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But no more. He’d been given a second chance. A second chance at life and a second chance of producing a life. And he wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardise that.
CHAPTER SIX
‘COME IN.’
At the soft tap on the door Rafael looked up from his laptop and saw Lottie juggling with a sliding tray, pushing the door open with her hip.
‘You mentioned coffee after dinner, so I thought I would bring you some—us some.’ She indicated the two mugs beside the cafetière.
‘Thanks.’
He made no move to clear a space amongst the paperwork strewn around his desk, so Lottie pointedly gave the tray an extra rattle until he got the message.
‘There.’ She sat herself opposite him and they both watched as Lottie lowered the plunger on the coffee and poured them both a cup. ‘You’re still working, then?’ She held her mug in both hands, inhaling the steam.
‘It would certainly appear that way.’
No one could do the arctic chill like Rafael.
‘What are you working on?’ She picked up a sheet of paper from the desk, feigning absorbed interest, but, sensing his scowl, silently replaced it.
‘Nothing you would be remotely interested in. Now, I really don’t have time for this, so if you would like to leave...’
‘I might be interested if you told me what it was.’
‘Why are you here, Lottie?’ His sharp words cut through the air between them.
Lottie twisted a curl of hair around her finger. ‘I thought maybe we could carry on the conversation we were having earlier. The one you abruptly ended when you walked away.’
‘I hardly think you are in any position to criticise me for walking away.’ The sharp words came out of nowhere. ‘That was something you managed to do in a spectacular fashion.’
Ouch! Lottie hadn’t seen that one coming. Now she deeply questioned the wisdom of seeking him out. Especially as he was closing his laptop, turning the full force of his dark eyes and even darker mood firmly in her direction.
‘That’s not what we were talking about.’
‘Well, we are now. Since you seem so determined to rake over the past, why don’t we examine your part in it?’
‘No, Rafe—stop this.’
‘How about we start with the night you walked out? Talk me through it, Lottie, the sequence of events, just so I have them clearly in my head.’
‘I don’t want to do this.’
‘Well, too bad—because I do. You wanted to talk, so let’s talk. How long had you been planning it, Lottie? Was it a sudden realisation? A spur-of-the-moment thing? Oh, no, it couldn’t have been.’
His cruel laugh cut through Lottie like a knife.
‘Not when I bear in mind that you had never loved me. You must have been desperate to get away from me—plotting your escape for months.’
He was wrong—so wrong about everything. But Lottie refused to go there, refused to face the coal-black intensity of his piercing eyes and rake over that dreadful night. Even though every single minute of it was seared on her soul for ever.
The hardest decision of her life had been made quickly. The negative result of their third IVF attempt had finally tipped her over the edge, driving the last nail into the coffin of their marriage.
A phone call to the airport had seen her stuffing a small suitcase with clothes and creeping down the steps to a waiting taxi. It had been dark, and even though she’d known Rafael wasn’t in the palazzo she had winced at the noise of the idling engine, the slam of the doors before they’d finally driven off, Lottie wide-eyed and silent, hunched in the back of the car.
Completely numb with the enormity of her decision, she had been waiting for her flight, gazing at her reflection in the wall of windows overlooking the twinkling lights of the runway, when Rafael’s dark shape had appeared behind her like an apparition of foreboding.
His mood had been angry, forceful, as he had demanded to know what the hell she thought she was doing. Would it have been different if he had asked her to stay? Shown some compassion, vulnerability, even? She didn’t know. But his boorish attitude had only served to reinforce her decision that they were finished—she had to leave.
She’d had to make him see that she wasn’t going to change her mind—that he had to go away, leave her alone with her misery. And there had been only one sure-fire way to do that.
She could still see the look on Rafael’s face as she had said the words.
With the Tannoy above their heads announcing the final call for her flight, she had dragged up every ounce of bravado and acting ability she had and blurted out the words. ‘I don’t love you, Rafael, and I never have.’ And they were words that had haunted her ever since.
