Only once had they burst a condom, and she’d sensibly taken a morning-after pill. And since her cycle had always been erratic her overdue period hadn’t, at first, been cause for concern.
‘And when you did find out? Did it not occur to you then to find me and tell me I was going to be a father?’
‘No—I mean...’ She shook her head. ‘Yes. But I was confused. Frightened.’
‘So you were thinking about yourself? Not me? Or what was best for our child?’
His words cut like the vicious lash of a whip. Smarting, she prised her hands from the back of the sofa then walked around it, her insides trembling.
‘Be angry with me, Leo,’ she said, stalking into his space. ‘But don’t judge me. Don’t pretend you have any idea what it’s like to be pregnant and scared and alone. I made some foolish decisions—some bad decisions—but don’t think for a moment I didn’t realise that. Don’t think I didn’t hold our son in my arms and regret, to the very bottom of my soul, that I had denied you that privilege.’
Leo’s face suddenly paled and the flash of anguish in his eyes sliced through her heart.
‘A son?’ He dropped onto the sofa and bowed his head for a long moment. ‘How...?’
He didn’t finish the question. He didn’t need to.
She sat beside him, close but not touching, and pulled in a deep breath. She spoke quietly. ‘He was stillborn. He died in my womb two days before he was due.’
She stared at her hands, pale against the dark denim of her jeans. She didn’t need to look at Leo to know his reaction. His shock was palpable.
‘I knew something was wrong because I could no longer feel him kicking. I went straight to the hospital and they confirmed that he didn’t have a heartbeat. The doctors couldn’t tell me why it had happened. Apparently it just does sometimes.’
She curled her nails into her palms. Her memory of that day was still vivid: the horror, the pain. It was a dark stain on her soul she would never be able to erase.
‘They offered an autopsy but I... I turned it down. I didn’t want our little boy cut open,’ she said hurriedly, feeling she had to justify that decision. ‘The results weren’t guaranteed to be conclusive. And it wasn’t going to bring him back.’
She looked up and Leo’s expression was so stark she wanted to reach out and touch him. But there was no comfort she could offer him. No words of solace. Pain, she knew, eased with time. Nothing else.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.
Abruptly he stood, grabbed his jacket off the chair where he’d tossed it earlier and shrugged it on.
She swallowed, her heart plummeting. ‘Where are you going?’
He looked at her, the emotion in those dark eyes impossible to fathom.
‘Out. I need a drink.’
‘You have a bar here.’
Ignoring that, he strode to the door.
Disbelief drove Helena to her feet. ‘So you’re just going to walk out? You don’t even want to talk about it?’ She blinked back tears.
Damn him. He was hurting. In shock. She got that. But he wasn’t the only one who’d been through an emotional grinder today.
He stopped and turned. Several beats of silence pulsed between them, each one long and unbearably tense. For a moment she thought he would say something. He didn’t. He spun on his heel and walked out through the door.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DARKNESS SHROUDED THE suite when Leo returned.
Had she gone? he wondered. Back to that grim flat of hers? Back to whatever bland, colourless life she’d consigned herself to since the death of their son?
He flicked on a light and blinked. He wasn’t drunk. In fact he’d nursed a single Scotch in the hotel bar for over an hour before the need to move had overtaken him. And then he’d walked. From the streets of Mayfair to the teeming pavements of Soho and Piccadilly Circus and back to the tree-lined greens of Hyde Park. He’d walked until his feet burned and fatigue stripped away his anger, leaving in its wake the galling knowledge that he’d behaved appallingly.
He dumped his jacket and looked at his watch. Nine-thirty p.m. Three hours since he’d left—plenty of time for her to pack up and flee. But had she? He moved through the suite, a hard knot forming in his chest at the prospect that she really had gone.