suffered enough. Tomorrow. The next day.’
‘And if tomorrow is too late?’
She looked up, all colour had been leached from her face but she was still holding everything in. There were no tears, no outward display of anger. Coming from a family where emotion was repressed to the point of destruction, it had never occurred to him to wonder before at the way she held everything tight within herself-only to be grateful that she didn’t indulge in tears and hysterics.
Now he understood where that restraint came from he would have welcomed a little hysteria, would have been glad to see the dam break, tears flow.
‘She’s so thin, Ivo…’ He waited, hoping she’d let it all out. ‘If I could just have given her something to eat. She needs care. Looking after. I don’t have the first clue about where to find her.’
‘What exactly do you know, Belle?’ Then, because she was famous and wealthy and there were people out there who would use any vulnerability to take advantage of her, to cheat her, ‘Are you even sure she’s the girl you’re looking for?’
‘She had my letter. She’d registered with the adoption search agency and I wrote to her. How else would she know where to find me? My phone number…’
‘You believed that was her calling, didn’t you? The hang-ups?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose so. At least I hoped…’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he said, rescuing the mug, placing it on a low table before moving to her side, encouraging her to lean into him, offering his own warmth as comfort. Doing his best not to think about the softness of her hair against his cheek, her scent seeping into his head, a yearning to draw her close and never let her out of his arms again. This was not about him.
This was about the woman he would do anything for. A woman who brightened every room with her presence. A woman he…loved. The word slipped into his mind, filling a vast empty space.
Belle, exhausted, let her head rest against Ivo’s chest. Just for a minute. While she gathered herself.
He’d been so strange tonight. Loving, caring, awful. All mixed up. Like her. There had been that moment when she’d been so angry with Daisy for wanting her father. Proud of her when she’d challenged Ivo. Five thousand pounds? What was all that about?
‘How many letters did you write?’ he asked.
She caught a yawn. ‘Letters? To Daisy? Just one.’
‘I’m not talking about how many you sent. How many did you write?’
‘Oh, I see. A few,’ she admitted, remembering all the drafts.
‘And what did you do with them? Have you got a shredder here? Or did you put them into the rubbish where anyone could find them?’
‘No…’ Then, ‘No!’
Not ‘no’ to the questions, but ‘no’ to what the question implied. That this was a set-up, that someone had been through her trash, had found one of the drafts and was using it.
Ivo tightened his arm around Belle’s shoulder as she pulled away, recognising in that cry of anguish a need that he couldn’t fulfil.
All he could do was hold her, say, ‘I know.’ Be there for her. ‘I know what you hoped for,’ he said as her head fell back against his shoulder. ‘It took me a while, but I knew there was something bothering you. Something that you didn’t think you could share with me…My fault, not yours,’ he said quickly. ‘Then, when I remembered that you were searching for adoption websites, it all fell into place…’
‘Ivo-’
‘Tonight,’ he said, before she could deny it, ‘when I told you that someone had collapsed, you didn’t ask who. You knew. You said “she”. So…’ Her eyes were wide, anxious. ‘So I’m telling you that I know. You had a baby girl. Gave her up for adoption…’
‘Daisy?’ The colour had returned to her cheeks, she’d stopped shivering. ‘You think that I…that she…’
She was finding it so difficult to speak that he said it for her. ‘You’ve been looking for her. Tonight you believed you’ve found her.’
‘Believed?’ A sound, something between a shudder and a sigh, escaped her and she closed her eyes as if to blot out pictures in her head that were too painful to bear.
Dark smudges were imprinted beneath her eyes. How long had it been since she’d slept properly? he wondered. How long had she been searching? Longing? Why hadn’t she come to him, asked him to help?
No, scrub that last question.
This was a marriage without emotional baggage.
They could have just stayed with the hot sex, two individuals who shared a bed, no strings attached. But Belle had wanted security and he’d just wanted her so they’d made a deal, formed a mutually beneficial partnership. Quite possibly the perfect match. They both had got what they’d wanted and, without any of those messy emotions, who was there to get hurt?
Too late to whine when he’d discovered he didn’t like the answer.
‘I know this is not what you want to hear now, but I have to ask if you’re absolutely sure she’s the girl you’re looking for.’
He anticipated an angry reaction, expected her to shout at him, tell him that he didn’t know what he was talking about, but, although her lips parted, the words didn’t make it. She just pulled away from him as if touching him would contaminate her with the same vile suspicions.
It hadn’t even occurred to her to doubt the girl, he realised. She wouldn’t have checked or run any tests.
Maybe that made her a better person than him. It also made her vulnerable, at the mercy of the unscrupulous.
Right now it was more important that she trusted him and he gripped her shoulders, turned her to face him. ‘Look at me, Belle.’
For a moment she resisted.
‘Belle…’
Slowly, reluctantly, she raised her lashes. Her eyes were glistening liquid bronze, but still the tears did not fall.
‘She didn’t want me,’ she said, as if that answered all his questions, all his doubts. ‘It was her father she was looking for, hoping for…’
And that hurt more than he’d believed possible too. That out there somewhere was a man who’d given her what he was unable to-a child. A fool of a man who didn’t know how lucky he was…
‘We’ll find her, Belle. I’ll find her for you. I’ll find him too, if that’s what she wants. If she’s really your daughter…’ And suddenly he was the one having trouble getting the words out. ‘If she’s really your daughter, then that makes her mine too.’
‘No!’ Belle pulled away from him, wrenched herself from his arms. ‘No, Ivo-’
No. Of course not. What kind of fool was he to imagine…? ‘My responsibility, then,’ he said, before she could tell him that it was nothing to do with him. None of his business. Said the words that excluded him for ever.
‘No! Ivo, you’ve got this-’
‘I’ve seen her, Belle. It’s not going to be easy. You’re going to need support. That’s something I can do for you. I can help you both if-’
Her eyes widened a little at that, and this time all she could do was shake her head.
His fault. Exhausted though she was, she’d picked up on his hesitation. That word ‘if’.
But someone had to be responding with their head rather than their heart and it was so much easier for him. He’d never clogged his up with the silt of emotional cholesterol.
Hard though it was, as little as she’d thank him, as her husband, her friend, he was the one who had to lay it on the line for her. Even if she never forgave him. That was what you did for the woman you loved.
‘She doesn’t look much like you,’ he said.
Belle blinked. ‘Oh, I see. Yes, well, it’s true that I haven’t got blue hair.’
‘Or blue eyes,’ he persisted, knowing that she didn’t want to hear this, that she wouldn’t thank him for pressing this. Not now. Maybe later, when she’d had time to think, when her emotions weren’t in a turmoil. ‘It’s not
