‘It’s all right.’
But it would never be all right ever again. Her baby was gone and the fact that Raoul had believed she had got rid of it just made the tears flow faster. She had lost her child—and obviously she had lost its father at the same time. She’d lost him, lost everything.
‘It’s all right, I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Imogen. I’ll not let you fall.’
If he said anything else then she couldn’t hear it as she abandoned herself to a fury of weeping, unable to hold back any longer. Two years’ worth of stored up tears soaked into his shirt, plastering the linen against his skin as she clung onto his arms, feeling the powerful muscles bunch and clench under her fingertips. She swayed against him, felt his long body adjust to take her weight, strong in support.
Then it was as if the world had given way as Raoul’s long legs seemed to buckle beneath him. He sank to the floor, taking her with him. Still blinded by tears, by having her face pressed into his shirt, she found herself sitting curled onto his lap, held until the storm of misery gradually slowed, eased, came to a raw, hiccupping stop. Sniffing inelegantly, she managed to lift her head, staring in shock at the mess of black mascara and tear stains marking the white linen.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘No.’ His low, husky assurance sounded worse than she felt. ‘I’m sorry. More sorry than I can ever tell you. I should have known…never have believed…’
But he did believe her. That was the one thing that registered. He had never doubted or questioned her declaration that she had lost the baby because it had been an ectopic pregnancy. This couldn’t heal the bitter memories—ease the terrible pain, both physical and mental, that she had endured—but it smoothed a balm over the wounds and gave her a new strength. The sort she hadn’t known for years.
‘I should have trusted… But then I saw that photograph.’
That brought Imogen’s head up sharply. She had known the picture of herself and Ciara after their long-awaited reunion had been published in some of the gossip pages, but she had never thought that any of it would be read by Raoul in Corsica.
‘It was after… Ciara was helping me.’
‘I know.’
If his mouth had been any further from her ear then she would never have caught that low whisper, but it was enough to have her lifting her moisture-smeared face, finding the courage to look into his eyes.
The dampness from her own tears marked his cheeks, running into his rough stubble. Or was it? Blinking to bring him into focus, she could see the moisture that glistened on his thick, black eyelashes, spiking them against eyes that had a suspiciously bright sheen across them.
‘Raoul…’ At last she had found her voice as she lifted a shaking hand to touch his cheek, his eyes, her heart clenching as her fingers came away wet. ‘You believe me?’
‘Of course I believe you. You would never lie about something like this. I should have known. And yet when I came—’
He caught, snapping off the sentence as he shook his head. But Imogen needed no further explanation.
‘That was when you first came to Ireland?’
A slow, sombre nod of his dark head was his answer.
‘I saw you with Adnan.’
Admit it, Raoul told himself, the jealousy that had burned at the sight of her with the other man—laughing, smiling up into his face—had bitten hard. So hard it had stopped him thinking rationally.
‘I was wrong. So badly wrong. I let the past embitter me. You are no Alice. Or any of the others…’
For a moment, he closed his eyes against the memories. The time he had learned how Alice, tiring of his father’s more mature interests, had turned her back on both of them, later aborting the child she had conceived with her new lover in order to live the carefree life with the much younger man.
‘I understand.’
‘Then you are wrong to.’ His voice was rough-edged, dark. ‘I don’t deserve your understanding.’
With a gentleness that was so much at odds with the grimness of his words, he reached out and wiped the back of his fingers across her cheeks, taking the traces of her tears with them. For one long moment he looked deep into her eyes and a tiny suggestion of a smile played at the corners of his mouth.