Nothing. That was what she should do.
Ethan had made it more than clear that he had negative desire for a relationship, let alone a family. It wasn’t his fault she’d been stupid enough to fall for him. If she told him how she felt he would recoil, and she wasn’t sure she could bear that. Let alone the fact that it would make any work relationship impossible.
Maybe that would be impossible anyway. Maybe her best course of action would be to leave. Otherwise she would have to spend her life erecting a façade of lies, playing a part, watching him from afar, living in hope that one day he’d return her love. The idea made her tummy churn in revolt. It would be a replay of her childhood.
‘Ruby?’ There was concern in his voice now, as well as an assessing look in his blue-grey eyes that indicated the whirring of his formidable brain.
With an effort she recalled their conversation. ‘Ethan, I need to do this by myself. Plus, tomorrow night is too important to blow—too important for kids like Tara and Max. You need to be here to supervise any last-minute glitches.’
He shook his head. ‘Cora can cover that. So can Rafael.’
Somehow she had to dissuade him—all she wanted to do now was run. Achieve some space. Get her head together. Enough that she could hold the façade together for a while longer until she could find him a replacement restaurant manager.
‘No. Cora and Rafael are great, but you need to be here. This is your show.’ For a heartbeat she felt the sudden scratch of tears—this would be one of the last times they were together, and emotion bubbled inside her. ‘You’re doing such good here.’
Instinct carried her forward, so close to him that she could smell the oh-so-familiar, oh-so-dizzying woodsy scent of him. One hand reached out and lay on his forearm as she gazed up at him, allowed herself one last touch.
‘Don’t.’ His voice low and guttural.
‘Don’t what? Tell the truth?’
He shook his head, stepped back so that her hand dropped to her side. ‘Don’t look at me like that. Don’t make me a hero. Because I’m not.’
‘I didn’t say you were a hero. But you are a good man, and you do so much good. Why won’t you acknowledge that and accept something good in your life.’
What was she doing? The sane course of action would be to get out of there at speed, but some small unfurling of hope kept her feet adhered to the floor.
‘Whatever you did in the past can’t change that.’
‘You don’t know about my past, Ruby.’
‘Then tell me.’
For a long moment he looked deep into her eyes, and for a second she feared that he could read her thoughts, her emotions, could see the love that she was so desperately trying to veil.
His gaze didn’t falter, though the clench of his jaw and the taut stance of his body betrayed his tension.
‘I told you that even before Tanya died I was beginning to go off the rails—I’d bunk off school every so often... I’d taken up smoking, graffitied the odd wall. But after she died I was so angry; I wanted vengeance on those bullies who’d made her last months on this earth a torment. But what could I do? I couldn’t take them all on myself—they were a group, part of one of the most intimidating gangs on the estate. Mum was falling apart, and I was full of frustration and rage.’
Her lungs constricted as she imagined how the teenaged Ethan must have felt. So helpless, so alone. With a mother prostrate with grief and the sister he’d looked up to driven to take her own life.
‘So it all went downhill. School became ancient history. I took up petty crime—shoplifting. I got into fights. I did dope... I drank. I swaggered around the estate like an idiot. I became everything Tanya would have abhorred.’
‘Tanya would have understood. You were a child full of anger, pain and grief. Didn’t your mum do anything?’
‘She was too immersed in grief to notice.’
There was no rancour to be heard, but it seemed to Ruby that everything he had done must have been in an effort to make his mum notice—step in, do something. She couldn’t bear the fact that he’d judged himself so harshly—that he couldn’t see the plethora of mitigation around his actions.
‘God knows what might have happened, but finally I got caught stealing from one of the high-street clothes stores. I went nuts—went up against the security officer. I lost it completely and they called in the cops. I was arrested, taken down to the police station, and they contacted my mother.’
‘What happened?’
‘As far as she was concerned it proved I’d morphed into my father. Reinforced her fear that history would repeat.’
‘But...but she must have seen that this was different?’
His silence was ample testament to the fact that she hadn’t, and the dark shadow in his eyes was further proof that neither had he. Foreboding rippled through her. ‘What did she do?’