She took a shaky breath, her fingers trembling beneath his as she swallowed and lifted her chin a little. ‘My sister.’
‘When?’
She blinked back tears as she looked to him and the air caught in his lungs, her beauty all the more powerful for her sorrow. ‘Ten years ago.’
‘And yet it feels like yesterday?’
She nodded, the knowledge passing between them, the shared understanding, the bond growing.
‘It doesn’t matter how much time passes,’ he said, the words easing out with their connection, ‘how many times I return to London, to where we lived together...’ He shook his head. We? More like she... He’d never been around. Absentee husband. Absentee father. His throat closed over. He couldn’t face up to his failings, not in front of Sophia, not when her soft blue gaze offered up sympathy he had no right to accept.
He closed his fingers around her hand and squeezed gently, throwing the focus onto her. ‘I’m sorry you lost your sister.’
She gave a small smile. ‘Isn’t it funny how we all say we’re sorry, like we’re in some way to blame for their death?’
His blood ran cold. He was to blame for Elena’s. If he’d just come home in time for dinner, if he hadn’t taken that last phone call, if he hadn’t ignored her ringing him...
‘I guess it’s just a catch-all term, a way to express our sadness at the news of someone’s passing, the pain of those left behind, but you hear it so much you become numb to it.’
‘Yes.’ He felt her fingers flex beneath his seconds before she pulled away, saw her eyes cloud over as she twisted her hands together again.
‘What happened?’
She stilled and he cursed his lack of tact. He never should have asked. But he wanted to know. He wanted to reach out for her once more, to pull her hand back, to offer and take comfort. Even though, to all intents and purposes, they were nothing more than strangers.
Only she didn’t feel like a stranger and he had no idea what to make of that. He felt exposed, vulnerable, as if he’d opened up a part of himself that he always kept well hidden. And he could sense she had too.
Maybe that was why he couldn’t let it go. Why, when his brain told him to change the subject, to pull away from the personal, something more powerful had him wanting her to open up. To talk to him.
>
He was a hypocrite. He didn’t want to talk about Elena and yet he was pushing her to talk about her sister. ‘I’m sorry. You really don’t have to talk about—’
‘It was a sledging accident, ten years ago yesterday in fact...’ Even though her eyes were on her hands, he could visualise the pain in them as she spoke, her words whisper-soft. ‘It was my fault too. I’d taken her out on my own while Mum and Dad were busy with friends. We were only supposed to be gone an hour, but we were having too much fun, and she begged me for a go on her own, just one... It seemed harmless enough. I’d done it a thousand times before, so I sat her in and gave her a push—’ She broke off, her body shuddering, her head lifting to look out of the window. ‘She came off and hit her head on a rock hidden in the snow.’
His gut turned over with sickening force as the scene played out in his mind. ‘How old was she?’
‘Seven.’ It shuddered out of her.
Seven. Barely older than his Lily. His gut rolled anew, her pain feeding his own, and he couldn’t hold back any longer. He reached out for her hand. ‘It doesn’t make it your fault. It was an accident, a tragic accident, surely you can see that?’
‘But if I hadn’t taken her out, if we’d only stayed indoors, if I hadn’t said yes to that last ride, if I hadn’t pushed her...’ Her voice trailed off and he grasped both of her hands in his.
‘Hindsight is a powerful thing, Sophia. We can learn from it, but you shouldn’t let it torment you. It can’t change the past.’
He should try telling himself the same too. Only he deserved to suffer. She didn’t. Maybe it was the guilt that bound them and not the loss. No matter how undeserving hers was.
Her eyes snapped to his, adjusted, and then she was breathing deeply and blowing it out. ‘And you really didn’t need to know any of that. Sorry, let’s just—’
He squeezed her hands, silencing her apology. ‘I wanted to know.’
The silence settled around them, neither needing to speak, and the desire to draw her into him was there, aching in his arms, his chest.
She shook her head a little. ‘I really don’t do this normally.’
‘Do what?’ Though he could see what she meant in the surprise widening her eyes.
‘Talk about the past, the accident...’