was a note in his deep voice that tugged at her heart strings before she pulled herself together. If she gave in and allowed her emotions free rein then she would regret it. She had to focus on the facts, highlight them in neon-bright letters so she would never forget them. Callum had left her. He had left her because he hadn’t loved her any more. He had been so desperate to be rid of her that he hadn’t even contacted her when she had written to tell him that she was pregnant. He could apologise all he liked, but it wouldn’t change anything.
‘It’s too late for apologies, Callum. I’m not interested. The only thing I want to know is what you’re doing here.’
‘Surely that’s obvious,’ he shot back. ‘I came to see you and the baby.’
‘I see. And it’s taken you—what?—over a year to get round to it?’ She gave a little laugh, hoping he couldn’t hear the bitterness it held. There must be no displays of emotion, no hint of any feelings that might make him think that she still cared. ‘You didn’t exactly rush to get here, did you? But there again, I doubt if Beatrix and I were your number one priority—’
‘Beatrix? You mean that we have a daughter?’
‘Yes,’ Beth replied curtly, closing her mind to the shock she could hear in his voice. If she refused to admit to her own feelings then she certainly didn’t want to wonder how Callum felt!
Callum felt his head reel. Ever since he had read Beth’s letter he had wondered about the sex of their baby. To be honest, it had been difficult to believe that he was finally about to become a father after everything they had been through, yet all of a sudden finding out that they had a little girl made it seem real. His breath caught as he was swamped by a whole host of emotions ranging from shock to sheer elation. He had a daughter. A little girl called Beatrix. The thought seemed to rock his whole world so that it was hard to speak. ‘H-how old is she?’
‘Almost ten months,’ Beth replied tightly. ‘Although if you hadn’t been so busy saving the world then you wouldn’t need to ask that, Callum.’
‘That isn’t true!’ He ran his hands through his thick dark brown hair, feeling them trembling as he tried to picture what Beatrix looked like. Was she dark like him or fair like Beth? It was impossible to guess and before he could ask, Beth carried on.
‘Oh, I think it is true, but you just don’t want to admit it.’ She stared back at him, unwilling to give him the benefit of the doubt. Even though he understood why she refused to accept that he was telling the truth, it still hurt. ‘If you’d cared back then, you would have contacted me. Even a text message would have been better than nothing, but you couldn’t even spare the time for that. The fact that I was expecting our child meant nothing to you, did it, Callum?’
‘Of course it did!’ He grasped hold of her hands, his fingers biting into hers as he willed her to believe him. ‘It was what we’d wanted for so long, Beth. What we’d struggled to achieve...’
He broke off, obviously recalling what a struggle it had been, Beth thought sadly. She had always wanted a family. Coming from a close and loving family herself, she had never even considered the idea that conceiving a child of her own might prove to be a problem. With two older sisters, who both had children, she had simply assumed that she would have them too. However, as the months had passed, and she had failed to get pregnant, it had seemed increasingly unlikely that she would ever achieve her dream of becoming a mother.
Callum had never been as keen on the idea of them having a child, however. Although he had gone along with her desire to have a baby, she knew it had been more to please her than out of a genuine need to have a family of his own. She had told herself that it didn’t matter, that he would love their child every bit as much as she did when it arrived. She had been so sure it was the right thing for them to do that she had set aside her doubts when the consultant had suggested they try fertility treatment.
Had she been wrong to do so? she wondered suddenly. Wrong to force him into a course of action that he had been reluctant to take? There was no doubt that the strain of keeping to the gruelling regime had put intense pressure on their relationship. Lovemaking had changed from being an expression of their feelings for each other to a duty, passion no longer dictated by their mutual desire but by the readings on a thermometer.
Was it any wonder that Callum had resented it? That they had argued? With the benefit of hindsight, Beth could see that there had been faults on both sides, but it didn’t alter the fact that it had been Callum who had called a halt, Callum who had decided that he didn’t want to be with her any more, Callum who had asked her for a divorce. If he had loved her, really loved her, then he would never have left her. He would have stayed.
CALLUM COULD FEEL his insides quivering. First there was the shock of thinking that Beth was getting married again and now this. Her hostility was palpable even though he could tell that she was doing her best not to show how angry she felt. That in itself hurt because she had never hidden her feelings before. Whatever Beth had felt, she had been completely open about it.
When she had fallen in love with him, she hadn’t tried to hide it, the same as she hadn’t tried to hide her distress when their marriage had ended. To know that he was responsible for such a change in her was incredibly painful but he couldn’t allow himself to be sidetracked. He had come here for a specific purpose and he had to focus on that. Beth wasn’t going to believe a word he said unless he managed to convince her that he was telling the truth.
‘Look, Beth, I know how it must appear but the situation isn’t as straightforward as you think,’ he began.
‘Save it, Callum. I’ve already told you that I’m not interested.’ Her tone was cold, indifferent even, and something inside him died a little. Even anger was preferable to this total lack of interest. ‘You’ve had months to contact me and never bothered. So why should I listen to you now just because you’ve suddenly decided it’s time we talked?’
‘Because you don’t understand!’
He let go of her hands, feeling the pain of her rejection biting deep into his soul. Heaven knew, he had enough experience of being rejected to recognise it. His parents had never really wanted him. They had both been high-flyers, dedicated to their work, and his unscheduled arrival had been viewed as a disruption to their busy lives.
He had been brought up by a succession of nannies until he was old enough to be sent away to boarding school. Holidays had been a nightmare; both his mother and his father had made it clear that they resented having to waste time entertaining him. It had been a relief to them all when he had been old enough to go away on his own. Skiing trips, diving holidays—he’d done the lot and enjoyed them too. At least he hadn’t felt like a burden. People were being paid to look after him and that made it easier.
The ties had been completely severed by the time he went to university. Apart from the obligatory birthday and Christmas cards, he had no contact with them these days. He didn’t miss them; it was impossible to miss something he had never had.
However, they had taught him a valuable lesson, which was that no one should have a child unless they were prepared to put it first. That was why he’d had reservations when Beth had suggested they should have a baby. He had been afraid that he wouldn’t measure up as a parent, that the genes he had inherited would affect his ability to be a proper father to their child, but he had allowed himself to be persuaded because it was what Beth had wanted so desperately.
Would
