She takes a sip of her wine and scoffs softly. ‘I thought he was okay with it, and it made so much sense for me to be the one settled in the UK more; I thought it made more sense for the place we were at.’
‘Place?’
A shrug. ‘The promotion to director meant I wasn’t racing around the world selling any more. I was in the UK. I was at home, settled, ready for...’
She breaks off and chews the corner of her lip.
But I know where this is heading, and the truth triggers a strange twisting sensation in my gut. ‘For children?’
I know I’m right. I see it in her awkward smile and the way she won’t meet my eye.
‘Yes.’
‘You must have loved him very much.’ It’s come out tight, constricted by my gut that continues to writhe.
‘At one time. And I’m sure he loved me too...but then everything changed.’
‘He was bitter?’
‘I’m not sure bitter’s the right word. With me being home more, we were able to spend more time together when he was in the UK, and we did, but...’ She frowns. ‘I don’t know. It just felt like we were going through the motions, putting ticks in boxes, fulfilling a life plan at a hundred miles an hour. Then my mum died and I just shut down. We didn’t connect any more, we didn’t talk, we didn’t...we didn’t have sex. Eventually, he’d had enough of waiting for me to come round, to go back to how I was. He accused me of being a workaholic, of being boring; he said that the person he fell in love with was no more.’
‘Bastardo!’
Her head whips around to face me, her eyes flaring at my outburst. But I’m angry, so angry at a man I don’t even know, because he wasn’t worthy of her. He promised her so much and left when she needed him the most.
‘He should have looked after you, not run.’
She lowers her gaze. ‘It wasn’t all his fault.’
I can’t believe she’s defending him. How can she not see that what he did to her was wrong? I reach for her arms, caress her skin and wait for her to look at me.
‘Can’t you see he shouldn’t have treated you like that? Made you feel that way?’
‘You don’t understand. I did change. Bobby was right. I... I did lose my love of life, the ability to laugh and enjoy it. I wasn’t an easy person to be around.’
‘You were his wife, Faye.’ I’m vehement, and there are warning bells ringing between my ears, but I can’t stop. ‘He swore to love you in the good times and the bad.’
Her eyes search mine, quietly curious, and I fear what she will say next before she says, ‘Is that—is that why you won’t ever marry? Because you won’t promise yourself to a woman for fear of failing her? If you don’t promise, you can’t fail.’
I swallow and shake my head. ‘I won’t marry because of many reasons.’
‘But that is one?’
I close my eyes and open them again, knowing what I have to say but not wanting to say it. ‘Si. But with love comes the power of pain, and the ability to destroy a man...or a woman...when it’s taken away. Through fate, through choice, whatever reason. It is not a given. It is not a guarantee. You can’t control it.’
‘And so you run away from it? You’re scared of it.’
I want to refute that. I’m never scared. I don’t run away. And yet...
‘I guess I do.’
‘Maybe you just haven’t met the right woman.’
I want to laugh. My insides tremble with the shock of it, the force of it. She is the right woman. If ever there was someone I could fall in love with, it’s her. I know it as well as I know I can’t do it. I can’t let myself go there.
She takes a shaky breath and steps out of my hold. I can see her physically shutting down. ‘We should get back. They’ll be wondering where we’ve got to, and we don’t want Dani to suspect any more than she already does.’
I want to stop her. I want to say so much more. I want to promise her the world, to take away her sorrow, and I can do none of that. It would only make me as bad as her ex-husband. And so I nod and gesture for her to lead the way. My gut rolls, my chest aches and I understand none of it. In all my adult life, I don’t remember being this confused, this...helpless.