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'Why not? She was offered a plum position in Boston and she decided to move.'
Keely shook her head, unable to believe what she was hearing. 'And leave her family?'
He shrugged. 'As far as Catherine was concerned, she didn't have a family. We were just a hindrance. By then our marriage had totally disintegrated and we barely saw each other. Even when she wasn't working she spent most of her time at the hospital.'
'So she moved to America?'
'No.' He shook his head. 'A week before she was due to go she was called out to a major accident on the motorway. She crashed in the fog. And that was it.'
Keely closed her eyes. 'Oh, Zach...'
'And do you know the hardest thing of all?' Zach's voice was conversational, as if he were talking about the weather, not the death of his wife. 'The fact that everyone felt sorry for me. They all assumed I must be devastated. And I wasn't. It was a tragedy of course—for her. But for us?' He paused and shook his head slowly. 'It sounds callous, I know, but in a way her death made it easier for me and for Phoebe. But, of course, no one knew that.'
'No. They couldn't possibly have understood.' She lifted her eyes to his, k
nowing that everything she felt for him was there for him to see. 'But I understand. Telling Phoebe that her mother died when she was little is going to be so much easier than telling her that her mother never wanted her and had moved to the other side of the world.'
His eyes locked with hers. 'Precisely.'
She took a deep breath. It was almost too much to take in.
He hadn't loved Catherine.
'We did all assume that you were devastated because you lost your wife,' she said, struggling to sit more upright in the bed. 'We all assumed you loved her so much you could never love another woman again.'
'I know what people assumed.' He gave a shrug. 'And I let them carry on with their false assumptions. It protected Phoebe from the truth. That our marriage was a sham and her mother didn't want her.'
Keely was still confused. 'But you told me that you had nothing left to give any woman after Catherine,' she asked quietly. 'I don't understand. If you weren't grieving for your wife, what was stopping you having a relationship with someone else?'
'A lack of trust. After everything that happened with Catherine I wasn't in a hurry to trust another woman again. Phoebe's happiness was at stake.' Zach paced across the room, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. 'And I suppose the truth was that I never met anyone I was remotely interested in.' He stopped dead and lifted his head to look at her. 'Until you came back into my life.'
Suddenly the room went very still and Keely forgot to breathe.
What was he saying?
'I tried to keep you at a distance but the chemistry between us is so strong it was impossible...' His voice was hoarse and his eyes burned into hers. 'Let's be honest for a moment. There was always something between us, Keely. Always. Even when you were young, we connected. When I came to stay in your house it was you that I enjoyed spending time with.'
She gave an awkward laugh. 'I was an irritating teenager—'
'No.' He shook his head and walked towards her. 'You were never that. You were smiley and enthusiastic and ridiculously caring about everything and everyone around you. When you proposed to me that night I suddenly realised that you were growing up fast. Frighteningly fast.'
'I should never have said what I said.' She blushed. 'I can't even begin to imagine what you must have thought of me.'
His eyes were warm. 'I thought you were gorgeous and I was flattered.'
'But you never visited us again...'
There was a long silence. 'Because I didn't trust myself,' he said finally. 'You were at a very dangerous age. You weren't a child any more and I knew that you needed space to spread your wings. So I kept my distance. I never thought you'd come back into my life.'
'But I did.'
'You did, indeed. And you kept trying to prove to me how grown up you were.'
'I had to. You thought I was a child,' Keely reminded him and he shook his head with a smile.
'Oh, no, I didn't. From the moment I saw you sitting in the lecture theatre, hiding your face behind your hand, I knew that you were all woman. And, believe me, keeping my hands off you nearly drove me crazy.'
He'd wanted her all along?
