Sure, he had loved Tabitha, about a million years ago now in a starry-eyed kind of way. But what he felt for Maddy bore no resemblance to his long-ago feelings for his ex-wife. He wasn’t a kid playing at grown-ups, as he had been with Tab. He was a grown-up, with a grown-up love so deep and so enormous it had caught him unawares. He couldn’t think how his life was going to be without Madeline.
He just couldn’t contemplate it.
Yes, things were really complicated right now with Tab and the baby, but he had to make it work, he just had to. There had to be a way to be a father to the baby and keep Maddy as well. It had taken him till he was thirty-five to finally fall in love and he wasn’t going to lose it now.
He unlocked his phone keypad again and decided to send her a text. He tapped out the words I love you and then hesitated and deleted them. Why would she believe him now? His one chance to tell her had come and gone. It would just seem like a desperate move by a cornered male. He would tell her, but he was going to do it face to face. So she could look into his face and see his love.
So she would know. So there wouldn’t be any doubt.
He tapped out Ring me and hit the send button. He wanted to hurl the ominously silent phone across the room. He wanted to go and get Tabitha out of his bed, put her on a plane and never see her again. He wanted to go back in time and erase that one thoughtless act.
He cursed himself for his own stupidity as he thought back to that day. He had called round to see her to say goodbye on the eve of his departure to Queensland. They’d chatted and she told him about her split from Tony a few weeks previously and he remembered being surprised because he’d really thought she and Tony belonged together.
They’d had a beer and a laugh and it had been like old times. Good times. He’d remembered what he had seen in her all those years ago. And she had kissed him and looked at him with those big eyes and said she couldn’t believe he was truly leaving and it was like they were saying their final goodbyes.
Finally bringing a close to their relationship.
And they’d both been single and it had seemed fitting somehow. But it hadn’t seemed so fitting the next morning and they’d both agreed it had been a little foolish.
But their indiscretion had come back to haunt them well and truly. Maddy had looked at him with questioning eyes and the denial that had sprung to his lips had died an instant death. His mind had crowded with questions as he’d stood mutely trying to comprehend Tab’s news but he believed her - Tab wasn’t manipulative, nor was she a liar.
And then Maddy had left and the enormity of what he’d lost had hit him. Tabitha had tried to talk to him but despite the hundreds of question crowding his mind, Marcus had been so angry he’d known he couldn’t get into it tonight. Angry at himself that a moment of weakness and stupidity had led to far reaching consequences - for two women.
Angry that he’d hurt the woman he loved.
‘It’s late, Tab,’ he’d said. ‘We’ll discuss it in the morning. Have my bed.’ Then he’d gone to the linen cupboard pulled out clean sheets, thrust them at her, taken a pillow down for himself and stormed off to the couch, flicking off the light switch as he passed.
And here he lay, his pregnant ex-wife in his bed and the woman he loved gone, refusing to take his calls. He felt impotent and furious at himself and Tabitha for the position they were now in.
Marcus looked at the time on his mobile. Two a.m. Rolling on his side, he punched his pillow, squeezing his eyes shut as the heat of anger burned in his chest. He really needed to get some sleep — tomorrow was going to be harrowing. He and Tabitha had to talk and for that he was going to need all his wits. He forced himself to employ the meditation techniques he extolled with his clients and forget that for the first day in six weeks he’d be waking up without Maddy.
***
There were four missed calls and three texts on Madeline’s mobile the next morning when she switched it back on. Marcus. She told herself she wasn’t going to listen to them, her finger even hovered over the delete button, but a masochistic streak had her dialling her message bank just to hear his voice.
‘Maddy, please, Maddy, I’m so sorry. Please, switch your phone back on. Please.’
He sounded bleak and she knew how he felt. It felt like winter inside her again — cold and barren. The warm place inside that he had thawed only a handful of weeks ago snap frozen in a thick block of ice. Had it only been last night she had confessed her feelings?
With a sleepless night behind her and her love in tatters, it felt like an age ago.
An ice age.
At least his voice hadn’t been condescending. He hadn’t glibly said he could explain or that there’d been a mistake or dismissed what had happened as nothing. His voice told her how serious the situation was. And she couldn’t believe that the happiest six weeks of her life had ended so abruptly.
The questions that had circled her brain endlessly continued. When Tabitha had laid her trump card down she had looked at Marcus, waiting for the denial, waiting for him to dispute what she was saying. But she had seen it in his eyes. The truth. Tabitha’s baby was his baby.
And now she was in love with someone who was having a child with another woman. Someone who would be
