‘Soon after we...’ After we broke up. She couldn’t say it. Even though she knew that that was when it had been.
‘What?’
She flinched at Andreas’s shocked incredulity as he guessed what it was she had been about to say.
‘How soon after?’
One bared shoulder lifted almost imperceptibly. ‘A matter of months.’
‘Months?’ He was looking increasingly shocked, the furrow between his thick black brows deepening. ‘Then you didn’t ever have a modelling career?’
‘Not really.’ She feigned a little laugh. ‘I know. Ironic, isn’t it?’ she said, and thought, Especially when you practically accused me of neglecting my son because of it.
‘Were you still with Rushford?’ he pressed, choosing to ignore her last remark. ‘Is that the real reason he left you?’
She shook her head. ‘We weren’t together.’ And we never had been. Not like that, she thought. She was certain of it, but she didn’t tell Andreas any of that, as that would make things too complicated.
‘I was with Mum, but she couldn’t handle it—especially with the doctors having to deliver Theo while I was still in a coma.’
‘You were in a coma?’
She nodded.
‘While you were pregnant?’
Magenta could almost see his brain working overtime.
‘He must have been very premature.’
‘He was.’
But not by as much as he was probably thinking, she decided. She couldn’t tell him that her baby had been delivered a mere three weeks early, because then he might put two and two together and guess the boy was his. And although she knew she should tell him she couldn’t summon up the courage to do it. She was too fearful of what he might say—and, even worse, try to do. Besides, she thought, as a further means of justifying her actions in keeping the knowledge of Theo’s paternity from Andreas, he had suffered quite enough shocks for one day without adding any more.
‘Anyway, Mum sent an SOS to Great-Aunt Josie. She and Mum hadn’t been talking for as long as I could remember. I think Josie had dared to voice her opinion about Mum’s drinking when I was quite small and Mum had told her she wasn’t welcome in our lives any more. I know I missed her. Despite my memory problem—’ she pulled a self-deprecating face ‘—I hadn’t forgotten that. She came like a shot, to take Theo off Mum’s hands and look after him until I was able to start doing it for myself. And she took care of me as well, when I was able to come home from the hospital.’
‘A very special lady,’ Andreas commented.
‘Yes, she is.’ Just the thought of her great-aunt’s kindness filled her dark eyes with tears.
‘And you made it,’ he remarked, smiling, his voice sounding oddly thickened.
‘Yes, I made it.’ Even if we didn’t, she thought, with such an unexpected ache beneath her ribcage that she had to look away, breathing in the air that was heavily impregnated with the sweet scent of the honeysuckle until the moment passed.
‘So you weren’t kidding when you pretended...? Correction. When I thought you were pretending not to remember me, were you?’ he asked unnecessarily. ‘And today...when you went to pick up that book....’
She shook her head in confirmation.
‘Do you really not remember what happened?’
She closed her eyes and shook her head. Don’t tell me, please, she begged silently. She was becoming more and more convinced that she wouldn’t like what the truth might reveal.
‘Magenta.’ He had slipped a hand under her hair, his touch so tender that involuntarily she turned her cheek into the stirring warmth of his palm. ‘Magenta, look at me.’ His voice was as gentle as his fingers.
Don’t be kind, her mind pleaded with him. I can’t bear it if you’re kind!
He was only taking pity on her because of what he had just discovered, she realised, opening her eyes to a flash of scintillating colour as a kingfisher dived low over the brook. Its bright blue and orange plumage was almost fluorescent as it took off again with its glistening prize.
‘However much your mind blanked me out, your body didn’t, did it?’ Andreas whispered, his mouth moving gently along the soft line of her jaw. ‘You still remember this.’ His lips were feather-light against the corner of her mouth. ‘And this.’ His mouth was but a hair’s breadth above hers, teasing, toying with her, but not actually consummating the kiss.
She had forgotten Andreas’s capacity for tenderness, but she remembered it now, feeling a surge of excruciating need building in her as his fingers played lightly along the smooth, yearning line of her throat.