The first thing Libby saw when she opened her eyes the following morning was the flower. A pretty, freshly bloomed purple African daisy. Its petals glistened with raindrops, and it could only have come from her garden.
She sat up and stared at the simple, lovely blossom. It lay on the pillow that still held the impression of Greyson’s head.
“Damn it, Greyson,” she whispered, hating the sweet unexpectedness of the gesture. But hating herself even more for being so oddly affected by it. It felt like her brain had turned to mush over a silly, tiny romantic gesture that only a teenage girl should have gone so giddy over.
Exhaling on a shuddery gasp, she picked up the hardy early-spring flower.
“Good morning.”
She turned her head to look at Greyson. He stood in her bedroom doorway, Clara in the crook of one arm and a bottle in his other hand.
It had been a rough night for all of them. Clara had woken them several times more, and they had groggily taken turns soothing the baby and taking care of her needs. Libby hadn’t even considered the appropriateness of having him stay over until now. It was unsettling how seamlessly he had integrated into her and Clara’s routine.
“What’s this for?” she asked, lifting the flower.
“Happy birthday,” he said, his voice rough with sincerity. “I would have made breakfast in bed, but I’m sure you know how that would have turned out.”
The statement surprised a laugh out of Libby. With everything that had happened recently, she hadn’t given her birthday any thought at all. And she was shocked Greyson had remembered it.
“Thank you,” she said, offering him a small smile. She felt a little shy and not at all sure why that was. “How’s young miss today?”
“Still uncomfortable, but I’ve been giving her a steady supply of iced teething toys. She’s had some mashed banana and pear for breakfast, but she was more interested in chewing her spoon.”
“Thank you for all your help last night,” Libby said, idly running her fingers over the daisy’s soft petals.
“Least I could do after you so kindly offered to let me stay.”
“I should get ready for work.”
“Of course.” He nodded and started to leave before pausing. “I was wondering if we could have dinner on Sunday. We need to talk.”
“Greyson,” she said with an impatient sigh. “Our talks never achieve anything.”
“It’s important, Olivia.”
“Fine. But no more ridiculously romantic, highly inappropriate restaurants. I’ll cook, and you can come here. That way I won’t need a sitter for Clara.”
He looked hesitant. “I was hoping for neutral territory,” he said, the words emerging slowly and carefully, as if he was afraid of saying the wrong thing.
“Why? Are you expecting our conversation to get volatile?”
“Possibly,” he admitted, and her eyebrows flew up in surprise at his honesty.
Extremely curious now, she tilted her head and eyed him speculatively. “We could go to Chris’s café. But for lunch. I don’t want to do dinner.” It was too intimate.
“Your friend? The model? The one you worked for when you first came here?”
Libby wondered if it was possible for one’s eyebrows to ascend all the way to the top of one’s head. Because that was how high she felt hers had risen.
“Ex-model. And how did you know all of that? Did Harris tell you?”
“No. Nobody spoke to me much after you left.” He sounded so morose admitting it that Libby very nearly felt sorry for him. Very nearly. Until she remembered why everybody had been pissed off with him.
“So how did you know I’d worked for Chris? How did you know I was here in the first place?” Why had it never occurred to her to ask him that before? Harris and Tina wouldn’t have told him. His parents hadn’t known. They had sent care packages for Clara to her parents, who in turn had forwarded them to Libby.
“That’s part of what I want to talk to you about on Sunday.”
“I think this is something you can tell me now. Since I’ve asked, and it’s a simple question requiring a simple answer.”
“Maybe the answer isn’t that simple,” he retorted. He looked at Clara, and his expression softened. His shoulders sagged in defeat, and he continued speaking without diverting his gaze from his daughter’s face. As if he didn’t want to see Libby’s reaction to his words. “I hired an investigator. Immediately after you left the hospital. It was my last lucid act for a while . . . but I had to be sure you and Clara were okay.”
Libby blinked. There were so many conflicting emotions churning around inside of her that she couldn’t entirely figure out how she felt about that confession.
“An investigator? Like a private detective? Why? Did you think Clara and I had gone off to live with her baby daddy? Oh my God, did you think Chris was her father?”
Outrage. That was the feeling currently fighting for dominance over confusion, uncertainty, and—weirdly—hope.
He winced and lifted his haunted gaze to hers. “No. Of course not. I never once thought that.”
“There’s no of course not here, Greyson. When I left, you fully believed that Clara was somebody else’s child. So why wouldn’t you think it was Chris? Did you have someone else in mind?”
“By the time you left the hospital, I already knew Clara was mine.”
“What?” The fuck? “That was the very next day.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I want to talk to you about this, but we don’t have the time to get into it right now. I’m happy to go to your friend’s restaurant for lunch on Sunday. We can discuss it further then.”
Frustrated, because he was right—there wasn’t enough time to talk about this now—Libby nodded abruptly and got up.
“Fine. Whatever you want, Greyson.” She didn’t do much to keep the acid from her voice. If his pained expression was anything to go by, her sarcasm was more than evident. He stepped out of the doorway, and she sank down onto the bed, finding it hard to process the information he had given her.
An investigator. Some stranger watching her every move. And she hadn’t once sensed she was being observed. The thought gave her chills, and she wondered if Greyson was even aware of how far out of line that was.
And if he was being truthful about knowing he was Clara’s father practically since day one, why hadn’t he approached her sooner? Why wait four months? Nothing about this made sense.
She had so many questions, and she wasn’t at all sure she was ready to hear the answers.
“That was ridiculously childish,” Libby told Tina two hours later. The staff had given Libby a smash cake for her birthday, and it had given Libby a childish kick to wreck that cake. All she had to do was picture Greyson’s face as she smashed the hell out of it. Very therapeutic. She and Tina were now in the tiny office at MJ’s, changing out of their sticky clothing.
“But fun,” Tina said with a laugh, sounding more lighthearted than she had in weeks. That alone had made the entire messy, crazy cake fight worth it in Libby’s book.
“Yes,” she conceded. “It was fun. Thank you.”
“Admit it, you’re just happy you didn’t have to eat it,” Tina quipped, and Libby chuckled. Tina had baked the cake, and she wasn’t a very good baker.
“I think that was my real birthday present,” Libby teased her.
“Shut up, we can’t all be master pastry chefs,” Tina said with a little pout. She combed her fingers through her thick, damp hair, searching for cake residue. “I get it all?”
Libby cast a quick eye over her friend’s hair. Tina had been forced to wet it to get rid of some of the stickiness. “Looks like it.”
“Soooo . . .” Tina stretched out the word as she continued to toy with one of her long strands of hair. “I’m thinking of heading to Cape Town for a few days next week.”
“You are? Why?”
“I’m going to sell my flat.”
“You love that place,” Libby said. Tina had been so happy and proud when she had bought that flat; it was hard to imagine her willingly giving it up.
“I love this place more. I want to buy a house here. No point clinging to the flat when I’ll never live there again.”
“That makes sense.”
“And I want to meet Edward”—her new nephew, Conrad and Kitty’s baby, born shortly after they had moved to the Garden Route; Libby was happy that her friend was at the point where she would willingly meet a baby—“and Harris is leaving Australia today.” Tina didn’t have to elaborate for Libby to understand that she meant to see him.
“I know,” Libby said with a soft smile. Harris had sent her a birthday text earlier and told her he’d be leaving Perth today.
“He and I have some unfinished business.” Tina paused before continuing in a rush. “I’m going to ask Greyson to oversee management of MJ’s while I’m gone.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Libby protested, not at all pleased with the notion of having Greyson hanging about, bossing everyone around.
“You’re busy with the kitchen, Libby. Ricardo has his hands full running the floor. I need someone here in a supervisory capacity to make sure things run smoothly between the front of the house and the kitchen. You know that. And I thought Greyson would be a good choice because he could watch Clara while he was chilling in my office being a figurehead.”
Ha! As if a control freak like Greyson would be content with being just a figurehead. Tina would be lucky if she returned and found her restaurant still recognizable after leaving him in charge.
“Does it have to be Greyson?” Libby asked, knowing she sounded petty, but really . . . yeah, she felt petty. Especially after Greyson’s revelations that morning.
“It won’t be for long, a few days max.”
“If you must. But you tell him to keep his nose out of my kitchen.”
“I’ll do that.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Day after tomorrow.” That was on Sunday. She’d have to endure a “possibly volatile” conversation with Greyson before seeing him all day, every day, for goodness knew how long. Tina wasn’t being very forthcoming about the exact length of her absence.
But Libby knew her friend still had a lot of personal business to settle back in Cape Town. Not only with Harris but with her parents and brothers as well.
“You do what you have to do, Tina,” Libby said, offering the other woman an encouraging smile. “MJ’s will be fine.”
“I don’t know why you decided to drive,” Greyson grumbled as he loaded Tina’s heavy bag into her car early on Sunday morning. “Flying would be safer and faster.”
“I like the drive, and it’ll give me time to think.”
“Less thinking and more concentrating on the road, okay?”
“I’ll drive safely,” she promised.
“No speeding.”
“That’s generally what driving safely means, Greyson. You’re turning into a mother hen,” she teased him, and Greyson smiled. He couldn’t recall being teased much before. But Mar—Tina—had started doing so regularly. He quite enjoyed it, even though he had no idea how to tease her back. That had always been his problem. He didn’t know how to relax and be comfortable around others.
With Olivia, at the start of their relationship in London, he had felt a sense of belonging. He had been able to relax and laugh with her. But when they had returned to South Africa, she and Harris had immediately fallen into their old, easy friendship. Greyson hadn’t been able to see a place for himself within that dynamic. And it had been isolating.
“Well then, drive safely. Take regular breaks in safe locations, and text me when you do.”
“Why? So that you can check up on me?”
“That. And so that I won’t worry.”
Her face softened, and she nodded. “I’ll do that.”
“Good.” He patted her shoulder awkwardly. “I’ll see you soon, then.”
“Silly,” she chided before stepping into his arms for a hug. Greyson stared down at the top of her head before closing his own arms around her comfortable frame. “Thank you.”
“Caring.”
She stepped out of his arms and smiled at him, her expression tinged with sadness. “Libby told me you guys are having lunch today?”
“I’m going to tell her everything.”
“She’s going to be angry and hurt . . . but think of it as fresh blood draining the pus out of a festering wound.”
“That’s”—he wrinkled his nose—“truly disgusting, Tina.”
“Yet apt. It’ll be fine, Greyson.”
“I’m afraid of losing her.” It was the most revealing thing he had ever said to anyone. It was more than he’d even admitted to himself.
“Greyson, you’ve lost her already,” Tina said gently. “What you need to focus on is winning her back. And that means being completely honest with her. At the risk of sounding like a total cliché, you have nothing to lose . . . but everything to gain.”
She shook her head and laughed. The sound was short and loud and lacked any semblance of humor. “Look at me, doling out advice like some love guru when I can barely get my own shit together.”
“I appreciate your insight,” Greyson muttered.
“Do with it what you will. I’d better head off; I want to avoid the church traffic.”
“Is that an actual thing?”
“It is in Riversend,” Tina replied. “There are, like, three churches here. And the mosque.”
She gave him an airy wave and climbed into her car. Greyson waved her off before turning to go inside. He paused and stared at the ramshackle old split house for a moment. He’d had every intention of moving out after he’d first arrived, but when Harris had asked him to keep an eye on Tina, Greyson had shelved the idea . . . and this horrid, small, grubby place had started to feel like home. Something he hadn’t imagined possible a mere six weeks ago.
He wouldn’t want to permanently stay here, but he didn’t mind it as much anymore. But with both Harris and Tina now gone, he felt a pang of melancholy and loneliness.
He trudged back inside, sank onto the sofa, and brought up his adult coloring app to kill time until lunch.
An hour before he had to leave for lunch, he set aside his phone, having colored his way through three pictures in the interim. He showered, shaved, and carefully considered what he wanted to wear for this meeting.
In the end he armored up . . . going with what was familiar and safe. He figured he was going to need the extra protection.
“This is quite off the beaten track,” Greyson observed when they arrived at the quaint cabin nestled among tall yellowwood trees. The place was aptly named Le Café de la Forêt.
“Didn’t your investigator inform you of that fact?” Olivia asked caustically. She dragged Clara’s nappy bag from the back seat, while Greyson unbuckled the baby from her seat.
At Olivia’s insistence, they had traveled in separate cars. Greyson had chosen not to argue, meekly following her from her house for nearly forty minutes before they arrived at their destination. Her sarcastic question about the investigator didn’t bode well for the rest of their talk. She was clearly still upset with him after his revelations on her birthday, and Greyson hated that they were starting such a crucial discussion off on the wrong foot.
The door to the café opened, and a tall, impressively built man with sharp, striking features stepped out.
“Aaah, you brought my little bonbon for a visit,” he raved, heading straight toward Greyson and plucking Clara from his arms before he could react. Greyson instinctively moved to grab her back, but the baby was chortling happily, and the man was already at Olivia’s side and sweeping her up into an effusive hug.
Greyson stared in mute frustration as this . . . this godlike creature of masculine perfection monopolized Greyson’s family’s attentions and affections for endless moments. Fussing over a babbling Clara and peppering Olivia with questions about the restaurant, her new recipes, how she was doing, how the house was shaping up . . . while not acknowledging Greyson at all.
Asshole.
Greyson stepped forward and deliberately invaded their cozy little cocoon of hugs and kisses. “Greyson Chapman,” he interrupted rudely, thrusting his hand out pointedly. The other man, Chris, stepped away from Olivia and thankfully dropped his arm from around her shoulders. He looked down at Greyson’s hand for a long moment before shaking it. The action was pointedly reluctant and perfunctory.
“Oui, I know who you are,” the guy said, his voice cold.
“Greyson and I have important matters to discuss, Chris.” Olivia’s quiet voice.
“I will happily keep my sweet little Clara occupied while you do that.” He kissed Clara’s cheek, and the baby gurgled happily in response. “Did you miss your oncle, ma petite? I missed you.”
“That’s not necessary,” Greyson protested, hating how at home Clara seemed in the man’s arms. How clearly familiar he was with her. “She can stay with us.”
“Nonsense, we are old friends, Clara and I. She remembers all those poopy diapers I had to change. And all those times I rocked her to sleep and soothed her when she cried. Not so, little one?”
“She probably doesn’t,” Greyson said tautly. “Babies only start remembering people they don’t see regularly when they’re six months old.”
“Clara is much more intelligent than your average baby.”
Well, there was no way Greyson could argue with that, since he happened to agree with it. He clammed up. He couldn’t help resenting the history Chris had with both Clara and Olivia, but he was unable to deny that the man had been there for them at a time when Greyson had been too incapacitated by his own self-pity and weakness to do the job himself.
Chris slid an arm around Olivia’s waist and led her into the restaurant, leaving Greyson standing there like a chump. They looked like the perfect little family, and jealousy gnawed painfully away at Greyson’s gut.
He glowered at Chris’s broad back, seething silently while the man continued to fuss over Clara.
So much for this being neutral territory. Olivia was clearly very at home here, while Greyson felt immediately wrong footed and out of place.
Chris led them to a small, intimate table in a quiet back corner of his tiny coffee shop. The place wasn’t very busy; in fact they were the only ones there, and Greyson cast a puzzled look around, wondering why this place was considered so successful when it was this quiet on a Sunday.
His question was answered when Olivia took a similarly quizzical look around the shop. “Chris, the café is closed, isn’t it?” she asked, sounding exasperated. “I thought you were open on Sundays.”
“I usually am, but this seemed urgent.”
“Wait, you closed because of us?”
“No, of course not,” he said soothingly, before tossing Greyson a seriously disdainful look. “I closed because of you. And of course this little mamsell.” The last was directed at Clara, and he tweaked her nose. A gesture that was greeted with a delighted chuckle.
“Chris, that’s crazy. You shouldn’t have done that,” Olivia said. Greyson looked down at the floor, furious. If he made eye contact with anyone right now, he would probably blow a fuse. This was so far out of bounds he wasn’t sure how to react. All he knew was that he wanted to take his kid away from the arrogant, ridiculously good-looking douchebag and . . . and steer his wife out of this place where the owner obviously had strong feelings for her. Feelings Greyson wasn’t sure were strictly platonic.
“Neutral territory, huh?” he grumbled, unable to prevent himself from lifting his seething gaze to Olivia.
Crap, Chris was really going overboard with the protective-friend bit. Libby understood that Greyson had to feel ambushed and felt guilty to have led him straight into it. But she hadn’t expected this show of macho alpha male bullshit from her usually easygoing friend. Like she didn’t have enough to deal with already. She knew Chris thought he was looking out for her, and part of it stemmed from how emotionally fragile she had been when she’d first arrived here all those months ago. It had kicked his protective instincts into hyperdrive, and he had taken on a big-brother role that seemed to have morphed into whatever the hell this was.
“Chris, se détendre s’il vous plaît.”
Her friend glared at her, clearly not happy with her telling him to relax. Greyson raised his eyebrows at her words, and she sighed. She had forgotten he spoke fluent French. Also German, Japanese, Italian, Mandarin . . . and probably a few more that she had forgotten about.
“I will bring your entrée,” Chris said stiffly, and Libby bit back a groan. She was getting heartily sick of men and their brittle egos. He turned away, still holding Clara, but when the baby realized he was carrying her away from them, she uttered a protesting cry and reached her arms out toward Greyson.
Libby’s mouth fell open. It was the first time Clara had ever reached out to a specific person. Toys and her bottle, yes, but never an actual person. Her eyes tracked over to Greyson, who was staring at the baby’s outstretched arms in disbelief.
His gaze flew to Libby’s, alight with joy and something that looked very much like relief. The smile that lit his face was an appealing mix of pride, happiness, and absolute vulnerability. As if he wasn’t quite sure he could believe what he was seeing.
“She’s never done that before,” he said, his voice hushed, and Libby couldn’t help but return his elated grin.
“No, she hasn’t.”
The baby was still reaching for Greyson and wriggling in Chris’s arms in an attempt to get to her father. Greyson got up to take her, and when Chris relinquished his hold on her writhing little body, she practically launched herself into Greyson’s arms.
“Hey, sweetheart. Do you want to stay with Mummy and Daddy? That’s okay, my darling. You can sit with us.” He held her close and kissed her cheek.
“I will return in a few minutes,” Chris said, taking Clara’s rejection with a good-natured smile.
“Thanks, Chris,” Libby said as Greyson took his seat across from her. He was still talking to Clara and made sure she was settled on his lap, her pacifier in her mouth as she snuggled into his chest, her sleepy gaze on Libby’s face. She was absently tugging at Greyson’s red silk tie. He was dressed to a T today: three-piece navy-blue suit and red tie with a pair of black wingtip shoes on his feet. He looked like the Greyson Chapman she knew, and—her thoughts skidded to a halt before she could complete the phrase. Well, he looked like the Greyson Chapman she knew.
Familiar, austere, distant.
“So you and Chris—”
“He’s just a friend,” Libby interrupted tautly.
“Seems to me he fancies himself as more than that.”
“You’re imagining things,” she said dismissively.
“Possibly. Perhaps because I find it hard to imagine any man wanting to be just your friend.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Libby said, not sure if she found his words flattering or disturbing.
Chris returned with a couple of tall glasses.
“Green apple and lemongrass soda,” he murmured as he placed the glasses in front of them. “I know you don’t want to be disturbed, so I took the liberty of preparing a meal for you.”
“Merci, Chris,” Libby said with a grateful smile, while Greyson just glared at the man. Chris popped away for a few seconds before returning with beautifully presented scallop dishes.
“Butter-seared scallops with ginger-infused shallots.”
He left before either of them could thank him.
Greyson didn’t say anything, ignoring his plate while Libby picked up her fork and sampled one of the scallops. She couldn’t contain her moan of delight as the flavors sang on her appreciative tongue.
“You should try it,” she prompted him, pointing at his untouched plate with her fork.
“I’m not hungry. And let’s face it, we’re not really here to eat.”
Well, that definitely killed what little she had in the way of appetite. Libby set aside her fork and watched as he leaned to the side and picked up his bag. He fumbled around in it with his free hand before removing a familiar-looking A4 envelope from the bag. He placed the envelope in the center of the table between them. His gesture similar to hers when she had given the envelope to him a month ago.
“I signed them,” he said, not meeting her eyes. Instead he focused on Clara’s face. The baby looked on the verge of falling asleep. “There are a few changes, of course. With regards to, uh, custody, but I’m sure you’ll find my requests reasonable.”
“Why now?” She forced the question out. Not sure why she was asking. She should take the papers and run. But now that they were there, right in front of her, she was oddly reluctant to even touch them.
“Because you’re going to want them after I’ve said what I came here to say.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Olivia . . .” His voice throbbed with misery, and part of Libby wanted to reach across the expanding chasm between them to take his hand. Offer him comfort.
“Worse than the investigator?” she asked, and he swallowed before meeting her gaze head on. He looked absolutely devastated.
“I don’t . . . I can’t . . .” He shook his head before trying again. “I’m not a very demonstrative man, Olivia. You know that. I’ve never been one to wear my every emotion on my sleeve. I know you all used to joke that I probably didn’t even have emotions.”
You all? The phrase jolted her and made her wonder to whom he was referring.
“We all who?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking.
“You. Tina.” Tina? Since when did he use the nickname? “Harris. I’ve heard the comments. About me.”
“What comments?” she asked, although she was pretty sure she knew what he meant. But their adolescent teasing had never seemed to bother him. Reinforcing their belief that he was unflappable and completely emotionless.
“You know . . . the Ice Man stuff. And, uh, Mr. Freeze, I think it was. The Terminator?”
“Greys—”
“I mean, it’s okay,” he quickly interrupted, which was great because Libby had no idea what she’d been about to say. There was no denying the mocking nicknames she and Harris had come up with when they were teens. But part of it had stemmed from Libby’s desire to be noticed by him, to provoke some kind of reaction from him. She had never succeeded, of course. He had remained as cold and aloof as an iceberg. And the first inkling of warmth she’d ever seen in him had been that night at the rooftop party.
“I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not great at revealing what I’m feeling. I find emotions messy and needlessly complicated. I’ve never found it easy to participate, and quite frankly, when you were younger—a teen—it was simpler to keep my distance. Whenever I found myself in your presence, I wanted to do highly inappropriate things. And that would have been . . .” He shook his head. “It wouldn’t have been acceptable. You were young and vulnerable. Your parents worked for mine. There was an imbalance of power, and I wanted to stay as far removed from you as possible because you were so very hard to resist.”
“What?” Her voice was quiet and confused, and she found herself reeling at the admission that he had wanted her for so long. He had never let on. Not once.
But he did himself a disservice when he said he was cold. She now knew he was far from cold. He was hot and passionate, and there was a wealth of emotion teeming just below the grim surface he presented to the world. She had managed to tap into it, as had Clara, and the more time she spent with him, the more of himself he revealed to her.
“Are you saying you wanted me? Years ago?”
“I was always aware of you . . . but when I saw you after I came home from college. The year you turned sixteen. God. My world flipped upside down. You were so fucking beautiful.” It still jolted her to hear the f-bomb from him, but there was such intense sincerity in his voice that there was no denying he meant every word. “But you were so young. I couldn’t allow what I felt to show. I kept myself as far away from you as humanly possible. But you and Harris . . . you were so close, and I-I envied him. I was jealous of his ability to be so at ease with you. I wanted to talk and laugh with you. But Harris was the one you went to with your stories and your laughter and your confidences.”
She tilted her head as she absorbed those words. Of course she talked and laughed with Harris . . . they were friends. They were closer than friends: they were like siblings. Greyson knew that.
“When I saw you again at the party,” he continued, “I couldn’t resist you anymore. You were . . .” He shook his head, seemingly unable to find the words. “I knew your parents had retired. You were independent, career minded, talented . . . and I could finally act on my need for you. After that—knowing I was your first—the thought of letting you go was . . . difficult for me. I started pushing for marriage. I shouldn’t have; I should have told you about my fertility concerns. I should have told you so fucking many things, Olivia. But I didn’t. I wanted you. And I would do anything to have you.”
Clara had gone limp, and he gently shifted her so that she was cradled in his arms. So sweet and unbelievably tender with the baby.
He traced her features with a reverent finger before looking up at Libby, his eyes gleaming with moisture.
“When I heard that I probably couldn’t have children, I didn’t really care. I was nineteen; kids had been a distant dream. Barely even a dream. At that age, the thought of fatherhood had never occurred to me. It started to niggle as I got older. This awful feeling of inadequacy formed deep down in my gut. I forced myself not to think about it, told myself I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. I considered going for a second opinion, but the thought of being told—again—that I was flawed in such a fundamental way was exceedingly disagreeable. I kept delaying it, telling myself it didn’t matter to me. But it did matter.
“I could never be a father. I could never give my parents grandchildren. And the thought of telling a woman, a potential mate, I couldn’t ever give her a child . . . it was humiliating. By the time you and I met up again, I had almost convinced myself that it was unimportant. And when I asked you to marry me, parenthood was literally the last thing on my mind. I just wanted you.”
Libby stared at him, her heart lodged in her throat as she finally began to comprehend just how devastating the mistaken knowledge that he could not father children had been on a proud man like Greyson. As if something like this could make him less of a man. She would never have thought that; most people wouldn’t. But Greyson wasn’t most people, and Libby imagined this so-called biological flaw had unconsciously eaten at him for years.
“It was only after you said yes,” he continued—and Libby forced back the urge to reach across the table and take his hand; it wasn’t her place to comfort him; not anymore—“that I realized that I hadn’t told you about my perceived infertility. I convinced myself I’d tell you. But I kept delaying the conversation. Do you have any idea how daunting the thought of telling you was? You’re beautiful, perfect, talented . . . why should you have to settle for someone who couldn’t even give you a child? I didn’t want you to think less of me or, worse, feel sorry for me. The thought of you marrying me because you pitied me was repugnant. By the time we married, I’d convinced myself we could adopt, that you’d be fine with that. Then we moved back to Cape Town, and you seemed so happy to be home. You started hanging out with your old friends, with Tina . . . and Harris.”
The pause after he said Harris’s name seemed significant, and Libby, still not sure where this was going, sat up a little straighter. Greyson seemed so much more vulnerable than she had expected. The words were tumbling from him in almost-frantic haste, and she knew that he was building toward something big. Yet everything he told her was a complete revelation, and she wasn’t sure how much more she could take.
“I’d come home, and Harris would be there. He would stay for dinner or a movie; he’d just be hanging out, helping you with the dishes, talking, laughing, playing . . . and I was back to being the third wheel. The Ice Man who just didn’t get you guys.”
Her jaw dropped at that, and she stared at him, feeling sick to her stomach as she finally began to get an inkling of what this was leading up to.
“When you told me you were pregnant—”
“No,” she said, her voice quiet but vehement as she tried to stop what she knew was coming. Because if he said it, then nothing would ever be the same again.
“When you told me you were pregnant,” he repeated doggedly, “I felt such anger and resentment and absolute hatred. I felt betrayed by the two people—”
“No, Greyson. Don’t you say it! Don’t you dare say it.”
“I’m sorry, Olivia,” he said miserably, for once apologizing for the right thing. But the affront was so completely unforgivable that his apology made absolutely no difference. “I’m so sorry.”
“Harris?” she said, her voice thick with tears. “You thought Harris and I . . . ?”
“It was the only thing that made sense to me. I didn’t want to believe it. I told myself it couldn’t be true. But I couldn’t imagine who else it could be. And then the birthmark seemed to confirm . . .”
“Oh my God,” Libby moaned, her hand going to her mouth as the tiny bite of scallop she had swallowed threatened to come back up. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Olivia . . . I hate myself.”
The words—soft, fervent, and heartfelt—made it so much worse, and the tears she had been holding at bay for the last few minutes finally overflowed to forge scalding paths down her cheeks.
“Not as much as I hate you right now, Greyson,” she promised on a heated whisper. “Nowhere near as much as that.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I can’t,” she panted, her hand going to her chest as she fought for breath, “I can’t breathe. How could you think such a vile, despicable thing? I mean, thinking I cheated was bad enough, but with Harris? With your own brother? I can’t comprehend the level of distrust and . . .” She couldn’t complete the thought. There were literally no words to describe how she felt right now.
“I didn’t want to believe it.”
“Oh, well, that makes it all better, then, doesn’t it?” She shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose in an attempt to ward off the headache that was starting to form.
“I was tearing myself apart, imagining . . . believing . . .”
“Stop.” She held up a hand to halt whatever horrible thing he’d been about to spew forth next. “I’d rather not have whatever the hell it was you’d imagined or believed imprinted in my brain. What I already have to deal with is bad enough.”
He sat quietly while she gathered herself, thankfully not offering up any further excuses.
“So why did you decide you were wrong about . . . about that?” she finally asked. “You didn’t have a paternity test, and you no longer think you’re infertile. Why is that?”
“Harris. He reminded me that he’d had mumps too. And the doctor had given him the same diagnosis. He pointed out that if I believed he was the father, then that meant I had to believe that the doctor was wrong. And it naturally follows that if the doctor could be wrong about him, then . . .” He shook his head, not needing to complete the sentence. But Libby was more horrified by the revelation that Harris had known about this all along.
“Oh my God, Harris knows about your disgusting suspicions? Why didn’t he tell me?” She wasn’t sure how she felt about Harris keeping this from her.
“You can’t blame him for that—he urged me to come clean. He felt that this would have to come from me. He . . . he felt the same way you do. I hurt him. I hurt you both so much, and I . . . well, there’s no coming back from this, is there?” He said the last with a bitter smile, his eyes falling to the envelope between them.
Libby dropped her palm onto the envelope, and she dragged it toward her.
“Nothing has changed,” she affirmed. “This merely reinforces the need for a divorce.” She laughed, the sound dark with bitterness and anger. “What’s that saying? ‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure’? Well, proverbs exist for a reason, I suppose. Yet people just continue to make the same stupid mistakes over and over again.”
She picked the envelope up and slipped it into Clara’s nappy bag and then nearly laughed again. Right back where it had started. Those papers had been in that bag for so long before she’d finally handed them to him. It was kind of funny that they now found themselves tucked back in with the nappies.
She was focusing on silly little details to avoid thinking about what Greyson had just told her. She didn’t know why, but being accused of cheating with Harris felt like a bigger betrayal than his initial accusation. It was so beyond messed up . . . the level of distrust was much worse than she’d believed. And maybe she shouldn’t allow it to affect her so much, not when she had already made up her mind that their marriage was over. But this . . . there was no hope for an amicable relationship after this. They would be strangers raising a child together. And she had wanted more for them.
For Clara.
“I thought I was in love with you.” She blurted out the words before she could stop herself, and he raised his wretched gaze to hers. He looked completely desolate, but she couldn’t allow that to affect her. She wanted him to know this, wanted him to understand what he had destroyed with his distrust and his cruelty. “You wanted to know why I married you? That’s why. I’d always liked you. You know that. But after those two months, those crazy, happy whirlwind months . . . even though you still kept yourself apart from me, even though I knew you didn’t feel the same way, I was in love with you. I thought . . . perhaps . . . with time . . .”
Her voice wobbled as a sob built, and she clapped her hand over her mouth in an attempt to hold back the anguished sound she was almost sure she would make if she continued to speak. Tears brimmed and overflowed, scalding their way down her cheeks and beneath her fingers.
His face twisted, and his own eyes gleamed.
“Olivia. Please . . . I’m so . . .” He shook his head, and the movement dislodged a tear. A gleaming droplet that tracked down his lean cheek. Libby’s eyes followed it, watching in fascination as it reached the rigid line of his jaw, where it teetered stoically, on the brink of falling. He impatiently rubbed his chin against his shoulder, ruthlessly obliterating the teardrop. And Libby blinked, the destruction of that single perfect teardrop bringing her back to the present with a jolt.
“For weeks,” Greyson was saying, his voice sounding rough and distraught, “I’ve been trying to find the right words. The proper combination of sounds that would make you forgive me, that would make up for what I said and did. But those words don’t exist. And nothing I could possibly come up with will ever make up for the things I’ve said and done. How could I apologize when the words are too small, too insignificant, to ever properly communicate my regret and my absolute self-loathing? The only words I have to work with are I’m sorry . . . and they’re so fucking inadequate.”