CHAPTER TEN
THEJOURNEYBACKto the apartment was conducted in icy silence. Sofie would never forget the look on Achilles’s face as her words had sunk in. Disbelief, horror. Utter rejection.
When they got into the apartment he went straight to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a drink. Downed it in one. Then another. Sofie slipped off her shoes, feeling unstable enough as it was.
He turned around and uttered one word. ‘How?’
She regretted taking off the shoes then, feeling far too small next to the sheer stark rejection all over his face. He looked drawn. Older.
‘The pill... I take it every day. I haven’t forgotten once. I think maybe the travelling...the time zones...might have affected it.’ A weak excuse even to her ears, but she had no better idea of why it might have failed.
‘How do I even know you took the pill? You just gave me your word and, like a fool, I believed you.’
Sofie left the room, went to the bedroom and got her washbag. She brought it back into the lounge and took out the foil packet and handed it to Achilles. He could see for himself all the days marked off where she’d taken the contraceptive tablet.
He handed it back. ‘That means nothing.’
He was morphing in front of her eyes, turning into someone cold and remote and cynical.
She said, ‘I know this isn’t what you wanted.’
‘Want. It’s not what I want. Ever.’
Sofie put her hand over her belly. ‘I’m not getting rid of the baby.’ Already, only hours after finding out herself, she felt a sense of protection that stunned her. It was primal.
Achilles’s mouth twisted. ‘Of course you’re not. Why would you? You’re set for life now. It’s survival and I know all about that.’
There was something so utterly cold and bleak in Achilles’s voice that Sofie shrivelled up inside. ‘Believe me, I wouldn’t have planned it like this either. The last thing I want is to bring a lone child into the world without a family.’
‘Next you’ll be suggesting we get married.’
Sofie shook her head. She was seeing the very brutal depths of Achilles’s pain and cynicism now and she had to try and stay strong. ‘No, of course I wouldn’t suggest that. I know you want that as little as you want a family.’
‘And yet we’re bound together for ever now. No matter what.’
There it was. The true lack of his regard for her. Sofie sat down on the edge of a chair behind her before her legs could give way. ‘Yes.’
Even if he didn’t want involvement, she’d have to have some contact with him. She had an image of herself, a single mother with her child, on their own in the house in Gallinvach, and it sliced right into her. Another lonely child. Except she vowed then and there to do everything in her power to make sure her child didn’t feel invisible or responsible for the lack of a family.
Achilles was barely aware of Sofie’s distress. All he could see was her betrayal and his own rage at himself for being so stupid.
Here was this woman he had trusted implicitly since he’d become aware of her in the hospital. A young innocent from the wilds of Scotland—she’d never been anywhere in her life—and yet now here she was with the oldest trick in the book, making a complete mockery of everything they’d shared.
Half to himself he said, ‘You learned fast.’
‘What?’
He looked at her and forced ice into his veins. Even now she affected him. Damn her. ‘You heard me.’
‘What are you suggesting?’
Achilles shrugged, a kind of icy calm descending over him as the first shock waned a little. ‘It’s understandable. Like I said, it’s survival. To be honest, it would have been more remarkable if you had been everything you seemed. A total innocent with no agenda.’
Sofie stood up from the chair. Her voice shook. ‘I do not—did not—have an agenda. You were the one who invited me to leave Gallinvach with you.’
‘And you hesitated the requisite amount of time not to appear too eager.’
‘Stop it, Achilles. This isn’t you. This is your past talking. Your fear. Trauma.’
There was something dark and twisted writhing in Achilles’s gut. Threatening to devour him completely. The thought of a baby was beyond terrifying. When he pictured a baby he remembered his mother coming home from hospital and holding a bundle in her arms, bending down so he could see the scrunched-up face of his baby brother, and then his baby sister.
He’d been the perfect older brother. No jealousy. Just utter adoration. And protection. He would have died for them if he could. But he hadn’t been able to save them.
Sofie was just a few feet away, looking stricken. Achilles could only see an act. Treachery. He felt utterly conflicted. He wanted to pull her to him, sink into her softness and let her help him lose himself, and at the same time he despised her for articulating his worst fears. For bringing them to life. Literally.
He went to the door and didn’t look back at her. ‘I’m going out. You’ll be gone by the time I get back.’
He opened the door, but before he could walk through it she said from behind him, ‘Achilles, wait.’
Against every instinct urging him to run, he did.
She said brokenly, ‘I love you, Achilles.’
The darkness inside him threatened to drown him. He bit out, ‘Don’t, Sofie. Just don’t.’
And he left.