The darkness in his eyes didn’t abate. He shook his head. ‘There’s no point.’

She reached out to touch the back of one of his clenched fists. ‘There is a point, Alex, it’s—’

‘I can’t!’ he burst out, pul ing his hand away.

She didn’t know how one moved on after they lost a child, where one found the strength to pick up the pieces. Already she’d do anything to protect her baby and it wasn’t even born yet. Chad might not be dead, but he’d been removed from Alex’s world as surely as if he were.

surely as if he were.

She swal owed. She might not know what Alex was going through, but she did know that bottling it up would only hurt him more.

‘You don’t understand, Kit. This life of yours—the same life my parents led—it can never be my life. I don’t have the openness of heart for it. I don’t have any confidence in its permanence. If I stayed here with you and the baby I would ruin it al . I’m like my grandfather.’

‘No, you’re not!’

How could he believe that? She searched her mind for something that would prove him wrong.

‘Look at how you were with Davey that day you were painting. He brought back memories of Chad, but you weren’t unkind to him. What would your grandfather have done—yel ed at him and frightened him, that’s what.’

Alex shook his head. ‘That doesn’t change the fact that to survive living in my grandfather’s house I had to kil off something in my nature that makes it impossible for me to…to do al this.’ He waved a hand to indicate the interior of her house.

‘You did it with Jacqueline.’

‘If I’d done it successful y, she would never have left!’

For a moment Kit couldn’t catch her breath.

Alex slumped. His eyes turned black. ‘I wil finish the work on your house, Kit. After that, I’l return to Sydney. My solicitors wil arrange child support payments.’

Panic launched through her in a series of half-formed phrases and pulsing nausea. She surged to her feet. ‘You can’t leave just like that, Alex! I’m sorry, more sorry than I can say about Chad, but…’ She gripped the air, searching for the words that would make him see sense. Words that would make him stay. ‘Don’t you see? Our baby deserves a father too.’

Alex rose. He stood wooden and stiff in front of her. He looked like a man who’d been dealt a body blow. ‘I’m sorry, Kit.’

She reeled away from him as comprehension cleared the fog and confusion from her mind. Fear settled in its place. She swung back. ‘You’re doing with Chad what you did with your parents—blocking out every memory, good and bad, in an attempt to block out the pain. You think by avoiding those memories you’re protecting yourself, but you’re wrong. The same goes for love and family and commitment. Doing your best to avoid those things just means you’re going to keep losing and losing.’

Couldn’t he understand that? Her heart ached and ached for him, and it ached for their unborn child.

She lifted her chin. ‘I know you care about me.’

Please, please, don’t let her be wrong about that.

Colour stained his cheekbones a dark, deep red.

Hope washed through her. ‘Walking away from al of this…’ she lifted her arms out in an attempt to encompass the house, the life they could have here

‘…can you honestly tel me that’s going to be easy?’

‘It won’t be easy.’ His voice was pitched low but she caught every word. ‘It won’t be gut-wrenchingly impossible either. It won’t be tear-your-heart-right-out-of-your-chest bad.’

She understood then the pain he’d suffered in missing his son.

‘It wil be for me,’ she whispered.

Alex nearly caved in then. Kit’s admission was a knife to his heart.

He’d never meant to hurt her. He’d do anything to take away her pain, but staying…that was out of the question. It was better to hurt her now than hurt her more later.

He should never have married Jacqueline. He knew that now. He’d worked long hours, driven to provide Jacqui with al the nice things she’d wanted

—the big house, the antique furniture. She’d grown bored and restless, though, in al those long hours he’d spent away from her. She’d become lonely.

She hadn’t been a bad person. She’d lied to him, and it had been a terrible lie, but she’d been too afraid to tel him the truth. If he’d put as much effort and time into his marriage as he had into making a name for himself in the business world…

But he hadn’t. The harsh bitterness he’d suffered at his grandfather’s hands had leached into his own soul. He couldn’t do family. He didn’t know how.

Unbidden, that image of his father waltzing his mother around their back garden rose in his mind.

With a swift shake of his head, he banished it.

That was a lost dream. He wouldn’t hurt Kit by making the same mistake twice.

Kit gulped. He wanted to pul her into his arms and let her sob the worst of her pain into his shoulder. He hardened his heart. She had her family and her friends. She didn’t need him. She would be better off without him.

‘You real y aren’t going to change your mind, are you?’ Her voice wobbled but she held his gaze.

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Kit, for everything, but I’m not going to change my mind.’

‘Then I was wrong,’ she said slowly. ‘You didn’t love me after al . You don’t real y care about me or the baby. Al this—’ she gestured to the house ‘—

has simply been a salve for your conscience.’

Her eyes suddenly spat fire. ‘Get out, Alex! Just pack your things and get out. It’s not our job to make you feel better for leaving.’

She was right. He should never have stayed here.

‘I’l book into a hotel. I’l be back in the morning to keep working on the house.’ It should only take a couple of days to finish the painting and another week tops to do the bathroom.

‘No.’

She didn’t yel , but the word echoed in his ears as if she had.

‘If you don’t mean to hang around for ever then you needn’t think you can hang around for another week or two.’

But there was stil so much to do! He couldn’t leave her house in this state.

‘In fact I never want to see you again. End of story,’ she added when he opened his mouth.

‘But—’

‘Do you mean to stay for ever?’

He couldn’t!

Kit gathered up her handbag. ‘I’m going out. You have two hours. I want you gone by the time I get back.’

‘Kit!’ He surged forward as she made for the door. ‘Wil you let me know if you need anything or

—?’

‘No.’ Her face had shuttered closed, al her golden goodness shut off from him. ‘If you want to make things as easy as you can for me, you wil go and not come back.’ She paused at the door. ‘Go home, Alex.’ And then she walked through it.

His world split apart then and there. He turned and stumbled for the hal way and the spare bedroom.

‘Alex?’

He turned to find her framed in the doorway again.

He turned to find her framed in the doorway again.

‘Knowing al that you know now, would you give up those two years with Chad?’

He stared at her and didn’t know how to answer.

‘Understand that when you walk away from me and our child, that your answer is yes.’

With that she closed the door. And it was as if the sunshine had been bled out of his life.

CHAPTER TWELVE

WHEN Kit let herself into her house three hours later, she found that Alex hadn’t left behind a single item, not one sign that he’d ever stayed here, ever been here.

She’d given him an extra hour to pack up, just in case.

She’d given herself an extra hour, just because.

Sitting on her rock for two hours, she’d stared out at the sea and had tried to make her mind blank. The cries of the seagul s, the shushing of the waves and the sight of the dolphins frolicking in the channel, none of it had been able to make her smile or had succeeded in unhitching the knot that tangled in her chest.

She dropped her handbag to the floor, lowered herself to the nearer of the two sofas, rested her head on its arm. When her watch had told her it was time to go home, she’d found she couldn’t. She’d gone to a coffee shop and had sat over a pot of ginger and lemongrass tea. But the smel of coffee and cake and the chattering of the clientele, none of that had lifted her spirits or helped her feel connected again.

And now, back home and in the absence of the banging of hammers and the whirring and buzzing of power tools, the enormity of what she’d done sank in. She’d sent Alex away. And although none of his things remained in her house, although his absence was evident in the very stil ness of the air, his presence was alive in every corner. His handiwork, evident in the freshly plastered and primed wal s, mocked her.

And the deep malt scent of the man… She’d take that to her grave.

With a growl, she flew up and flung open every door and window. She seized a cushion and a throw rug and stormed out into the back garden to huddle down in one of the Cape Cod chairs—that Alex had sanded and painted. The day was warm but she was chil ed to the bone. She wrapped the blanket about her and tried to stop her teeth from chattering.