He turned and raked a hand through his hair and it was killing her to see him looking so tortured but she had her own pain to deal with. She couldn’t take his on too. Not if all he was bringing was more pain. Not if this tiny flicker of hope so valiantly persisting in her chest was only going to be quashed. She crossed her arms to protect the feeble flame.
‘So if that’s all? Because we’re closed.’
He took a wavering step closer. ‘Holly, when I left, I left something behind.’
The picture. Nikki’s picture.
And she had to close her eyes as that flicker of hope fizzled into nothingness.
‘I’m sorry, Franco. You didn’t have to come all this way. I was going to post the photo. I just hadn’t—’ been able to bring myself to do it ‘—got around to it.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘But I’m not here for the photograph. But first, I have to explain something.’
Her heart skipped a beat. But she had something to tell him too. ‘I know about Nikki’s Ward.’
‘You do? But—’
‘The photo. I opened it. I saw the plaque. I looked up Nikki’s Ward on the computer—it wasn’t hard. You founded that ward, Franco, and you fund it. I don’t know how much it would cost to run, but I’m guessing you rely on those distributions from the Chatsfield Family Trust. And that’s why you needed that contract signed. That’s why you were so determined to stay until you had secured it. Am I warm?’
His grey eyes surveyed her, and he gave the merest dip of his head in acknowledgement.
‘Nikki was your daughter. She was the one you donated your kidney to.’
He shook his head and looked at the floor, and when he raised his head again he smiled softly. ‘I never even knew I had a daughter until she was five. I probably would never have known—except she was sick and her mother came looking for me. The only hope was to find a match for a kidney transplant. I was her best chance and I was that match.’
Oh, Franco. And her heart went out to him, because she knew how this story ended, and she knew what it was costing him to even talk about it, but she didn’t move an inch. Didn’t budge. Because this was his story and he had to tell it.
‘There was a window of hope, where we thought that she would be okay, but eventually her little body rejected it, and she caught infection after infection and withered slowly away before our eyes. I watched her die, and as she died, I promised myself I would never expose myself to hurt like that again.’
She ached to hold him, to comfort him, but she dared not move. How could she move, when there was an ocean of pain to navigate between them?
‘Michele—her mother—and I broke up after that. There was too much pressure. Too much need. She was desperate for another child.’ He looked away. ‘But it wasn’t the same. We’d got back together for Nikki’s sake, but without Nikki …’ His voice cracked. ‘I just couldn’t go there.’
‘She was the one,’ she said, understanding. ‘The one you judged me against.’
‘Unfairly,’ he said, his grey eyes on her. ‘I know it was unfair. You were never anything like her. It took losing you to make me realize that.’
Her heart skipped a beat.
‘Why?’
‘Because when she left, I felt relief, like there was a chance for me to believe I might one day live again, however long it took. But when I left you …’
She didn’t dare breathe. ‘What?’
‘It felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest—a heart I didn’t realise I had. I was numb all over again. Except this time, I’d brought it on myself.’
She felt herself sway on the spot, her own heart thudding so hard and fast in her chest that she had to put a hand over it to stop it jumping right out. This was the moment she’d dreamed of so many times since he’d left, so surely she must be dreaming. But when she blinked and opened her eyes, he was still standing there across the room from her, and the hand over her chest felt hope dance inside.
‘I can’t imagine what it must be like,’ she said, ‘to lose a child.’
He smiled a sad smile. ‘When Nikki died, it killed something inside me. I’d known her such a short time. An intense time. And after she died, there was simply nothing left of a heart that had been shattered into a million pieces, that I was sure could never be repaired. I knew I could never love again.’
He paused, baring his teeth, his lips pulled back tight as he breathed, as if it hurt. ‘I was wrong.’
Part of her wanted to hope and dream he had come back for her and to throw herself into his arms, but she’d been in those arms before, only to have them push her away and that had been such a terrible thing. And she was still so very, very raw and she wasn’t sure she could endure it if it happened a second time. So instead she mustered every remaining shred of strength she could find, and asked, ‘What changed your mind?’