Sin had gone out onto the terrace looking for Luccy, and when he couldn’t find her either there or in her bedroom he went in search of Wallace to see if he knew where she had gone, half of him fearing that she had decided to leave, after all, despite him telling her not to.
He came to a stunned halt outside the kitchen door as he overheard part of the conversation between Luccy and Wallace. A conversation Sin knew he had no right to interrupt once he realised what the two of them were talking about.
He had known Wallace for years. Respected him. Loved him like a member of his own family. And yet he had never known that Wallace had once had a wife, let alone that she had been expecting his child.
He should go, leave them to it, and yet something made Sin stay…
‘I’m sure that wasn’t your fault,’ Luccy assured him.
‘Not directly, no,’ Wallace confirmed ruefully. ‘But if I hadn’t insisted that she come with me—’ He broke off, shaking his head. ‘We had gone out for the day, and she—Rebecca went into labour too early. We were miles from the nearest hospital, and when I did finally manage to get her to one the facilities were poor, the hospital overcrowded, and the staff were rushed off their feet trying to deal with it all. A woman about to give birth didn’t seem like a priority to them. It happened every day. Was nothing to worry about, they told me.’
‘Usually it isn’t,’ Luccy sympathised.
‘No.’ Wallace sighed. ‘The baby had the cord around its neck, though, was already dead, and Rebecca haemorrhaged and died, too, before any of us realised what was happening.’
Luccy reached out to clasp his hand with her own. ‘There was nothing you could have done.’
He looked up at her. ‘I could have listened to Rebecca in the first place when she told me she wanted to have the baby at home, where she could be within easy reach of a hospital and be near her family. The least I could have done was listen to what she wanted,’ he concluded emotionally.
As Sin should listen to Luccy when she told him she didn’t want to be here with him?
Oh, not because he feared that something might happen to her or the baby if he forced her to stay—he would do his damnedest to ensure that didn’t happen, no matter what the circumstances of their own relationship. But maybe he didn’t have the right to make her stay here simply because it wasn’t what Luccy wanted…?
The fact that Wallace had felt comfortable enough with Luccy, after only knowing her a few hours, to confide something in her that he had told none of the Sinclair family only added to Sin’s earlier doubts.
Maybe it was time he listened to Luccy…
Maybe it was time he more than listened to her!
‘You’re very quiet this evening?’ Luccy looked uncertainly across the dinner table at Sin as he sat opposite her so broodingly silent, only playing with the dessert—as he had only picked at the two previous courses, too—that Wallace had just served at the end of a meal that had been eaten almost in silence.
Luccy didn’t count comments about the pleasantness of the evening as conversation!
She hadn’t really seen much of Sin throughout the day as he’d stayed closeted in his study, but Wallace had more than made up for Sin’s absence, the two of them having fallen into an easy friendship, Luccy choosing to relax and eat her lunch in the kitchen with the older man, too.
The feeling of relaxation had come to an abrupt halt the moment Sin had joined her outside for dinner, once again looking devastatingly handsome in a black evening suit and snowy white shirt, the darkness of his hair still damp from the shower.
Sin drew in a sharp breath. ‘Luccy, if you could do what you wanted, exactly what you wanted, what would it be?’
She eyed him frowningly. ‘Is this a trick question? You know, another excuse, yet another reason, to hurl accusations at me?’
Sin knew that he thoroughly deserved that remark. ‘No,’ he sighed. ‘No tricks. No accusations. I just want a straightforward answer to a straightforward question.’
‘Oh.’
Sin gave a rueful smile at her obvious surprise. ‘I promise not to use your answer against you.’
Luccy still eyed him warily. He had been in a strange mood all evening. Their present conversation was even stranger. ‘Well…’ she took her time about answering ‘…obviously I would like to go home to England as soon as possible.’
‘Obviously,’ Sin acknowledged dryly.
‘Then I suppose I would like to go on working until the baby is born—’
‘For PAN Cosmetics?’