“Yes.” Her eyes were clouded by memories and he knew she was back there in the kitchen, her mind soake
d by the past. “I can’t explain it. I turned around and you were there and we looked at one another and…”
“You kissed me.” He expelled a breath, his eyes so dark they were like lead. “You kissed me.”
She nodded, biting down on her lip. “I can’t believe it but, yeah. I threw myself at you.” She groaned softly. “And if I’d known you were drunk, I would never have taken advantage of you like that. I just … something between us felt so strong. Like we were meant to …I don’t know… something? And I suppose I thought you felt it too.”
“I did.” He reached over and grabbed her hand. “If you hadn’t kissed me, I would have kissed you.”
“How do you know? You don’t even remember.”
“But I feel it now,” he said simply. “And that night, I remember my driver calling and I knew I had to leave you. But I didn’t want to.” His frown was etched deep in his face. “I remember the regret.”
Imogen sucked in a breath as something like pleasure spun through her. “You didn’t even leave a note.”
“No.” He nodded, his eyes showing the truth of what he said. “At the time, I thought… no. I didn’t think. It never occurred to me that you could be pregnant.”
“Why would it?” She murmured, shrugging her slender shoulders.
“I spent so long wanting a baby in my marriage; I never thought it would be happening now – so soon after my divorce.”
Imogen was very still, as his words lodged into her mind. She let them settle, making sense of them from every angle. “You were trying for a baby?”
He was as surprised by the revelation as she. “Well, we were older,” he said after a moment. “Marie has three years on me, so if we were going to have children, it would have needed to be soon.”
“But you didn’t? She didn’t?”
“No.” A tight smile. Dismissive. Angry?
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He reached across and squeezed her hand. “Life has a way of working out, sometimes.”
CHAPTER SIX
“I LOVE THE CITY,” she said softly, as they walked home. The night was cool and crisp, despite the warmth that had made the day glow. “When I was younger, I used to come here with my dad sometimes, stay overnight if he was meeting with suppliers.”
Her smile was lopsided and before he could realize what she was doing, Imogen had stepped up onto a low, stone wall and was walking along the top of it. “The history is everywhere.” She lifted her hand and ran her fingertips along a wall to her side, feeling the uneven stones. “It wraps around you, don’t you think?”
Something was wrapping around him, but he would have described it more as magic. “I never thought about it like that.”
“Did you always live here?”
“No. Our family estate is to the North. I lived there until my parents’ divorce, and then for a year or two afterwards while they were coming to an agreement about custody and finances.”
“That sounds very civilized. Why do I think it wasn’t?”
His laugh was rough. “Because you’re perceptive.”
“Why’d they break up?”
“Depends. If you ask my mother, because my father’s a cheating bastard.”
“Was he?”
“I don’t know. Probably.” He shrugged. “I don’t think either of them was perfect.” He lifted a hand on autopilot as she neared the end of the wall and she took it, her fingers small in his. He held her as she stepped down, and her body brushed close to his. “Probably different to your experience growing up?”
“My parents are still together,” she nodded, the darkness of those days heavy in her heart. “But my father did cheat.” The confession pained and surprised her in equal measure; they were words she’d never uttered to another soul. Once out though, she found them impossible to stop, like trying to catch water with her fingertips. “It nearly killed my mum.”