Ethan leaned against the bench, needing to keep the distance between them. He shouldn’t be surprised that she’d figured it out. CJ Nicholls was a smart woman. However, the only reason she’d been able to figure it out was because he’d let down his guard—something he’d sworn to himself he would never do. He hadn’t planned to let anyone inside the wall he’d built around his heart and somehow, without him fully realising it, mortar had broken down and bricks had crumbled, releasing light into the cavern...a light in the guise of the woman before him.
He knew she was waiting for him to speak but first he had to deal with that nagging voice from deep within, telling him to just walk out the door, to leave, to snub her. The more he looked at her, seeing the genuine concern in her eyes, hearing the compassion in her tone, he knew if he was ever going to open up to anyone about his past, it would be this woman. She’d been through so much herself, she’d been honest with him from the very beginning and he instinctively knew that whatever he told her, it would be held in the strictest confidence.
‘Abigail was always so organised, so in control. I was working day and night at the hospital and she resented that. At some point we stopped talking and I couldn’t get through to her, so when I wasn’t at the hospital, I was out in the garage with the car.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘She’d always tell me off for spending more time with the car than with her but...’ He swallowed and chose his words carefully. There was no point in hiding from the truth any longer. ‘Restoring the car relaxed me. She didn’t.’ Ethan spread his arms wide, then let them fall back to his sides. ‘I was a bad husband. A bad father to my unborn child.’
‘I doubt you neglected her completely, Ethan.’ CJ’s tone was reassuring.
‘Of course not. I loved her. I loved the thought of her having our child, our little girl. I couldn’t wait to be a dad, to have a family. That’s why I wanted to get the car all done and sorted out so that when the baby came, I would have more free time to spend with both of them.’
‘Tell me more about Abigail.’
His smile was natural. ‘Abigail, as I said, was very self-sufficient, very directed. When we met at university, we became friends for a few years and then...things progressed into more than friends. Abby went into organisation mode. She had everything planned. How long it would take for us to save up and get our first house, where we should get married, when we would start having children. It was all in her clearly thought-out plan—sometimes even with colour-coded charts.’
CJ grinned at that. ‘I admire people like that but that’s probably because I’m so disorganised... Or, as my father used to term it, “creatively chaotic”.’
Ethan walked over and pulled out a chair, sitting down and sighing. ‘And that was my major mistake with Abby. I let her organise, I was happy to be organised. I thought that if she had worries or concerns, especially about the pregnancy, that she would tell me but she didn’t. When she was getting angry with me for always being in the garage when I wasn’t at the hospital, that was her cry for help. She didn’t come out and say directly, I’m scared, I’m worried, I don’t feel well. Instead, she just read book after book, scouring the internet, looking up different symptoms and trying to figure things out herself.’
‘She wasn’t a doctor?’
Ethan shook his head. ‘No. Abigail did one year of nursing at university and changed majors to accounting.’
‘That’s a big change.’
‘She was an academic at heart. Did her honours, her master’s degree and finished her doctorate during the pregnancy. I was so proud of her. Order. Structure. Purpose.’
‘You clearly loved her very much.’
‘I did. I do. I always will.’ Ethan tilted his head back and closed his eyes. ‘But she’s not here. She had swelling at the ankles, her blood pressure was up. She didn’t want to worry me. That’s what she said to me when we were in the ambulance, heading to the hospital. “I didn’t want to worry you as I know you’ve been hectic at work.” I felt so guilty. I still do.’ He dragged in a deep breath, then opened his eyes and looked at CJ. ‘Why didn’t she tell me? I could have helped her. Why was she so scared that she couldn’t tell me?’
‘Ethan, you can’t blame yourself. Even in today’s world, with all the medical advancements we’ve made, things still go wrong.’ CJ reached out her hand to him but he didn’t take it. Couldn’t. There was still something he had to tell her, something he hadn’t told anyone, something only he and the staff in the room at the hospital where his baby girl had been born knew. He clenched his jaw and sniffed as he felt tears begin to threaten. Not only were they tears of grief but also tears of anger.
‘Babies sometimes don’t make it through childbirth, especially with something like eclampsia,’ CJ continued.
‘And birth defects.’ The words were out before he could stop them and he sniffed once more.
‘What?’ The word was barely audible and she sat back up, her hand sliding from the table to rest protectively on her own child.
‘My little girl...’ No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the tears started to trickle down his cheeks. ‘Ellie—my little Ellie—she was...she had...’ He pursed his lips and accepted the clean tissue CJ fished from the pocket of her dressing gown. He dabbed at his eyes, then blew his nose.
‘Abigail had been drinking. I’d had no idea. None whatsoever. She’d
