be able to live with himself if he didn’t tell her the truth. There’d been enough half-truths in the past and he refused to let them spill over into the present.
‘No. One of your friends at the Royal Memorial told me that you’d got a job on board this ship when I went up there to see you. She wasn’t sure when the Esmeralda actually set sail but she gave me the name of the agency who’d hired you so I could check with them.’ He shrugged. ‘To cut a long story short, I phoned them and during the course of the conversation they mentioned they were looking for someone to replace Dr Hampson so I offered my services.’
‘This just doesn’t make sense!’
She shook her head so that the spiky wisps of blonde hair shimmered as they caught the glow from the overhead light. Liam’s hands clenched again but this time because he had an almost irresistible urge to run his fingers through that silky halo. All of a sudden he could remember with alarming clarity just how soft her hair had always felt, how wonderful it had smelled when he’d woken each morning and taken her in his arms…
‘You seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to track me down, Liam, but surely it must have occurred to you that you were the last person I would want to work with? I would have thought I’d be the last person on your list, too, so what is going on? Why did you really take this job? If it was your idea of a…a joke then I have to say that I don’t find it the least bit funny!’
Liam dragged his mind back from such nonsensical thoughts when he heard the fury in her voice. ‘I didn’t do it as a joke, Sophie. Far from it. I realised a couple of months ago that we needed to talk to one another. There are a lot of things we need to sort out so when I found out there was a job going on board the Esmeralda, it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this!’ She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. ‘It’s two years since our divorce, Liam, and not once in all that time did you make any attempt to talk to me. You didn’t make much of an effort before that either, so why have you suddenly decided that it’s time we sorted things out?’
‘Because it might be two years but I haven’t come to terms with what happened even if you have!’
All of a sudden Liam could feel his own anger igniting. He took a couple of steps, which were all it needed to cross the cabin. He stared down into her angry blue eyes, feeling the pain welling inside him as the memory of all the hurtful things they’d said to one another came rushing back.
Sophie should have trusted him! She should have had enough faith in him to know that he would never have had an affair!
‘What happened between us left scars, Sophie, and I’m not too proud to admit that either. The only way we can rid ourselves of them is by talking it all through and getting the truth out into the open at last.’
‘You want the truth, do you?’ She laughed shrilly. ‘Well, the truth is that I don’t give a damn about what happened in the past. It’s over and done with, and all I’m interested in now is the future.’
‘So you’ve put it all behind you, have you? Every single thing that happened no longer means anything to you?’
He couldn’t keep the bite out of his voice and he saw her flinch. When she went to push past him he caught hold of her arm and made her stop.
‘Maybe you’ve erased me from your memory, Sophie, but can you honestly say that you’ve forgotten our child?’
His fingers tightened as grief suddenly overwhelmed him. ‘Look me in the eyes and tell me that you’ve forgotten about Zoë and then I’ll believe you when you say that we have nothing to talk about!’
‘DAMN you, Liam! Damn you to hell for doing this!’
Sophie’s voice broke on a sob and Liam felt his anger drain away when he saw tears streaming down her face. He already had hold of her so it was the easiest thing in the world to pull her into his arms and cradle her against him.
She felt so small and fragile that he was terrified of hurting her if he held her too tightly, yet he needed to hold onto something as all the pent-up emotion suddenly spilled from him. Two years ago he’d been too numb with grief to cry but now he couldn’t hold back his tears as the memories came flooding back.
Sophie had been six months pregnant when a routine check-up had shown problems with their baby’s development. The placenta had become detached from the wall of the uterus, depriving the unborn child of vital nutrients and oxygen. A decision had been taken to deliver the baby and Sophie had been rushed to Theatre for an emergency Caesarean section.
It had been a little girl and Liam could still recall how perfect she had been when the doctor had placed her in his arms for a few, precious seconds before she’d been taken to the intensive care unit. They had called her Zoë and she had lived for just one week before her tiny body had given up the struggle for survival.
Sophie had been inconsolable afterwards and he simply hadn’t known how to comfort her. It had broken his heart to see how devastated she’d been so that he’d found himself staying later and later at work to avoid going home. And then one fateful night, a few months after Zoë had died, his own grief had caught up with him.
He’d gone out after work and, for the first time in his life, he’d got so drunk that he hadn’t known what he’d been doing. If it hadn’t been for one of the nurses taking him back to her flat, he would have spent the night on the streets. He’d been so ashamed afterwards that he’d let Sophie think that he’d spent the night at work but, somehow, the story had got out about him spending the night at Amanda’s flat and Sophie had accused him of having an affair…
‘Let me go.’
Liam jumped when he heard the steely note in her voice. He quickly released her and ran his hands over his face to wipe away his tears. Sophie had her back to him but he could tell that she was struggling to regain her composure. He touched her lightly on the shoulder, wanting to comfort her in some way, but she shrugged off his hand.
‘Don’t!’
Liam dug his hands into the pockets of his towelling robe. It hurt to know how much she hated having him touch her, but what had he expected? The days when she would have melted into his arms were long gone and too much had happened since to recapture the magic they’d once known.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked gruffly, trying not to dwell on how painful he found that thought. He wanted to lay the past to rest, not rekindle the embers of a dead love affair, he reminded himself sternly. It was the reason why he’d been so anxious to see Sophie again. It had become increasingly clear in the past few months that he would never be able to get on with his life until they had sorted out the mistakes they’d made, although the likelihood of them sorting anything out seemed non-existent at the moment.
‘I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. There’s no need.’
She headed for the door but Liam knew that he couldn’t just let her walk away without trying to smooth things over. Maybe his plan hadn’t gone as he’d hoped it would but they were going to have to work together in the coming weeks so they at least needed to behave in a civilised manner with one another.
‘Look, Sophie, I apologise. Maybe this was a lousy idea but
