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She wanted to laugh even as tears threatened to fall from her eyes. Whether he had known it was her birthday or not, he could never have been naïve enough to deny that leaving her here, in a restaurant, wearing a dress she had bought just for him, would hurt her deeply. So he knew. But he had chosen to do it anyway.
Through a haze of barely formed tears, she watched the head waiter slip through the tables discreetly, making his way towards her. She almost wanted to throw up her hand, prevent him from telling her what she already knew. But was instead stuck still. Frozen. On the brink of a precipice as if his decree as to whether Matthieu had simply been delayed, or was unable to come, would draw her back to safety or...
‘Mrs Montcour, I’m terribly sorry but your husband has sent word that he has been unavoidably detained and won’t be...’
Maria didn’t hear the rest of the sentence over the roaring in her ears. Unaccountably the man seemed to be waiting for some response from her, and she stared up at him in confusion. Surely Matthieu couldn’t really have done this to her. Surely the man she loved wouldn’t inflict such pain upon her in this way.
‘I just need a minute,’ she said to the head waiter, who slipped back past the tables of people staring at her like their favourite TV show.
Her hand flew to her stomach when her baby kicked out as if in sympathy with her, him, or defiance, she couldn’t tell. All she knew was that she could not stand for it. Could not, would not, live like this again. Not for her child, and not for herself.
It was as if the spell that had stuck her body still had been lifted and she jerked up from the seat. The noise of the chair screeched across the subdued lull of the restaurant, drawing everyone’s attention. She stood there for a moment, the barest of ones, permitting their curiosity, their pity, and silently promised herself that this would never, never, happen again.
She reached for the small black box from across the table and, with more poise and elegance than a queen, left the restaurant even as tears rolled down her cheeks.
* * *
When Matthieu finally arrived home that night, he was exhausted. From the lack of sleep, from the emotional warring within him as he had struggled almost violently with the need to go to her in the restaura
nt and the desperation to stay away from her. In a last-minute moment of blind-eyed panic, he had rushed to the restaurant—realising far too late that he had been wrong. That he shouldn’t, couldn’t push her away. But she had already left.
He threw his keys on the side table and stalked through the estate, desperate to find her, to beg for forgiveness. The desolation, guilt and devastation he had felt had cut him off at his knees. Entering the large living area, he stared at the three suitcases by the front door. Stared at them as if he couldn’t tell whether they were real or part of his twisted imagination. Couldn’t tell whether he was relieved or plunged swiftly into the deepest despair he’d ever felt.
He listened for sounds of her within the house, but it was silent. The lights were off, the whole house cold and dark, as if forecasting his future without her, without his child.
The thought ignited a primal cry within him, full of pain and anger.
A breeze reached him and he looked to the French windows that led out to the decking, seeing that they were open, and finally spying Maria’s silhouetted form out there beneath the night sky. Her skin, glowing beneath the light of the moon, her glorious long dark hair flowing around her shoulders, and instantly he was plunged back to that first night. The way that her entire being had called to him like a siren.
Just the way it was doing now. And for a moment, he wished he could take it all back. He wished that, instead of hiding in his office like a coward, he’d got to the restaurant in time. That he’d met her, held her, and told her how much she meant to him. But he couldn’t. Instead of going backwards, he went forwards. His feet taking him through the opening in the French windows and out onto the decking, just behind her.
The slight hitch in her breathing letting him know that she knew he was there.
Neither said a word. The silence between them vibrating with unspoken hurts and needs, as if the stars alone bore witness to a great tragedy.
‘Maria, I’m so—’
‘Don’t. Don’t you dare apologise.’
She turned then and he wished she hadn’t. He could see the tear tracks on her skin, the slight redness that screamed against the shocking pallor of her cheeks. Maria was not hiding her pain as he did. No. She claimed it. Owned it, was even glorious in it. He bit back a thousand curses that would send him to hell and keep him there.
‘Do you know what today is?’ she asked as if she wasn’t flipping the switch on the detonator for a bomb he knew, knew, was about to change everything. He could feel it in the air, taste it on his tongue and he desperately wanted to stop the words from falling from her lips.
Instead, he bit down and shook his head, fearing her answer as much as needing to hear it.
‘It’s my birthday.’
Curses rose in his mind so loud until they were screaming at him. If he had known...would he have done things differently? He was so torn, so confused, in so much pain he couldn’t tell any more. All this time his nightmares had shown him losing her in the most violent painful way, and now he was making it happen in reality. Pushing her away to protect himself and he knew that made him the worst kind of beast.
A small sad smile painted her beautiful features. ‘Perhaps it is fitting that we met on yours and part on mine.’
‘Maria—’
‘And I was the one who had a present for you,’ she said through a half-laugh, full of sadness and loss.
It was then that he saw the small box being turned over in her small hands, the paleness of her skin in contrast to the black velvet case. He frowned, trying to make sense of the shiver of apprehension that streaked through his body. But all he wanted, all he could think of was trying to make her stay.
‘I was wrong, Maria. I never should have left you in that restaurant.’
