‘I came to apologise,’ she said calmly. As if she wasn’t shaking inside.
Even the frown that drew his features together was handsome. How had she forgotten quite how striking he was?
‘I believe I should be the one apologising. I came here to tell you as much. I said things to you that were unforgivable.’
He’d been intending to see her? To talk to her? Something tiptoed through her but she didn’t dare to examine it too closely. Not yet.
‘You said things to me that were true.’ Alex forced herself to maintain eye contact, but that familiar heat burned low in her. ‘What’s more, I needed to hear them. I know I’ve said this before, but you were right, I was just as tethered to my past as you. I was using you, our marriage, to try to convince my father that I would do anything for him. To try to make him love me the way he loved my brother.’
Was that sadness that skittered across his expression before he shut it down? She couldn’t quite tell. He leaned back in his chair, his eyes raking over her even though his voice was gentle.
‘Did it turn out the way you hoped?’
‘No. But it turned out exactly the way you said it would.’ And somehow, with Louis, it didn’t hurt as much as it had. ‘My father was pleased, perhaps grateful, but he didn’t have some epiphany. He didn’t suddenly tell me how much he loved me, or how proud of me he was. And I realised that he never would.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She blinked back the tears that pricked her eyes.
‘I realise that he never will. He loves me in his own way, but it will never be the limitless, unconditional way he loved Jack or my mother. I’ll never know what he really feels about me, and whether deep down a part of him blames me or not, but I do know that I don’t blame myself. I live my life as well as I can and if that’s enough for him then great. If not, I refuse to twist myself inside out for him any longer. I’m me, and I’m happy with who I am.’
‘That’s good.’ Louis smiled softly and it tugged at her chest, her stomach, lower.
‘And I have you to thank for helping me to see that.’
Finally, finally, she found the strength to push off from the door, to make it halfway across the room before she stopped.
‘You gave me the strength to trust in myself. You’ve allowed me to believe in myself,’ she murmured. ‘But you were wrong about one thing.’
He was watchful, immobile.
‘And what was that?’
‘I may not have recognised my underlying intentions, but I was genuine when I told you I wanted to help you stop punishing yourself. I thought I could help you move on.’
The silence stretched out between them. For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer.
‘You did help me,’ he said abruptly. ‘Because of you I realised I no longer felt the isolation I’d never realised I’d been experiencing. My brain was fired up with a renewed drive. I had this...this energy effervescing in my blood. Alex, you made me feel alive.’
The hot—even savage—need in his eyes was almost her undoing.
* * *
He didn’t remember reaching into his drawer, or standing up to cross the room and stand in front of her, the pretty leather box offered to her with as much ceremony as if it were a ring.
Her arrival had been as unexpected as it had been incredible, filling him with feelings he hadn’t dared to let himself experience these last few weeks. Pouring hope and light right through him. He fought the urge to scoop her into his arms and hold her close to him to try to make her feel safe, secure, cared for—to make him feel all those things—and simply waited for her to open the box.
‘A key?’
Her surprise was evident and, despite himself, laughter spilled from his lips. His Alex. If she would let him.
‘Not just any key. It’s the key to Rainbow Court Respite Holidays in what was once the stable block of Chateau Rochepont.’
‘Rainbow Court Respite Holidays?’ She turned the words over and over on her tongue as though she couldn’t quite believe it.
‘It was what my mother had always intended to do with the place,’ he said softly. ‘It’s what you kept pushing me to do. I told you I’d consider it.’
‘I remember.’ She flushed. ‘But I was pushing for all the wrong reasons. I should never have done that to you. It doesn’t matter any more. I don’t need it. I just need you.’