked awful, hollow-eyed, hunted, and like he had aged ten years in the last ten minutes. He couldn’t quite bring himself to meet her eyes.
“I . . .” he began. “I don’t know . . .” He raised a violently trembling hand toward her but checked the movement abruptly, his hand falling limply back to his side.
“Bryce . . .” she murmured uncertainly, but he shook his head abruptly, lifting his eyes to her face, and Bronwyn was horrified by the depth of self-loathing she saw in his tortured gaze. It was mingled with overwhelming regret and something akin to fear and desperation.
“God, how you must hate me,” he murmured.
“I don’t think . . .” But it was too late, he turned away before she could say anything more and exited the room abruptly. Bronwyn felt ridiculously deflated by the anticlimactic end to such an intense conversation. That Bryce believed her was no longer in doubt, but he now seemed wholly unable to deal with his own culpability in the failure of their relationship.
“Don’t bother finding Cooper,” Bryce growled upon stepping out onto the sunny patio where his brother, sister-in-law, and the two toddlers were happily playing. They, all four, came to an abrupt halt at the sound of his gruff voice. Lisa and Rick looked concerned, Rhys started crying, and Kayla merely looked happy to see him, as always. While Lisa picked Rhys up for a cuddle, Kayla babbled on incoherently but Bryce couldn’t focus and was unable to tell what the child was trying to communicate. It was difficult enough to understand her under normal circumstances, but the emotional turmoil he was in right now made it damned near impossible to make out what she was trying to say to him. He nodded and smiled blindly down at her, before switching his gaze to Rick.
“Why not?” his brother asked when their gazes met.
“She’s telling the truth,” Bryce bit off tautly, the knowledge still tearing him apart.
“How do you know?”
“A dress.” Bryce shook his head in shattered disbelief. “I was so sure of what I’d seen that night, I could remember every single detail of the accident scene down to the dress she was wearing as she stood there watching me scream her name.” He fought back the urge to laugh like a maniac, knowing that it would send him careening off the edge of reason. “Only she wasn’t wearing a dress the night she left me, Rick. I should have known that because I now remember thinking how damned sexy she looked in those jeans, just moments before everything went to hell. Not the cocktail dress I’d been remembering her in for the last two years but a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Oh God . . . oh my God!” He saw Rick go pale and knew that he had to look equally pasty-faced. The younger man blasphemed shakily.
“So now what, Bryce?”
Bryce shook his head helplessly at his brother’s question.
“Now I give her everything she wants because that’s the least of what she deserves.”
“What if she wants a divorce?”
It was the one thing Bryce had been trying not to think about, and he flinched from the question.
“I wouldn’t blame her.” Bryce’s eyes fell to his happily bubbling daughter, who was trying to share her stuffed toys with a still-crying Rhys. “But I’m not sure what I’ll do if she asks for one.”
Bronwyn came down about an hour later to find Rick and Lisa in the conservatory with Kayla and Rhys. The children were playing together contentedly. There was no sign of Bryce. Rick hopped to his feet agitatedly when he saw her enter the room and immediately apologized.
“I was unforgivably rude and needlessly cruel, Bron,” he muttered, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “I’m so sorry. I know I hurt you, but . . . damn it, Bron, he’s my brother and he was so damaged and so completely changed by something we all thought was your fault. It just felt like too large an obstacle to overcome!”
“Technically it was my fault,” she pointed out grimly. “He came after me that night, and if not for that he would not have had his accident.”
“No, it was his fault and he admits as much. If he hadn’t been such an absolute bastard about your pregnancy, none of it would have happened. I’m so sorry, Bronwyn.”
“Ricky.” She sighed wearily, not sure why she felt the need to comfort him but wanting to set his mind at ease nonetheless. “You were being loyal to your brother. It was his word against mine. You did what you thought was right.”
“What do you plan to do now?” Rick asked after an awkward pause. He was unable to look her in the eye, and she knew how hard the truth must have hit him. Knowing how unjustly he and Bryce had treated her would not sit comfortably with someone who had such an innate sense of fairness. She knew that it would eat at him for a while and that their relationship might never go back to the way it was before.
“What do you mean?” she asked tiredly.
“Well, my brother is pretty torn up about this, Bron.”
She laughed grimly at his words, cutting him off.
“Yes, and it’s always about him isn’t it?” she asked bitterly.
“No, it’s just . . .” Rick trailed off awkwardly, not sure what to say. “Will you leave him?”
“He doesn’t really want me, you know? He wants Kayla. I’m just excess baggage.” She shrugged.
“He’ll give you just about anything you ask for right now,” Rick pointed out.
“Is that so? Well then, where is he? Maybe it’s time I start making my demands. While his guilt lasts . . .”
“Bronwyn, you’re being—” he began, but Lisa, who had been keeping the children occupied, interrupted whatever he’d been about to say.
“Bryce is in his study,” she informed quietly, absently picking Kayla up and han
ding her over to Rick while she lifted Rhys into her arms. Bronwyn nodded her thanks and dropped a loving kiss on her daughter’s head before turning on her heel and heading out of the room.
She didn’t ring the doorbell; she wanted an honest reaction from him and did not want to give him time to mask whatever he was feeling. So she strode in confidently and then halted before she’d gotten more than two steps into the room, suddenly unsure of her decision.
He sat behind his huge desk, with his head in his hands in almost exactly the same pose as the day before but he looked so incredibly lost and alone that, for a moment, she was unsure of what her next move should be. He must have sensed her presence because he looked up unexpectedly, pinning her to the spot with his tormented gaze. It said a lot for the changed status of their relationship that he did not immediately fly off the handle because of her supposed “intrusion” into his lair.
“I can’t fix this,” he admitted bleakly. His voice was quivering in a way that would have killed his pride if he had been able to hear it. “I don’t know how to.” He looked strangely defenseless with his messy hair and his disheveled clothing, but she steeled herself against his vulnerability. While she was happy that he now knew the truth, the simple fact of the matter was that she couldn’t trust him with her heart. It had never been safe with him, but she hadn’t known it until he had so ruthlessly rejected her two years ago. Yes, he was now filled with regret about the mistake he had made immediately following his accident, but he still had no explanations or apologies for the behavior that had driven her out in the first place.
She did not know what to say to him, did not know what she wanted from him anymore. Just the day before she had idealistically and unrealistically imagined that if they tried to get along, their relationship would improve and they could build on that. Of course, they both had Kayla’s best interests at heart and wanted to provide stability for her, but Bronwyn deserved better than a second-rate marriage, with them staying together only for the sake of their daughter. Right now Bronwyn also honestly believed that Kayla would be better off if their marriage was severed sooner rather than later. It was better than raising their baby in an atmosphere of mistrust.
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