“Tell me.” He kissed her when she continued not to speak. “You can tell me anything.”
Maybe she could? Maybe he really had changed in the time she’d been away.
He pulled her into his arms and drew the covers over her and kissed her tenderly and smoothed her cheek with his thumb. “Taina, tell me.”
She swallowed and drew in a deep calming breath. “When I first returned you asked me a question which I didn’t answer.”
He frowned. “I think I asked you many which you didn’t answer. Which one are you referring to?”
“You asked me why I wanted a baby so much, why I’d risk humiliating myself by asking you for one.”
He nodded. “And?”
She pushed back the cover and knelt on the bed facing him, letting last night’s dress fall to one side. But he didn’t look down as she’d imagined. His eyes were still focused intently on hers. He took both her hands in his and stroked the backs of them, encouraging her to continue.
“The answer is that something happened. Something that made me realize how much I would like to have a child.”
Still he said nothing so she continued.
“When you lose something, something you never even thought you wanted, then sometimes…”—she sucked in a deep breath—“sometimes it makes you realize just how much you want it.”
“What did you lose?”
“A baby.” The words emerged in a rushed whisper through her dry lips.
The grip of his hands hurt as he suddenly tightened them. “A baby?” His voice was as hoarse as hers. He pulled away and jumped up, pulling on his robe. Then he stood, hands on hips, looking out the window, unseeing. He shook his head.
She rose, naked now, and walked behind him, and hesitantly touched his shoulder. He’d said he’d understand. He’d told her to trust him. And she had. There was no going back now.
He spun around and she stepped away instinctively under the heat of his glare. “A baby? You had a relationship after you left me at our wedding? You had a baby from that relationship?”
She nodded mutely.
“Where’s the child now? Don’t tell me you’ve left it somewhere being looked after by someone else?”
She wanted to turn away, run from the glare of his gaze, from the glare of the exposing daylight. Only then did he look down and see what she’d been trying to hide. He shook his head and his eyes traced the tell-tale lines of her stretch marks. “So they’re what you’ve been trying to hide from me. You know, I thought you’d become shy, that you were nervous. But you were simply trying to conceal the truth.” She flinched under the look of disdain in his eyes.
He backed away from her and she was left looking out into the blinding morning light, the sun reflecting harshly off the white buildings below them and the sky which was almost white.
“You were unfaithful to me, to our wedding vows, to our agreement. How could you have done that, Taina?”
There was a limit to the truth and Taina had reached it.
She turned and folded her arms in front of her feeling vulnerable. There was so much to be said and so little she could say, not without hurting him further. She shrugged and shook her head helplessly.
“And this man, who is he?”
She shook her head. “He’s nothing.”
“Right,” he said with a steely tone. “You had a baby with a man who means nothing to you.”
She nodded. After all, it was the truth.
“Is it over?”
“What?” She couldn’t think of what he was speaking.
“Your relationship with the child’s father.”
She flinched at the idea that she’d had any kind of emotional relationship with the child’s father. “Yes. Absolutely.” A sob rose from deep inside her throat, constricting it as she watched his lip curl into contempt.
“I’d never have believed it of you. I don’t know you at all, do I?”
She shook her head, trying to deny what he so reasonably believed.
“Where’s the baby?” he asked her again.
She kept her eyes focused on the bright light outside. A sharp gleam of sunlight flashed as the rising sun hit an open window, making her eyes water. “She’s dead.”
“Dead? Ah,” he scoffed. “So the baby died and you now feel bereft so you thought you’d return to your husband and demand a replacement. Well, I hope last night did it for you, because it won’t be happening again.” He stopped before the bathroom. “Get showered, get dressed. We’ll be leaving as soon as my nephew’s celebrations are over.”
He cast one quick glance over her, standing naked before the white light of the morning, shook his head and walked to the door. There he stopped but he didn’t turn to face her. “Are you going to tell me who the father is?”