Page 25 of Unbreak My Heart

“You can’t,” he said, his voice cracking on the last word. His eyes filled with tears, glinting in the early morning light. “No one can.”

He sank to his knees, his head bowed, his hands gripping his thighs hard, his knuckles white with the pressure. Ragged gasps sawed into his lungs. Eva hurried the last few steps to him and sank down beside him, her dress pants not doing much to protect her legs from the sharp bitumen. She touched his shoulder.

“Please, Simon. What’s wrong? I need to know.”

Despair-ridden eyes lifted to hers. Tears coursed down his cheeks. “She’s dead. She’s dead, and it’s my fault.”

His face crumpled as sobs shook his entire body. Eva threw her arms around him and pulled him tight, his head going to her shoulder, his face pressing into her neck. Hot, wet tears streaked her skin.

She’s dead? His wife? Is that who he means?

He clutched at her sides; his hands fisted in the soft linen of her shirt.

“It will be okay, Simon. It really will.”

He shook his head against her skin. “I-if we hadn’t been trying for a goddamn baby, she’d still be alive.” His arms tightened, letting go of her shirt to wrap around her, as if she was all that tethered him to reality. “She was pregnant. A-and she died. It’s my fault,” he rasped.

Eva fought her own rising sadness at seeing him like this, so that she could think clearly.She’d been pregnant?

Sadness and realisation flooded her at the same time and twisted her belly into a tight, hard knot.

He didn’t hate kids. Quite the opposite. He’d been ready to be a father.

But how could he think it was his fault?

“She died in front of me, Eva. Right fucking there! She’d been unwell for a couple of days—you know, cramps—but she changed the doctor’s appointment so she could get a scan. She said she was fine. Then she collapsed in the paddock. She was in so much pain. I called an ambulance, but by the time they got there she was… s-she was gone.”

Eva rubbed his back as her heart broke into tiny pieces for the man falling apart in her arms. Tears ran down her own face, dripping off her chin as she tried to console him. She knew there was nothing she could do, nothing she could say that could ever make it better.

“How?” Her whispered word could barely be heard.

Simon shook his head and sucked in a ragged breath; his voice raw. “Ectopic pregnancy. The baby killed her.”

Eva screwed her eyes shut, the tears coming faster.

Fuck.

She didn’t swear very often, but this was one of the times it was warranted. She hugged his shaking form even tighter. Simon responded by gripping her so tight that he almost seemed a part of her. She tried to control her breathing. It wouldn’t help him if she became a blubbering mess while trying to comfort him.

Placing her cheek to the top of his head, she spoke. “I’m so sorry. I just… I’m sorry.”

Darby had said it was almost a year since his wife had died. Realisation hit hard.

“Simon?”

She waited until he acknowledged her.

“When?” She didn’t need to say anything else. He knew what she meant. Her own heart seemed to stop before he even replied. She suddenly knew what he was about to say.

Simon rasped in a deep, shaky breath.

“A year ago—today.”

Chapter Seven

“Come on. Up.”

Simon scrubbed his face and glanced up at the command in Eva’s voice. She’d stood up and her hand was thrust out in front of her, right in front of his face.

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