seared his cheeks.
You broke her heart.
You never told her why.
You deserve to suffer for what you did.
And he had suffered. Hadn’t he?
If only she knew how much he longed to go back and change what happened. If only she knew how much he’d hated himself for walking away, knowing what it would do to her but unable to explain why. If only she knew of how many nights he’d lain awake, thinking of how he could put right that wrong...
But how to explain? It was easy to imagine saying it, but actually having her here, right in front of him... All those things he wanted to say just stuck in his throat. She’d think they were excuses. Not good enough. Was she even in the right frame of mind to want to talk to him?
Beau had turned her back. Begun talking to another hiker. Claire, he thought she’d said her name was.
He took a hesitant step forward, then stopped, his throat feeling tight and painful. He wouldn’t be able to speak right now if he tried. She clearly wanted nothing to do with him. She was ignoring him. Spurning him.
I deserve it.
Other people in the room were milling about. Mixing, being friendly. Introducing themselves to each other. Gray allowed himself to fall into the crowd. Tried to join in. But his gaze kept tracking back to her.
She still looked amazing. Her beautiful red hair was a little longer than he recalled, wavier, too. She’d lost some weight. There were angles now where once there’d been curves, and the lines around her eyes spoke of strain and stress rather than laughter.
Was she happy in life? He hoped that she was. He knew she was successful. Her name had been mentioned in a few case meetings at work. He’d even suggested her once for a family member of an old patient. His own work in cardiology didn’t often give him reason to work with neurology, but he’d kept his ears open in regard to her. Keen to know that she was doing okay.
And she was. Though she had to have worked hard to have got where she had. So had he.
He watched from a distance as she mingled with the others, placing himself in direct opposition to her as she moved. The room was a mass of backpacks, hiking boots, men slapping each other on the back or heartily shaking each other’s hands as they listed their posts and achievements to each other. Two women at the back of the room sat next to each other, their backpacks on the floor as they sipped at steaming cardboard cups. The last taste of civilisation before they hit the wilds of America.
But all Gray could concentrate on now was Beau. And his own overwhelming feelings of regret.
Would simple words of apology be enough?
Would telling her about the many times he’d picked up the phone and dialled her number even be adequate? Considering that he’d never followed through? He had always cancelled the call before she’d had a chance to answer. And all the emails he had sitting in his ‘Drafts’ folder, addressed to her, in which he’d struggled and failed each time to find the right words... The times he’d booked to go to the same medical conference as her, hoping to ‘accidentally’ bump into her, but had then cancelled...
She’d just call me a coward. She’d be right.
He had been afraid. Afraid of stirring up old hurts. Afraid of making things worse. Afraid of hurting her more than he already had...
Time had kept passing. And with each and every day that came and went, it had become more and more difficult to make that contact.
What would have been the point? He could hardly expect forgiveness. Or reconciliation. An apology would mean nothing now. He’d broken things so irrevocably between them. How could he fix them now? He had nothing to offer her. Not then and certainly not now. He was broken himself. And even though he’d known that, years ago, he’d still asked her to marry him! He’d forgotten himself and what he actually was in the madness of a moment when he’d felt so happy. He’d believed anything was possible—got carried away on the possibility of love.
But he didn’t expect her to understand that. They’d come from two separate worlds and she’d known nothing of his family life. Of what it was like. He’d deliberately kept her away from his poisonous family. Kept her at a safe distance because she was so pure, so joyful, so full of life, believing in happy-ever-after.
She still wasn’t married. And that puzzled him. It had been all she’d ever wanted back then. Marriage. And children. It was what she had thought would complete her. After all, she’d said yes to his proposal and then just weeks later had started talking about children.
That was too much. That smacked the reality right back into me.
That was when the full force of not having thought through what he’d done had come to the fore. That was when he’d realised he couldn’t go through with it.
For a man who was an expert in hearts, he’d sure been careless with hers.
And it had almost killed him to know that he was doing it.
* * *
The tea wasn’t great. But she kept sipping it, swapping hands as the heat from the boiling hot water burned through the thin cardboard cup.
She was beginning to get over the shock and was now feeling calmer. She could even picture in her mind’s eye dealing with him quite calmly and nonchalantly if he decided to speak to her. She’d be cool, uninterested, dismissive.
That would hurt him.
Because Gray liked to be the centre of attention, didn’t he? That was why he’d done all that crazy adrenaline-junkie stuff. He’d passed it off as doing something for charity, but even then he’d wanted people to notice him, to say he was amazing or brave. That was why he’d done Ironman competitions, bungee jumps, climbed mountains and jumped out of planes. With a parachute, unfortunately.
He had always succeeded. People had always clapped him on the back and told him he was a great guy and he’d thrived on that. Had lived for that, doing more crazy things despite her always begging him not to. Had he listened? No.
So her ignoring him? Choosing not to notice him? That would have to sting a little.
Gray was an attractive man. Usually the most attractive man in a room. And he wasn’t just a pretty face, but a brilliant cardiologist, too—getting his papers published in the most prestigious medical journals, trying out new award-winning surgeries, being the toast of the town.
He could at least have had the decency to fail at something.
And not once had he called, or apologised, or explained. Even his family hadn’t had a clue—not that they’d spoken much to her. Even before the wedding. Perhaps that had been a clue?
Beau risked a quick glance at him, feeling all the old hurts, all the old pains, all the grief that she’d tried so unsuccessfully to pack away come pouring out as if they’d had the bandages ripped from them, exposing her sore, festering wounds.
She swallowed hard and looked away.
I will not let him see what he’s doing to me!
A rage she had
