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He swallowed so hard she saw his throat bob, then he held her gaze with his own as he spoke.
‘I’m going to tell the world that I love you. Starting with you. Heather Reid, I’m in love with you—and I need you to stay.’
Oh, God, his words were arrows through her heart. She knew how much those words must have cost him. How hard he’d fought to be able even to think them, let alone say them. And she wasn’t even going to try to deny any longer that she was just as much in love with him.
But it didn’t matter.
She couldn’t live this life.
Couldn’t stay here with everyone—even Daisy and Ryan—knowing what sort of a person she was. With her child knowing.
‘What about Anna?’ she asked, her mouth dry.
Cal smiled, obviously taking her question as agreement. ‘I’ve already called Anna’s magazine and offered them a proper interview about it all with a different journalist if they don’t print Anna’s piece. We can announce our engagement, explain our side of the story. It’ll all blow over in no time.’
But it wouldn’t. People in her village still talked about her mother’s misdeeds now, eighteen years or more later. Nobody would forget what she’d done, either—and, most of all, she wouldn’t forget.
She’d done the wrong thing—sleeping with a married man, falling for Cal, lying about it all.
She didn’t deserve a happy-ever-after here.
But her child did.
And she was going to make sure he or she got it.
Even if it broke her heart.
* * *
This was all going to work out. All she had to do was say yes and he could fix everything—just as he’d been fixing things ever since he’d returned to Lengroth Castle. With Heather at his side he could do it all.
Except she wasn’t saying yes.
‘I’m sorry, Cal. I can’t marry you.’
He could see the pain in her eyes, hear her voice cracking. He knew she wanted this every bit as much as he did. He didn’t need her to say the words. He could feel it between them whenever they were together. Hell, she’d probably known he loved her before he did. They’d both just pushed everything aside to deal with later.
But she wanted them to be a family. She wanted him. So why wouldn’t she say yes?
‘I’m not doing this because it will avoid a scandal. I’m doing this because I love you.’
It was possibly the first time anyone in his family had ever proposed purely for love. Janey had been pregnant when Ross had put a ring on her finger, and Cal was pretty sure he wouldn’t have if their father hadn’t insisted.
And Heather was turning him down.
‘I know. I know. And I love you, too. I tried not to, but...’
There were tears in her eyes, he realised.
Cal pulled himself up to stand, tugging her closer as he did so. ‘You love me, Heather. And I love you. So to hell with everyone else. Marry me, make us a real family and let us be happy together.’
She met his gaze, eyes gleaming. ‘I want to. But I won’t do that to my child. I won’t let my child grow up here, where people will always talk about us. Where his or her whole life will be defined by what I did before he or she was even born. I grew up like that, Cal, and I can’t do it to my baby. However much I love you, I love my baby more.’
His hands fell away from hers without his permission and he stepped back without planning to. It seemed his body had accepted what she was saying even if his heart hadn’t.
‘What about Daisy and Ryan? I thought you loved them, too.’
‘I do,’ she said, her voice pained. ‘But they have you—and you have them. I know the three of you can be a happy family together. And it will be easier for you without me and my scandal hanging over you.’
‘Nothing will be easier without you,’ Cal replied, his temper rising.
But Heather only shook her head. As if the matter was out of her hands. But it wasn’t. His whole future was in her hands.
‘You’re running scared,’ he accused her. ‘I always thought that I was the one too scared of repeating the past to risk falling in love, to try to be part of a functioning happy family. But you’re the one who told me that I could—that kids need love more than perfection. More than anything else. Well, the same goes for me. I need your love—not for you to be perfect, or scandal-free.’
