‘Why do you think that?’ he asked gently.
She swallowed. ‘My dad was often home late, or away, and my parents would always argue when he got home. He’d storm off, and my mum would cry, and I’d stay in my room and do my homework.’
The ache in her voice cut him almost as much as her words, for he was beginning to understand now why she was so determined to stay single, so vehemently opposed even to letting him know about the baby.
‘Are they still together?’
She shook her head.
‘They divorced when I was seven. At first it was better. It was calmer at home, and my dad made a real effort. He even promised to take me to the zoo in Edinburgh for my birthday. Only he forgot. Not just about the zoo, but about my birthday too.’
Ram felt as though he’d been punched hard in the face. He felt a vicious, almost violent urge to find her father and tell him exactly what he thought of him.
She breathed out unsteadily. ‘About two months later I got a card and some money. The following year he forgot my birthday again. One year he even managed to forget me at Christmas. Of course when he remembered I got the biggest, glitziest present...’
Nola could feel Ram’s gaze on her face, but she couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t let him see what her father had seen and rejected: her need to be loved. Couldn’t bear for him to guess her most closely guarded secret. That she hadn’t been enough of a reason for her father to make the effort.
‘I thought he’d stopped loving my mum, and that was why he left. But he didn’t love me either, and he left me too.’
‘And that’s what you think I’d do?’
Turning her head, she finally met his eyes. ‘You have to put children first. Only sometimes people just can’t do that, and I’m not blaming them...’
His grey eyes were searching her face, and she felt a rush of panic. How could she expect Ram to understand? He wouldn’t know what it was like to feel so unimportant, so easy to forget, so disposable.
‘Sometimes you have to give people a chance too,’ he said quietly.
Nola bit her lip. His voice sounded softer, and she could sense that he was if not backing down then backing off, trying to calm her. But her heart was still beating too fast for her to relax. And anyway... Her pulse shivered violently... It wasn’t as though he was going to change his mind. He was just trying a different tactic, biding his time while he waited for her to give in.
Suddenly she could no longer rein in the panic rising up inside her. ‘I can’t do this, Ram. I know you think I’m just being difficult. But I’m not. I know what marrying the wrong person can do people. It’s just so damaging and destructive. And what’s worse is that even when the marriage ends that damage doesn’t stop. It just goes on and on—’
‘Nola.’
Her body tensed as he lifted a hand and stroked a long dark curl away from her face.
‘I’m not going to behave like your father did. I’m not walking away from you, or our baby. I’m fighting to make it work. Why do you think I want to marry you?’
She shook her head. ‘You want it now. But soon you’ll start to think differently, and then you’ll feel differently. And we hardly know each other, Ram. Having a baby won’t change that, and there is nothing else between us.’
His gaze seemed to burn into hers. ‘We both know that’s not true.’
She swallowed. ‘That was one night...’
‘Was it?’ Ram studied her face. He could see the conflict in her eyes, and with shock he realised that it mirrored what he was feeling himself—the longing, the fear, the confusion. The pain.
He didn’t want to feel her pain, or his own. He didn’t want to feel anything. And for a fraction of a second he was on the verge of pulling her into his arms and doing what he always did to deflect emotion—his own and other people’s.
But something held him back—a sudden understanding that if he didn’t allow himself to feel, then he would never be able to comfort Nola, and right now that was all that mattered.
Not himself, nor his business, the launch, or even getting her to agree to this marriage, but Nola herself.
In shock, clenching his hands until they hurt, he gazed past her, struggling to explain this wholly uncharacteristic behaviour.
Surely, though, it was only natural for him to care. Nola was carrying his child.
Turning, he breathed out slowly, staring down into her eyes. ‘I know you don’t trust me. And if I were you I’d feel exactly the same. I haven’t exactly given you much reason to have faith in me, bringing you here like I have.’
He grimaced.