She turned back towards him. He was no longer in his wheelchair, but standing upright. Her thoughts flew in confused disarray—then they made sense.
Cold went through her—an icy flood through her body.
Prostheses. That was how he was standing there. Prostheses covered by his trousers so you could never tell their presence.
Had she said the word aloud? She didn’t know. Only knew the horror of his damaged body thatshehad caused.
His expression was changing again. She saw him take a breath.
‘Is that what you thought?’ he asked.
There was something strange in his voice now.
Her mouth was dry. ‘The nurse said...said the surgeons might not be able...able to save your legs...’
He was silent for a moment, standing there. So tall, so upright.
Memory seared through her—his long, lean body covering hers, their thighs meshed in that unholy passion that had fused their bodies but nothing else...
He was speaking, and memory vanished.
‘Well, as you see,’ he was saying, and his opaque gaze was holding her horror-struck one, ‘the surgeons were, after all, very good at their job...’
A choke cracked in her throat, but he was still speaking.
‘OK, I’m still very weak, and I still need physio, so I use the chair for the time being, and there’s enough metal in my legs to set off every airport security alarm I walk through. Butwalkis what I can do—and on legs that are mine. Still miraculously mine.’
Her hands flew to her mouth and that choking in her throat was now a sob, rising up unstoppably. Another followed it, and another, and then she could not stop them, choking and sobbing, pressing her hands against her mouth.
‘Thank God—oh, thank God!’
Gratitude and thankfulness poured through her. He had been spared the ordeal she had so feared. Tears were pouring down her face now. Tears for so much. Tears not for relief, or gratitude or thankfulness. Tears of grief—tearing, unassuageable grief. For what had not been spared...
She felt arms come around her. Arms to hold her, to staunch her loss.Theirloss. The arms of a man who had never held her as he held her now. To comfort her in her distress—in her grief at the loss of what she had once never wanted and now could only weep for. Such bitter, bitter tears...
She heard in her head the doctor’s voice—kindly, sympathetic...pitying. And saw herself, not wanting to hear.
‘It was not the crash. A silent miscarriage—that is what it’s called. The body registers pregnancy, pregnancy hormones remain, the body prepares for birth, but no embryo is developing—the body has reabsorbed it. You would have been told so at your first scan.’
She had wept then, as she wept now, for the tiny life that had had so short, so fragile an existence. For the loss she had had to tell Luca about in that stark, pitiful letter she had left for him.
Lucas’s voice when he spoke was sombre. Strained. Filled with grief. Grief as deep as hers. ‘Such a little life, and yet—’
He broke off, but she had heard the sorrow straining his voice.
She lifted her tear-stained face and when she spoke her voice was still choked. ‘It seems so cruel! For our baby to have slipped away and we did not know...’ She took a razored breath, making herself say what must be said. ‘So cruel that I caused the crash that maimed and disabled you when we were driving to a wedding for which there was no reason.’
Her voice dulled and she pulled away. For he had no reason to hold her—none—and she had no claim on him, nor ever had.
‘There was no reason, had we but known it, for you to have had anything to do with me.’ Slowly, she shook her head. ‘You’re free of me, Luca—as I said at the end of my letter. That does not lessen my guilt about your injuries, though,’ she said heavily. ‘And all I can do is wish you a good recovery—’
She broke off, then made herself look at him. What did it matter now, with their baby gone, its fleeting existence snuffed out, whether he still thought her to blame for what she had done to stop his wedding to Mia? Guilty or innocent, it no longer mattered.
She spoke carefully, with difficulty. ‘I’m... I’m sorry your hopes of Mia were dashed—I know she’s the one you wanted. Have always wanted.’
He was standing motionless, stiff-legged, and the strain in his gaunt face was visible. She felt emotion knife in her, but made herself go on.
‘I’ve known since that morning in New York, Luca, that I was nothing but passing sex for you. A mistake, just as you said it was. Regretted the moment you awoke.’