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“I’d have to be with you to leave you,” Rainne said softly, and then stepped into the hall.
“Rainbow!” Alastair shouted, but she kept on walking until she hit the kitchen.
Every eye in the room turned to watch her. Most of them filled with pity. Three years ago, Rainne would have burst into tears and fled in shame. But as she kept telling everyone, she wasn’t that girl anymore. Instead she held her head high and looked at Heather Donaldson.
“What can I do to help?” she said.
She was grateful when Heather smiled, linked her arm through hers and led her off to where she was needed.
Alastair closed his eyes and lay back on the sofa. She’d done it again. She’d walked away. And he was in no state to chase her.
What was it about him that made women eager to escape him?
“She didn’t believe you,” a female voice said from the door.
From his position Alastair couldn’t see who was speaking, and he didn’t recognise the voice.
“It’s not that she doesn’t want you,” the woman said. “She doesn’t believe you.”
“Who are you?” Alastair wished she would step into the room so he could see her.
“I’m Julia.” She didn’t come into the room. “I work for Lake. I’ve been talking to Rainne on the phone for the past few months. We’ve become friends. Well, as much as you can from phone calls.” There was silence.
Alastair was almost afraid to speak in case he scared the woman away.
&n
bsp; “She told me about you.” Julia sounded wistful.
“What did she say?”
“She told me how much she loved you.”
Alastair’s heart ached and he closed his eyes.
“She told me you wanted to marry her and start a family.” Alastair heard her take one step closer. “She didn’t believe you then either. It’s hard to believe someone really means it when they say they want you just as you are. It’s even harder when experience teaches you that people only want you for what they can get from you.”
Julia sounded like she knew what she was talking about.
Alastair cleared his throat. “I wanted her regardless of what she could do for me. I’m nothing like her family. My feelings weren’t conditional on what I’d get from her.”
“Weren’t they?”
He felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “No. I wanted her here, making a life with me.”
“And when she wanted to do something else, you withdrew your love. Withdrew yourself.”
“That’s not what happened.” Was it? “I went to Glasgow. She shut the door in my face.”
“You went to Glasgow to bring her back here.” Julia stepped closer, and Alastair could feel her standing just out of sight behind the sofa. “You went because you wanted Rainne, not because you wanted what was best for Rainne.”
He flinched. “She said that?”
“No, but I heard it. You were only twenty. You two were together such a short time. A few months of listening to you, against twenty-six years listening to her parents. Are you really surprised she didn’t believe you meant what you said? Especially when your actions said your love was conditional on her doing what you thought was best?”
Alastair fell silent, and the mysterious Julia turned towards the door. “She really does still love you,” she said. “Don’t make her suffer because of it.” And then she was gone.
Leaving Alastair alone, wondering if Rainne hadn’t been right to leave him three years earlier. Wondering if he’d been the immature boy she’d accused him of being, expecting her to give up her life to be with him after a few months together. He scrunched his eyes closed against pain of a different kind. The past was a mess. They’d both made mistakes. But they had a chance to fix them now. To start again. To do things differently.
