He chuckled quietly. ‘How did you guess? I said I’d do the locum partly to help Ben out of a bind and partly because I knew I needed to see you again, but we haven’t exactly got off to a flying start and I wouldn’t contemplate coming back permanently if you didn’t want me to, Liv. That wouldn’t be fair on either of us.’
‘No. No, it wouldn’t.’ She bit her lip, wondering what it would be like if he came back, and she realised she was hoping—desperately hoping—that it would happen. But only if he came back to her as well, and there was a question that was burning a hole in her, even though she wasn’t sure she’d want the answer despite agonising over it the whole time he’d been out—well, when she hadn’t been asleep, at least—but it was sort of relevant so she said it anyway.
‘That would depend on if there’s anybody else in your life now, because that would change things a lot. You know—someone you’re seeing? Suzanne, perhaps, or someone new?’
His laugh sounded like disbelief, and he shook his head firmly. ‘No, Liv. Absolutely not, and certainly not Suze. I haven’t even seen her since the conference. I’ve been working in a different field so our paths don’t cross any more, and even if they did, our relationship was over seven years ago. Why would I want to go back to it? And, no, there isn’t anyone else, either. There hasn’t been anyone else. I’m not interested.’
She stared at him, shocked by that admission. Her relationship with Nick was—or had been—physical. Very physical. Until it all went so horribly wrong.
‘No one at all?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Not even a minor fling, in more than a year?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Why would I?’
‘For sex?’ she offered, stating the obvious, and got the same sad, slightly disbelieving laugh.
‘With someone I don’t really want? No. Sex is just an itch, Liv. I can scratch it myself, and the only woman I really want threw me out, so that’s not a goer.’
He held her eyes with his, the sincerity in them so believable she couldn’t doubt it, and after an age she sucked in a breath and looked away, letting it all sink in, but still it didn’t quite stack up, because always in the background was this thing with Suzanne that she couldn’t quite believe.
‘If that’s really true, can we scroll back to the conference, because it doesn’t seem plausible that you’d be in your room with Suze and not sleep with her, and I’m obviously not the only person who thought that. I knew something had been going on because Beth rang me on Sunday morning and asked if everything was all right, and there was just something in her voice that told me it wasn’t, and when she said Suzanne was there and she’d seen you together at breakfast, it all sort of fell into place. But breakfast alone wouldn’t make her think that, surely, so she must have seen you going into your room together, and I’m really struggling with that because I know you, Nick, and I know sex is a hugely significant thing in your life, so if it wasn’t to sleep with Suze, then what the hell was it for?’
He was staring down at his coffee, his face a mask, shutting her out again.
‘I just needed to talk to her,’ he said eventually.
‘So why couldn’t you do that downstairs in the bar or something? Why your room? And what on earth were you doing that made Beth suspicious enough to ring me?’
He let out a weary sigh and scrubbed his hand through his hair, then he lifted his head and met her eyes, and his were raw with pain and grief.
‘She saw us waiting for the lift. I was in the bar on my own wallowing in self-pity, and Suze came over and asked me if I was all right, and I got so choked I couldn’t answer her, so she suggested we took it upstairs. She grabbed the bottle of wine off the table and hauled me out of the bar, and I didn’t stop to analyse what anyone might think of it. I just wanted to leave before I made a total idiot of myself, and then we ran into Beth by the lift—me, Suze and the bottle. God knows what she thought we were up to but it must have looked pretty incriminating. Anyway, she asked how we were and I mumbled something and then the lift came and we got in it. Then the following morning she came into the restaurant after we’d already met up there, saw us having breakfast together and I guess put two and two together and came up with five.’
‘Well, of course she would—who wouldn’t?’
‘Exactly. And under any normal circumstances and with anybody else, she would have been right, but it wasn’t normal, I wasn’t normal, and Suze realised that. That’s why she got me out of there, and I can promise you sex was absolutely the last thing on my mind at the time.’
‘So why didn’t you just tell me that?’
‘Because you wouldn’t have believed me, and because for that fleeting moment it seemed like an escape route and I was desperate for one. It was a split-second decision, Liv, and I’ve regretted it ever since, and I know it’s too late now to undo all the hurt, but I really need you to believe that nothing happened between me and Suze.’
‘So—what did you do? You just drank the bottle of wine and talked? And if so, how did she come to write you that note? “Always here if you need me”? I don’t buy it. That’s a lover’s note, Nick.’
‘Or a friend’s. If she hadn’t been there that night I don’t know what would have happened to me, because I was on the brink of a total meltdown and if it hadn’t been for her I don’t know what I would have done. And I know she’s not a saint, but she’s not a whore, and that was a cheap shot yesterday, Liv.’
She felt a wash of shame. ‘I know. I’m sorry, I should never have said that but I’d spent a year hating her—’
‘No. You’ve spent seven years hating her, being jealous of her, and I’ve never understood it.’
‘What? She’s gorgeous, Nick. She’s got that amazing lush figure and come-to-bed eyes and you were together for years. And I know she’s still in your phone contacts, and she sends you a Christmas card every year—it really wasn’t such a stretch to think you would have slept with her again. A lot of people wouldn’t even count it, sleeping with an ex.’
‘But I would. Which is why I couldn’t have done it, because she’s a friend now—and anyway, what makes you think she’s any more desirable than you are?’ he asked, shifting so that he was facing her.
‘Because I’m not blind?’
He laughed softly and shook his head. ‘Liv—seriously, you have nothing to worry about in that department. Yes, we were lovers, of course we were, but she didn’t want what I wanted, she didn’t see life and family and the future in the same way as me, but you did, and right from the beginning I knew I needed to be with you. You’re the one I married, you’re the only woman I’ll ever want.’
‘But you didn’t want me then! We hardly ever made love any more, only when the time was right, and it wasn’t as if you hadn’t slept with her before, so why not?’
‘I’ve just told you that—and I did still want you. I just couldn’t touch you without breaking down, and I was trying to be strong for you but I just couldn’t do it any longer. I was breaking my heart over us, Liv, and Suze realised it, and the moment the door was shut and she said, “What’s wrong?”, I fell apart. She sat me on the bed and held me, and I unravelled all over her.
‘When I finally ground to a halt she made us coffee and let me talk. Which I did, for hours. I lay on the bed next to her and poured my heart out, told her everything, and then I fell asleep and when I woke up, she was gone. She must have written the note and put it in my bag before she left, but I didn’t see it until you showed it to me.
‘She told me over breakfast to come home to you and sort things out, to do what I could to mend our marriage, but I’d hardly got through the door before I had to go into the hospital to deliver Amy Zacharelli’s baby, and by the time I got back you’d already spoken to Beth, you’d found the note, and you’d made up your mind. From that point on, I didn’t stand a chance.’
Tears well
ed in her eyes, and she looked down at her hands, the fingers clenched together, trying not to cry for everything they’d lost. Or thrown away.
‘I’m so sorry. Sorry I’ve been mean about her…sorry I didn’t trust you. I should have trusted you, but the evidence was so clear, Nick, and I felt like such an idiot. That was why I was so shocked about Suzanne, so angry, because even though I was jealous of her I thought I knew you wouldn’t do something like that, not once we were married, and then suddenly it looked as if you’d just run back into her open arms and I wondered if I really knew you at all.’
His hand reached out and cradled her cheek gently. ‘Of course you know me. There’s not much to know. I’m pretty straightforward. You should have trusted your judgement—and I should have told you the truth there and then.’
‘But I didn’t make it easy for you, did I? As you said, I’d made up my mind, and I’m so sorry, because it’s all my own stupid fault. I should have come with you. It should have been me you broke down with, me you poured your heart out to. If I’d only come with you, maybe you would have done that and then all this business with Suze would never have happened,’ she whispered, her voice cracking, but he shifted closer, disentangling her knotted fingers and wrapping them in his warm, strong hands.
‘No,’ he said gruffly. ‘It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I can’t let you take the blame for that. I shouldn’t have gone, but I was just at the end of my tether with it all and I couldn’t cope with it any more. I’d had the day from hell, and then I came home and found you distraught because you weren’t pregnant again and I couldn’t take it any more, couldn’t bear your pain any more. It was the last straw.
‘I never should have left you alone like that. I should have stayed with you, talked about it properly, faced the truth instead of just running away to the conference because it was the easiest thing to do—’
‘What could you have done? We’d talked about it endlessly. Every month, for nearly two years. What more was there to say? We’d said it all.’
‘No, we hadn’t. We’d said the same things over and over. It’ll be all right. It’ll happen soon, we just need to give it time. We’re still young. There’s no hurry. Lots of people have this trouble. We’ve been too busy. We missed the date—every month, the same excuses, the same justification for our failure to conceive, but we never once admitted that we might have a problem, that we needed help, that it wasn’t working and wasn’t going to work, because we didn’t want to admit it. It was as if saying it out loud would make it real, and we couldn’t bear to do that.’
She didn’t answer, because she didn’t need to. He was right, all their talking had got them nowhere because neither of them would admit that they needed help, and maybe there would have been a simple answer if they’d only ever asked the right question.
She’d started running for an hour every day to escape from the truth, from the mess her marriage was in, from the endless recurring sorrow of her infertility, and yet the running itself might have made the situation worse. Why hadn’t she realised that? She’d got so thin, scrawny almost. That wasn’t healthy, but it hadn’t stopped her, and there had been the odd month when the ovulation test hadn’t reacted positively. Was that why?
His thumb traced idly over the back of her hand, sweeping backwards and forwards, over and over as the silence hung in the air between them until finally he broke it with a shuddering sigh.
‘I wish I’d felt able to talk to you, Liv. I never really told you how I felt, did I? Not really. Not honestly. I never told you how I grieved for us every time we failed, how I ached for you, how I blamed myself for not being able to help you when I was working in the same field. Why couldn’t I? I’m a doctor, an obstetrician. My job is babies, and yet I couldn’t even give you a baby.’
‘You weren’t alone, Nick. My job’s babies, too, and I couldn’t give you one, either. And I couldn’t talk about it—not to you, not to anyone. I don’t think that helped us.’
‘No, I don’t think it did. I meant to, when I got back from the conference, but then the whole thing just escalated and overwhelmed me, and I wasn’t thinking clearly anyway. I’d had virtually no sleep, I knew I had a mountain to climb to get our marriage back on track, and then you told me to go and I realised there wasn’t any point in talking about it, because you’d made up your mind, so I did the easy thing. Again. It was about the only thing I was any good at.’
‘So why not talk to me after that?’ she asked. ‘You were still here for nearly three months, working your notice. You could have given me time to cool off, and then told me the truth. I waited and waited, and you never said a word in your own defence. It felt like you’d slunk away with your tail between your legs, and it just made you look even guiltier, if that was possible.’
‘I know, and it was deliberate, even though it was killing me. I thought it would be easier that way, easier for both of us—give us a fresh start. I thought we might be able to move on, but I haven’t. I haven’t moved on at all. Have you?’ he asked, his voice low, the question hardly voiced as if he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer. ‘Have you met anyone?’
She shook her head. ‘No. No, of course not.’
‘There’s no “of course” about it. You’re a beautiful woman, Liv. Why not?’
Because no one else was Nick. She’d had other relationships before she’d met him, but once he’d come into her life she’d realised he was the only man she’d ever really loved, the only man she’d ever really wanted. Nothing would change that.
She shook her head. ‘I’m not interested. I’ve never been one for casual sex, and even if I’d met someone I really liked, I wouldn’t have done anything about it, because the last thing I needed was another relationship. I just can’t see it happening.’
‘Because I hurt you so badly,’ he said heavily.
‘No, not you. Our marriage. The way it slowly crumbled away beneath us. That was so hard to take, and it wasn’t even as if we’d fallen out of love. We’d just stopped communicating.’
‘We had, you’re right. And we shouldn’t have done, but I was afraid if I was honest and told you how desperate I was, you’d just feel even guiltier, and I knew how that felt.’
She looked up at him, searching his eyes while she asked another question, one which had been plaguing her since Ben had told her what he’d been doing.
‘I know I’ve already asked you this, but why are you working in infertility? I would have thought you’d run screaming from it, taken any other job in the world, almost, to avoid it.’
He shrugged and shifted on the bed, and she wriggled closer and rested her head on his shoulder.
‘I don’t know, to be honest,’ he murmured. ‘It was partly by accident, really. As soon as he knew it was destined for closure the consultant left to set up his own private clinic, and they were left in the lurch without a proper job to offer, so recruiting someone permanent wasn’t possible, and I’d just come to the end of one job, it was in the same department, I knew some of the people—I suppose I felt I owed them, in a way, and they talked me into it. I didn’t really want to do it, but it wasn’t long term, there was a definite end-date, and I thought it would give me time to look for something I really wanted. And it meant I wouldn’t have to move again for a while. So I said yes, and then after a bit I realised I’m actually ideally placed to do it.
‘I know what it’s like, I know what they go through, how hard it can be to cope with the endless see-saw of emotions, the hope, the fear, the despair, and in a way it helped me to understand what had happened to us. As I told you yesterday, I realised we’re definitely not alone. There are marriages and relationships falling apart all the time because of the pressure couples put on themselves, and for the ones who stick together, if I can help them get pregnant, then maybe I can save them going through what we did, and if I can’t, I can empathise. I can give them advic
e, point them in the direction of support groups, talking therapies, relationship advice—’
‘We never had any of that,’ she pointed out sadly.
‘No. No, we didn’t. Nor did we go through the endless investigations, or try any one of the many options which might have helped us in one way or another, and I’m still not really sure why, because it was getting blindingly obvious that we needed help. Maybe it was because we felt there wasn’t enough there to start with, that our marriage just wasn’t strong enough to survive what might lie ahead.’
She sucked her breath in, shocked by that. ‘Nick, we had a good marriage,’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘You know we did.’
‘I thought so. I’d always thought so, so why couldn’t I support you when you needed me?’ he asked despairingly. ‘Why wasn’t I there for you every time it didn’t happen? Why did I go to the conference without you that weekend—and why did you believe the worst of me and not even question me about Suze?’
‘I did!’
‘No. You asked me if she was in my room. You never asked me why, or what we did. You just assumed I’d slept with her, and yes, I could have explained, but it was as if you’d already made up your mind, and in the next breath you told me you wanted a divorce as if you’d been waiting for a reason to get rid of me. Why would you do that if our marriage was so good?’
‘Because it wasn’t by then,’ she admitted, her eyes filling. ‘It was awful. You know what it was like. We hardly spoke to each other, we never hugged or kissed or laughed together. We just had sex at the right time—never at the wrong time, never just because we wanted to. I can’t remember when we last made love, but I can remember just about every time we had sex to make a baby that never happened.’
He was silent for an age, and then he drew in a ragged breath and rested his head against hers.
‘I’m sorry. I never meant it to be like that, but this room became such an emotional minefield that I almost dreaded going into it. I felt as if that was all you wanted from me, that I was just a sperm donor, that my only reason for being there was to get you pregnant, and I couldn’t do that, and when you said you wanted a divorce, it gave me a way out of a situation that was tearing me apart.’
Midwife's Longed-for Baby & the Prince's Cinderella Bride & Bride for the Single Dad (9781488022142) Page 9