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‘And?’ Rafe asked, his voice very low.
‘And we had an affair,’ Freya said dully. ‘For several months.’ Even now, ten years later, it sounded so sordid. She would never be free. ‘Until I fell pregnant.’
‘What happened then?’ Rafe asked.
His voice was toneless, so Freya couldn’t tell what he thought. Felt. She could only imagine.
‘Anita found out. She recognised the signs before I did, actually. Just like you did. She guessed right away. I’ve sometimes wondered if—if I wasn’t the first. In any case, she wanted me out of there. She drove me to a doctor—at least I think she was a doctor.’
Freya shivered, the memories making her cold to her soul. She’d never told anyone so much—not even her parents. She knew they wouldn’t have been able to handle the truth; what they’d known had been bad enough. And even though she knew she was damning herself with every word, it felt good to tell someone. Tell Rafe. Like lancing a boil.
‘She was awful,’ she whispered. ‘She performed the termination. I was in such a daze I couldn’t even think…’ She swallowed, then said in a voice so low it was barely audible, ‘Sometimes I wish I could go back and have that moment over again. I’d choose differently. Except it didn’t even feel like a choice. Not for me.’
Rafe was silent for another long moment. Freya wished she knew what he was thinking, but she was afraid to look him in the face.
‘Terminations were illegal in Spain then,’ he finally said, without any expression at all.
‘I know. Anita had a connection somehow—it wasn’t in a normal office, and it was…awful.’ She shook her head, not wanting to say any more. She still had nightmares about that room, the blood. ‘I didn’t want to tell my parents any of it. I knew it would be horrible for them, and I was so ashamed.’ She drew in a ragged breath. ‘But in the end I developed a severe infection, and they had to come to Spain to fetch me home.’
She didn’t go into details—didn’t want to tell Rafe the want truth. How Anita had thrown her out and she’d had nowhere to stay. She’d been picked up by the police for sleeping on a park bench, feverish and delirious, full of shame and guilt. It had been the lowest point of her life.
‘That’s why I didn’t think I could have children—I had scarring from the procedure. They told me I was infertile.’
Rafe was silent for a long moment. Freya’s nails bit into her palms as she waited for his verdict. This changes everything. I can’t marry you now. You’ll leave immediately.
‘So,’ he said slowly, and Freya closed her eyes, waiting, aching, ‘this baby really is a miracle.’
Her breath came out in a ragged gasp of shock and gratitude and tears slipped down her cheeks. It was just about the last thing she’d expected him to say. ‘Yes…’ she managed. ‘I hope so. I hope this baby can banish what happened before. I know I can never actually forget, but to not always remember—’ She stopped, wiping her cheeks. ‘No one tells you how awful it is. How you keep thinking—’
Rafe pulled her to him, and Freya did not resist. She needed his touch, craved it. Yet she wanted more, longed for absolution, or perhaps just obliteration. Some deep need inside her compelled her to lift her face up to his, and when she felt his hesitation she closed the distance between their mouths and kissed him with all the desperation she felt.
She felt Rafe tense in surprise, and she pulled him closer to her, threading her fingers through his hair. After another taut second Rafe responded, his mouth opening to hers, and desire and relief flooded through Freya in equal amounts. She needed this. Needed this comfort, this closeness. ‘No.’
Rafe pulled away, his breathing ragged, and desolation swamped her soul once again. He was disgusted by her, no matter what he’d said.
‘Not like this. Not like—’ He stopped, but Freya knew what he was thinking. Remembering. Not like last time. And she knew, despite the desire coursing through her, that he was right. Sex was only a temporary release. Regret came after. Yet she didn’t want him to go.
‘Rafe—’
‘You need to rest,’ Rafe said. ‘There will be time to—to talk through things later.’
Freya didn’t know if they were, but his words felt like a rejection. She didn’t need to rest; she needed Rafe.
‘All right,’ she whispered, because she didn’t want to admit how much she needed him. Wanted him. She felt his emotional withdrawal like a physical thing–a coldness in the air, in herself.
He rose from the bench and she followed him out of the darkness of the garden into the villa. He paused on the threshold of his study, his expression shadowed, unfathomable. ‘Goodnight,’ he said.
The word sounded final somehow, and Freya did not have the strength to respond. She simply nodded, her heart aching, and turned to the stairs. Behind her she heard the door to Rafe’s study click shut, and it felt as if something far greater was being closed. The door to his heart, to hope. She had not been imagining the coolness in his gaze, the way he’d distanced himself.
In her bedroom she undressed and slid between the cool sheets. She felt emotionally exhausted from her confession, and yet her mind and heart seethed with anxious uncertainty about the future.
For a moment—a wonderful moment—she’d felt forgiven.
‘This baby really is a miracle.’
Rafe had offered her comfort in that moment of desolation, but that was all it had been. A moment. Moments, Freya thought bleakly, seemed like all she would ever have.
Lying there in the darkness of her bedroom, she knew her feelings for Rafe were deeper and stronger than she could ever let him know. She loved him—loved his gentleness with Max, loved the kindness and sensitivity she knew was inside him even though the anger and suspicion he still harboured from his unhappy marriage hid them at times. Lying there, tears streaking silently down her cheeks, Freya knew what she wanted. What she’d never felt she deserved.
