her fear increased tenfold, and she shivered as a chill raced up her spine.
“Dominic, what is it?” she asked apprehensively.
“In the letter you left me you begged me for my forgiveness for killing our baby,” he murmured gently his eyes intent on her wary gaze, refusing to let her look away from his serious expression. “I had to find you to tell you that you didn’t kill our baby Rebecca. Your miscarriage was nature’s way of righting itself.”
“What are you talking about?” Rebecca cried in despair, his hold tightening on her hands when she attempted to pull them free. “I caused the miscarriage with all the swimming and diving I did that day.”
“No, Rebecca, you did not,” he stated emphatically, his eyes fastened onto her bewildered expression. “The baby was not in the womb where it should have been. Nature made a mistake, and your miscarriage was nature’s way of fixing its error.”
A tear trickled slowly down her cheek quickly followed by another and his heart ached for the pain and anguish she was suffering at that moment.
“Please don’t call him an it,” she begged tearfully. “He was our child Dominic. We created him.”
Tears sprang into his eyes and his hold tightened on her trembling hands. He would give everything he owned in the world to ease her suffering, but he knew she had to be told the true circumstances of her miscarriage. Only then could she begin the healing process.
“Rebecca if the pregnancy had continued you would have died.” A shudder of remembered fear shook his body. “You almost did anyway.” He tightened his hold to emphasize what he was telling her now. “The doctors would have aborted the pregnancy in any case.”
For several moments she gazed at him in silence knowing in her heart that he was telling her the truth.
Dominic had promised her once that he would never lie to her and he had always kept his word. At times, he had answered her questions truthfully when she would have preferred him to lie.
“Why didn’t the doctor tell me all this?” she asked, her brows creased in a puzzled frown. “Why did he let me think I had done it?”
Dominic sighed in despair. “You had been through the trauma of the miscarriage. He decided to let you rest for the night.” He squeezed her hands in a comforting gesture. “But he planned to explain it all to you the following morning.”
Rebecca slumped back in the chair as an enormous feeling of relief surged through her body until it consumed her totally.
She felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted off her shoulders as the guilt she had felt for the past five years slowly began to dissipate.
But her relief was bittersweet. If she had not run away from the hospital that night, she would have known five years ago that she had not killed her baby.
“For five years I have lived with the thought that I was a murderer,” she cried in distress her tears falling steadily onto their linked hands.
Dominic rose to his feet, pulling her up with him and enfolding her in his arms. He pressed her cheek against his chest rubbing his hands over her back in a soothing gesture.
“Hush. Please don’t cry. It breaks my heart,” he murmured softly.
He held her in his arms murmuring comforting words in her ear as she cried away all the guilt and remorse she had felt for the loss of their baby.
Dominic knew how her emotions were tearing her apart inside at that moment. He had gone through his own painful hell for the loss of their baby and the disappearance of his wife as he sat on a hospital bed reading her Dear John letter.
As the minutes ticked slowly by, he began to consciously become aware that it was Becky he was holding so closely in his arms and his body was reacting to her nearness.
A hot tide of desire surged through his body as his hands slid up and down her sides and across her back. He closed his eyes and savored the sensation of her warm body pressed against his from chest to thigh and no matter how strong his willpower was, he could not prevent himself from becoming aroused by the smell and feel of her desirable body.
“You can let me go now,” Rebecca murmured eventually.
“Never as long as I draw breath,” he stated fiercely his arms tightening around her slim frame. “I have ached for this for so long Becky.”
Becky! Rebecca stiffened.
This was what she had feared, Rebecca groaned silently. Dominic trying to revive the past. She had to make him understand that the young girl named Becky did not exist anymore, that she was a different person to the girl he had married.
Desperately, she wriggled her body, and he heaved a resigned sigh, then reluctantly loosened his hold and gazed down at her tear-streaked face. Her makeup had run, and she had black tracks down her cheeks.
“You look like a clown.” He smiled slightly as he brushed his fingers down her cheek in a light caress and took a step backward. “I’ll order some coffee while you clean yourself up.”
Rebecca did not move. She silently reminded herself that she had to give him time to adjust to this new situation, but she was determined to have him behave differently toward her now than how he used to in the past.
Becky would have obeyed his order without question and would now be hurrying toward the washroom. Well, she was not going to docilely do as she was told.
Determination flashed in her eyes as she raised her right eyebrow. “Are you giving me an order Dominic?”
For a moment Dominic was puzzled by her question then he realized she was objecting to his suggestion that she might like to tidy herself up and it surprised the hell out of him.
“No Ma’am,” he drawled mockingly. “I wouldn’t dare.”
Rebecca threw him a disgusted glare. “Oh, very droll. I’m laughing myself into hysterics.”
Retrieving her handbag, she crossed to the washroom and closed the door.
Dominic frowned as he watched her walking away from him. He had noticed her reaction to his calling her Becky and was puzzled by it as he had always referred to her by that name, but he decided not to comment on it.
A feeling of unreality stole over him as he stared at the closed door. He felt as if he was in some macabre world where everything was turned upside down.
For the past five years his arms had ached to hold her so badly at times it had been almost painful, but somehow, when she had been in his arms a few minutes ago it had felt wrong. She had felt wrong. Her hips were more rounded, and she appeared to be more muscular than he remembered.
When he had first met her, she had been gaunt to the point of emaciation. She had steadily gained weight with Aggie cooking her nourishing meals, but she had never been as full-bodied as she was now.
She was his wife. He knew her more intimately than anyone else on this earth, but conversely, he did not know her at all, and the absurdity of that thought was making him question his sanity. It just did not make any sense to him at all.
His
