CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

S HE COULDN ’ T . S HE wanted to. She wanted to because she knew that loving Raul meant accepting this was his way. She couldn’t change him, not if he didn’t want to change, but she could prove to him that she was different to everyone else in his life, by sticking by him, even when he was doing his level best to push her away.

Wasn’t that the point? He’d never had anyone actually stick with him.

He’d been passed around from foster home to foster home; he’d never been accepted and welcomed and loved. He’d learned to develop a thick skin because he’d had to, and now Libby had a chance to show him that she really was different.

But living with Raul after that conversation was a lesson in despair for Libby. She felt it every moment of every day. She was going through the motions of her life, rattling around the enormous penthouse as if in a nightmare from which she couldn’t wake. He was there, yet they rarely spoke. He enquired after her health each morning, her pregnancy symptoms, but it was all so cold and businesslike, it left a yawning chasm in the centre of Libby’s chest.

Raul had worked long hours before, but now he barely seemed to sleep. When he wasn’t in his office he was in the home gym, running as though a pride of lions was after him. Libby tried to keep busy with the nursery, with online birth classes, with books and movies and workouts of her own—she chose yoga stretches designed for pregnancy—but she was always aware of him. Always aware of his silence, his rejection.

She wanted to be with him, because Raul deserved that. But what about her?

Didn’t she deserve better than this? Could she really live with someone who wouldn’t even try to see what they shared?

On the one hand, Libby was tempted to leave. To run away and go home, tail between her legs, and work out how to do this on her own after all. But always the thought of Raul stopped her. She did love him. It was that simple. So she couldn’t ignore what he needed, even when it ran contrary to her own needs. She had to stay, to show him she was willing to put her money where her mouth was. She meant what she’d said: she wasn’t going anywhere because he was worth loving, even if that hurt her.

In the end, it wasn’t really Libby’s decision though. Four days after Libby had poured out her heart to Raul, he came into the kitchen while she was fixing a light dinner for herself. She had very little appetite but for the sake of the baby tended to have a small bowl of fruit and yoghurt for dinner.

‘This can’t go on.’ It was hardly a promising start to the sentence.

She stopped slicing the tops off strawberries and gave him the full force of her attention.

‘I’ve bought an apartment downstairs. I’ll move out. I’ve organised for a nurse to come and stay in the guest room; you’ll still have around-the-clock care. No climbing ladders,’ he added with a tight smile. ‘I’ll attend medical appointments with you and, naturally, I’ll be at the birth.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Once the baby is born, we’ll work out a solution for co-parenting.’

Libby swayed a little and had to reach out and grip the counter top to stop from falling to the floor.

‘Living in the same building will mean we can both be present in the baby’s life. I know that’s important to both of us.’

Libby’s body seemed to exist in a strange half-life. She felt every organ shutting down; her blood seemed to stop pumping. Every feeling of rejection she’d known in the course of her life seemed to swirl around her all over again. She was unlovable. Unwanted.

‘Oh,’ was all she could say, and it emerged as a strangled, incoherent, breathy sound, garbled by a rush of grief.

Worse than loving Raul and knowing he didn’t return those feelings was being pushed out of his life for good. Sidelined and having his place taken by paid-for medical staff.

Libby had known she would need to fight for this, to get through those stubbornly held barriers of his, but suddenly the fight seemed insurmountable. He had to fight too, just a little bit. Just enough to give her faith she could get through to him. How could she believe that when he was literally walking away from her?

‘You’re not the only one who’s been let down,’ she said quietly, staring at him and doing her best to keep emotion out of her voice and face. ‘You’re not the only one who’s been hurt, rejected, who’s absolutely terrified of what this might mean.’

A muscle jerked in his jaw; he stayed perfectly still.

‘But I’m more afraid of losing you,’ she said simply. ‘I love you, and I want this family to be real.’

‘That’s because it’s your fantasy,’ he said with obvious frustration. ‘You want a family so badly you’ve deluded yourself into seeing something that’s not here.’

She drew in a sharp breath, the charge one that wounded deeply because it could well have been true. Libby knew it wasn’t; she understood the accuracy of her heart’s desires. But she felt that he’d taken her deepest secrets and weaponised them to win his argument.

‘I won’t be responsible for hurting you, Libby. That was never my intention. If I had known what marriage and children meant to you, I might not have suggested this arrangement in the first place; that was my mistake. But I can fix it.’

‘By moving out?’ she asked quietly.

‘Yes.’

‘You think that will make me stop loving you?’

‘It might allow you the necessary perspective to see things as they really are.’

She let out a garbled laugh. ‘That’s ironic,’ she muttered. ‘Given you’re the one who’s blind to the truth, not me.’

His lips clamped together, as if physically biting back whatever he’d been about to say. ‘You have my number. Call me if you need anything.’

Libby stared at him, reality sinking in. ‘You’re seriously leaving?’

‘I’ll have someone come to collect my clothes later today.’

Libby’s eyes swept shut. The pain was immense, but she refused to let him see it. She was too proud, but also, she didn’t want to burden him with it.

‘Okay,’ she said quietly, stoically. ‘If that’s what you want.’

‘It’s for the best.’

When she opened her eyes, Raul was gone.

Raul had intentionally kept his personal possessions sparse. He’d always known in the back of his mind that he would need to be ready to run at any point. If life had taught him one lesson consistently, it was the importance of that. And so he’d run.

Not far.

Just two floors down, to an apartment that was comparatively small but still boasted all of the hallmarks of opulence the building was renowned for. And here, he told himself, he’d find peace and salvation. Here, he’d start to feel like himself again, because Libby was finally away from him.

Except she wasn’t.

Libby wasn’t just a presence...she was an absence. He felt her even when she wasn’t there.

He ached for her. Not just physically, but even the sight of her.

He’d become used to having her in his space. To knowing she was in the kitchen or the nursery, or even her bedroom. He’d found himself staring into space and imagining her reading or watching a movie, curled up on the sofa. Even when he’d stuck to his guns and remained locked away in his office, she’d been a part of his day.

And she still was.

It drove him crazy, and Raul became even more determined to conquer her control over him. To run away not just physically, but mentally too. He’d come dangerously close to forgetting how he lived his life—and why—but he’d escaped in time. He’d run before it got real, hadn’t he?

Libby found it was far easier to give paid nursing staff the slip than it had been Raul. For all that Raul had clearly given instructions that Libby was to be shadowed, there was no medical need for her to have a constant companion and she found it simple enough to step out when necessary. The solitude was her godsend.

She had found a small park a few blocks away and she enjoyed sitting on one of the benches with a coffee each morning, watching the parents and nannies playing with the young children, a hand on her belly as she thought of her little one. Libby could easily imagine how nice it would be in summer to come here with her baby, stretch a picnic blanket out beneath a tree and enjoy the sounds of children laughing and playing and all the good things in life.

Except in those fantasies Libby and the baby weren’t alone.

Raul was always there, relaxing, smiling, close, doting.

A lump formed easily in Libby’s throat these days; tears were never far away. It had been two weeks since she’d seen Raul, though he’d texted each morning to check on her and she knew he spoke to the nurse regularly, to keep tabs on her physical health.

He was making it obvious that he cared for the baby, the pregnancy, that he was willing to look after Libby’s medical needs, but that was where he drew the line.

Perhaps she’d been wrong about him?

Or maybe she’d been right, and he did love her, but he just couldn’t overcome the damage wrought by his childhood and fight for what they shared. If that were the case, she had to accept it. She could love him with all her heart, but it wasn’t enough for Raul. It never would be.

After an hour or so, Libby began to make her way home, pausing at a newsstand on the corner to buy a paper, then heading to the building.

‘Good morning, Mrs Ortega,’ the doorman, John, greeted her deferentially as she entered.

‘Hello.’ She smiled back.

‘Must be getting close now?’ He grinned, nodding towards her stomach.

She patted her round belly. ‘Yes.’ Even while discussing the baby, she couldn’t dredge up a smile. Misery saturated Libby.

‘Such lovely news.’

She nodded awkwardly, then moved inside, pressed the button and waited for the lift. When the doors opened, Raul was staring right back at her. Her heart accelerated dangerously, thudding into her throat. She simply stood and stared. The whole world seemed wonky and uneven. Everything inside Libby froze.

Two weeks.

For two weeks she had been striving to make her peace with this, to accept how much she loved and missed him and find a way to coexist with those feelings, to exist in a state of happiness regardless, but just the sight of Raul was like a punch right in her gut.

She stared at him and took a step backwards. The lift doors began to close. Raul’s hand came out, keeping them open for her.

‘Going up?’ he asked, his voice strained even to Libby’s ears.

‘It’s okay. I’ll wait.’

‘We can ride in the same elevator together, Libby, for God’s sake.’

She bit down on her lip, blinking away from him. It was only the possibility of people staring, speculating, that had her taking a step inside the lift and she wished she hadn’t as soon as the doors zipped closed and the air seemed to spark with awareness in a way that threatened to pull at all the threads of her sanity.

She tapped her security card to the lift console then pressed her back as hard to the wall as she could. Mercifully, the lift was swift and the doors had opened again before she knew it, onto Raul’s floor, but he made no room to leave.

‘This is you, isn’t it?’ she said woodenly.

‘I’ll see you home.’

She almost scoffed at the stupidity of that. As if he cared. But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of arguing. She simply shrugged, kept staring straight ahead, and a moment later the doors pinged open once more, this time into the penthouse apartment they’d once shared.

As Libby moved to step past him, Raul put a hand out. Not to Libby, but rather to keep the doors open.

She slowed a little once in the foyer, knowing she had to say something, to at least acknowledge and farewell. She turned, and her heart thumped.

‘How are you?’ he asked, the question gruff, his eyes raking over her as if the answer lay in her appearance.

‘Fine,’ she lied. ‘And you?’

His smile was bitter. ‘Also fine. But then, I am not growing a human inside of me.’

Libby lifted one shoulder. ‘Half the time I forget I am. Except at night,’ she added, babbling because she was nervous. ‘At night, he or she is very active.’

‘Are you finding it hard to sleep?’

‘Yes,’ she said, and she was glad that he would presume it was because of their somersaulting baby, and not the real reason: that she was tormented by thoughts and memories of Raul and what might have been, to the point she found sleep untenable. Their eyes held, yet both were silent. The atmosphere pulsated, and then Libby took a step backwards.

‘Well, nice seeing you,’ she said quietly. ‘Take care.’ And she spun away from him quickly, as though her life depended on it.

Raul rode back down to his own apartment with a scowl on his features and a strange feeling in his gut. A feeling that he was going in the opposite direction, like swimming upstream or pushing a magnet against an equal pole. It was really stupid.

He strode into his apartment, changed into his gym gear and left the building, determined to run until he understood himself once more.

Understanding didn’t come. The more he ran, the less anything made sense.

Oh, he knew what he should want, what was right and smart and safe, but the thought of living two floors below Libby and their baby now seemed preposterous. Two weeks ago, he’d convinced himself it was the right thing for everybody, but how could that be so?

It was clearly not right for Libby—she looked exhausted and shell-shocked. She looked hurt and betrayed.

And for him?

He couldn’t analyse his feelings, only he knew everything was wrong. The instincts that had kept him safe for so long, the instincts that had taught him to run at the first sign of connection, to preserve a solid amount of space around himself as though his life depended on it, were pulling him in a different direction now, making him want things that were counter to every goal he’d ever had in life.

He pulled to the edge of the sidewalk and stared across the street, closing his eyes for a moment and letting himself step fully into Libby’s rosy dream for them. The family she’d described. The love. The warmth, the promise to always love him, no matter what. When he stepped into that vision of his future, he felt a want that was greater than any he’d ever known. For a moment, he let himself imagine it was real, that he could trust her, that Libby would protect him, that he could trust her not to hurt him, that loving her wouldn’t mean one day he would have to suffer the most immense loss of his life.

But it was only a fantasy, just like he’d told her. Because at some point the dream would crack. She’d leave him, like everyone else ever had. Or worse, he’d leave her. He’d hurt her, more than he had already, and he’d never be able to forgive himself for that.

Raul began to run once more, but it didn’t matter how far he went: he couldn’t outrun the tortured nature of his indecision and finally, as he approached the apartment, he stopped running, not just physically, but also mentally.

Libby scared him. She always had.

Right from the beginning, when she’d been willing to put her own life on the line to save his.

But this was different.

She was offering a future that he’d never allowed himself to hope for, because he’d been trained to believe it was beyond his reach.

What if it wasn’t?

What if Libby’s vision for their family could be a reality? What if he’d been wrong about everything?

‘I was informed it’s your favourite,’ Raul said, holding up a bag of take-out from the Chinese restaurant a few blocks away.

Libby eyed it suspiciously. ‘Informed by whom?’

‘That would be me.’ Her nurse, Veronica, smiled as she pulled her handbag over one shoulder. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Libby frowned. ‘You’re leaving?’

‘Call if you need anything,’ Veronica said with a nod and wave, disappearing into the lift. Libby watched her go, perplexed.

‘Raul, what’s going on?’

The smell of the Chinese was wafting towards Libby and her tummy groaned with hunger. She ignored it.

‘Can we have dinner? We should talk.’

Libby stared at him, her gut rolling, tightening, confusion making her insides hurt. ‘I—’ She stared at him, wanting to tell him no. But hadn’t she promised that she would love him always? That she would be there for him? While her self-defence mechanism was to push him away now, before he could push her any further, that wasn’t right. She needed to show him that she loved him, no matter what, not just say it.

‘Okay.’ She tried to keep her voice neutral. ‘Dinner,’ she added, as a midway point to looking after herself too.

His eyes showed relief and one corner of his lip lifted in a tight half-smile. ‘Thank you.’

His gratitude was unexpected.

Libby busied herself removing plates and water glasses from the kitchen and laying out the table, while Raul removed the lids from the meals and set them up between their two seats. He’d ordered her favourites—she had to credit Veronica for that intel too.

‘So,’ Libby said, taking a seat opposite Raul, hands folded neatly in her lap, ‘what do we need to talk about?’

‘The other day...’ he said, eyes meeting hers then glancing away.

She frowned. ‘What other day?’

‘Here, in the kitchen. The conversation we had.’

‘That was weeks ago,’ she muttered, colouring.

‘I’m aware of that.’

‘It’s just, when you said “the other day” I thought you meant a few days ago, not...’ Her voice trailed off.

How could she tell him that a few weeks ago felt like an eternity to her because she’d missed him so damned much? He must know she felt that way, but Libby didn’t need to bang him over the head with the truth of that.

‘Anyway,’ she finished unevenly, ‘what do you want to discuss?’

‘I think I made a mistake.’

Libby’s gut churned; she refused to let hope into the cracks of her heart. Carefully, staying very still, she said, ‘Oh?’

Raul’s Adam’s apple shifted beneath his stubble. His features bore their trademark mask of arrogant control but Libby saw through it. Regardless of her best intentions, hope burst through her.

‘Raul,’ she murmured. ‘What are you trying to say?’

‘I don’t want to live apart from you.’ His brow furrowed, as he concentrated harder. ‘I want to live with you.’

For her own sake, Libby had to take this slowly, and also be very specific about what he was saying. This was not a time to rush to conclusions because she wanted him to want the same things she did.

‘You mean, how we were before? You want it to go back to the way it was before that morning?’

‘Yes,’ he said with a smile, then shook his head. ‘No.’ He dragged a hand through his hair. ‘I am terrible at this.’

Libby waited patiently.

‘I want to live with you, properly. As husband and wife.’

Beneath the table, Libby fidgeted her hands in her lap. It was so close to what she wanted, but still she was careful, cautious, measured.

‘Why?’ she asked simply, because there could be a dozen reasons for his change of heart. Worry about her health, protectiveness of the baby, a pragmatic preference to be near to one another for the late stages of the pregnancy. None of which equated to the happy-ever-after Libby wanted.

‘Why do you think?’

‘I don’t know, and it’s important to understand exactly what you’re saying,’ she murmured. ‘I need to manage my own expectations for this.’

‘I think you might be right,’ he said slowly, carefully.

Simply for something to do, Libby reached out and took an egg roll, placed it on her plate but then just stared at it.

‘I think there might be something fated about our meeting.’

Her heart leaped into her throat.

‘Let me show you something,’ he said quietly, reaching into his pocket and removing a necklace—a chain with a simple pendant on it. He stared at it a moment, his expression impossible to interpret. ‘It’s the only thing of my parents’ that I possess. It was my mother’s. I don’t remember her, or him. As I told you, they died when I was very young. This is all I was left.’ He moved it from one hand to the other, then handed it over to Libby.

She turned it over to see cursive script on the back, in Spanish. ‘What does it say?’

‘It’s a translation of an old English poem, about the value of living every moment of every day, the importance of not letting opportunities pass one by.’

Libby read the Spanish words but heard Raul’s translation, then passed the necklace back to him, still doing her best to be guarded with her heart, even when she was starting to hope against hope that her wildest dreams were coming true.

‘You were right about me,’ he said. ‘About my childhood, about how it shaped me. I was made to feel worthless by everyone in my life until I met Maria and Pedro, and even them I kept at arm’s length. Every relationship in my life is transactional. I don’t have friendships that are more than skin-deep. I am careful not to get close to anyone. And with you, it felt even more imperative to maintain those boundaries because, from the very first meeting, I knew on some level that you were a threat to how I live my life. That you could break down my boundaries if you tried to. I have done my best to control this, but I can’t.’

Libby’s eyes stung.

‘I told myself I walked away from this to protect you, but the truth is, I wanted to protect myself. You were offering me your love, something I wanted so fiercely that I knew if anything happened, and you stopped loving me, it would be the worst pain I’d ever known. I have never wanted anything like I have this.’ He waved a hand around the apartment.

‘So you left.’

‘But it was too late,’ he said. ‘The damage is done. You love me, and that means something.’

‘It doesn’t have to,’ she whispered, not wanting him to come back because he pitied her or was grateful to her.

‘It means everything ,’ he clarified. ‘Even if it is only for now, even if this is temporary, I have to be here, to live this with you. I have to love you back, because I’ve come to realise there is no alternative. Real love cannot be controlled, as it turns out, no matter how determined you are.’

Libby’s heart soared now, given freedom by the hope she’d finally allowed to rein in her body.

‘Yes,’ she whispered, though what question she was answering she couldn’t say. But somehow she needed him to know she agreed, she approved, that she understood.

His eyes scanned her face. ‘I’m not going to be good at this.’

Libby’s laugh was tremulous as she stood, coming around the table and moving to sit in Raul’s lap. ‘I can live with that.’

‘I do love you,’ he said. ‘I cannot let you—this opportunity I have somehow been given—slip through my fingers. You are my fate, my all.’ He stared at her, then shrugged. ‘I just... love you.’

‘I thought so.’ She smiled serenely.

‘How on earth could you have that kind of faith in me?’

She pressed her forehead to his. ‘I knew you loved me, Raul. I just didn’t know if you’d be brave enough to admit it to yourself.’

His hand ran lightly over her spine. ‘I hope I can one day be worthy of the faith you had in me.’

She pressed her lips to his. ‘You already are.’