Page 179 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

She shook her head and then rose from the table in one abrupt movement. Santos half-rose himself as he watched her walk to the corner of the room, her back to him and her head bowed as she wrapped her arms around herself, as if she had to hold herself together. He felt as if he’d missed a crucial moment of their conversation, an emotional turning point that had happened in a beat of silence when he’d been imagining her naked.

‘Mia,’ he said again, quietly.

‘I can’t do this,’ she whispered, her narrow back to him practically vibrating with tension. ‘I’m sorry. I just... I can’t. I can’t do this.’ She let out a gulping sound that, with a ripple of shock, Santos realised was her holding back a sob.

He straightened and took a step towards her. He wanted to take her in his arms, hold her,comforther, but he had no idea what had just happened and, more importantly,why.

He’d asked her why she thought their marriage couldn’t work. She’d responded by having to hold back sobs. An unease rippled over his skin, clenching his gut. There could only be one reason why Mia was reacting like this, and it was the thing they’d done their utmost not to talk about, backing away every time they’d come close because it hurt too damned much. At least, it had hurt him. He had no idea how Mia felt about it; he didn’t want to know. It was the raw wound that still pulsed with pain and which he’d done his best to ignore. Stupid, really, but sometimes it was the only way to survive...even as he bled out.

‘Mia,’ he said again, and he took another step towards her, close enough so he could rest his hands on her shoulders, feel the warmth of her skin seep through his palms. She tensed beneath his touch but she didn’t move away. Another shudder went through her, and another gulping sob came out before she pressed her fist to her mouth. ‘Mia, talk to me,’ Santos said.

Mia was silent for a long moment, her whole body quivering. Then she shrugged off Santos’s hands, jerking away from him in one abrupt movement. He was still absorbing that as she whirled round and faced him with fury in her eyes.

‘All right, Santos,’ she said in a voice of cold, controlled anger. ‘Why are you so keen to make our marriage work when you believe I murdered our baby?’

CHAPTER FIVE

THELOOKOFblatant shock on Santos’s face would have been comical if it hadn’t hurt so much. He wassurprised—really? After everything that had—and hadn’t—happened between them? She still remembered the agonising moment he’d walked out of her hospital room without a single word and left her there alone to deal with the aftermath, blood, pain and grief. It was something she wasn’t sure she could forgive...just as he couldn’t forgive her for what he’d thought she’d done. What he knew she’d felt.

‘Don’t deny it,’ she told him in a low voice that thrummed with both anger and pain. She felt dangerous all of a sudden, ready to strike, lash,wound. She’d been holding back this anger for months; she hadn’t believed she had the right to be angry, because she’d felt so guilty for what had happened. But now the guilt was gone and all she felt was pure, clean rage.

‘Mia...’ Santos shook his head slowly, spreading his hands wide. ‘I never believed you murdered our baby. Of course I didn’t.’

She let out a hollow laugh. ‘Oh, it’s that obvious to you, is it? Well, trust me, Santos, it wasn’t to me.’ The words came out of her in jagged bursts, splinters that drew blood with every syllable.

Santos frowned, his straight, dark brows drawing together, his eyes flashing darkly with concern and confusion. Even though he seemed disturbed by her accusation, she couldn’t quite assess his response. Was he pretending to be so surprised that she’d thought that? Or had he actually convinced himself that he hadn’t blamed her back then? ‘I never accused you—’ he began.

‘Santos, you didn’t need to.’ The anger was gone, as quick as it had come—just like their infatuation—a spark that had turned into a fire then died out, leaving her only cold and weary. ‘You showed me,’ she told him quietly, ‘With everything you said and did. And with everything youdidn’tsay or do.’ She’d not forgotten the silences, the accusing looks. The way he’d averted his head whenever she’d come into a room, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her. Those two months had been the longest she’d ever known, every day an endurance test, until she’d finally broken—and run.

He was silent for a long moment, his forehead still furrowed. ‘So you are condemning me for thinking something I never even said?’

‘Do you deny it?’ She met his concerned gaze with a challenging one of her own. They’d never, ever spoken about this, as she had backed away from it every single time, but she was actually glad they were having it out now, whatever the result of their conversation. ‘Do you deny it?’ she said again, a statement as well as a demand. ‘Surely now is the time for truth, Santos. If we’re going to talk about what happened, then let’s talk about it—allof it.’

Pain flashed across his face and his gaze briefly dropped from hers before he resolutely returned it to stare her down. ‘All right, we will. But not in anger.’

Of course he would be so level-headed about it all, so emotionless. A memory crashed through her brain of her screaming at him to feel something. He’d replied coolly, ‘You don’t know what I feel.’ And that, Mia thought, had been the problem exactly: he’d never told her. He’d never let her in. She hadn’t been much better; she could acknowledge that now, and would have even then.

But if he’d held her...if he’d made her feel safe...maybe she would have admitted how guilty she felt, how grief-stricken, yet how she feared she didn’t have the right to the emotion. She would have confessed everything she’d buried deep inside, but his chilly silences had possessed the power to hurt her, so she’d shut down, just as he had.

‘I’m not angry,’ she stated as calmly as she could. And she wasn’t, at least not in this moment; she felt too tired for that level of emotional engagement now. ‘But if you’re going to deny basic reality then I’m not sure how far we’ll get.’ All right, maybe she was still a little angry after all, Mia thought. She could feel her hands curling into fists before she wilfully unclenched them. ‘You blamed me, Santos. At least, you acted as if you blamed me, for two whole months.’

He fell silent again, clearly considering his response, staying so even-tempered while she felt as if she could fly apart into a million pieces, scattering to the four winds. ‘I did not blame you for the death of our child,’ he stated finally. He sounded like a lawyer, being so careful with his words. ‘You had a miscarriage, Mia. It could happen to any woman. It wasn’t your fault.’

The words sounded, and felt, robotic and rote. She didn’t believe he meant them, even though it was what the doctor had told them both when they’d been in hospital, having seen the still, lifeless form on the ultrasound—such a little peanut! It had been tiny and curled up, yet with arms, legs, fingers and toes. She’d only been eleven weeks’ pregnant. She hadn’t realised that a baby looked like, well, ababyso early on. She hadn’t let herself think that way; in that moment, with that tiny form so still on the screen, she had.

‘I know I had a miscarriage,’ she replied, trying to keep her tone as even as his. ‘But that doesn’t mean you don’t blame me. Maybe you think I willed the baby to die somehow.’

He made a scoffing sound. ‘Superstition. No, I’d never think something like that. Ididn’t.’

‘Or maybe you think I didn’t do enough to keep it heathy—taken pre-natal vitamins, or rested the way I should have, or cut out caffeine.’ She hadn’t done any of those things. She’d still been adjusting to the utter shock of her pregnancy and Santos’s delight. She’d been afraid, but that wasn’t what Santos had seemed to assume. He’d seemed to think she was selfish, shallow, for not wanting their child, but it had been so much deeper than that.

The tiny, electric pause that followed her statement was all the confirmation she needed to know hehadthought something like that. He’d blamed her for not doing enough. ‘The doctor said those things wouldn’t have made a difference,’ he finally said, his tone cautious, as if he didn’t want to admit it.

‘Did he?’ Mia thought back to that dazed conversation, sitting across from the desk, feeling soempty. She recalled the pamphlet the doctor had pushed across to her that she’d been unable to bear reading. ‘I don’t remember him saying anything like that,’ she said.

The guarded look on Santos’s face, quickly veiled, made understanding flash through Mia like a lightning storm. ‘You asked him, didn’t you?’ she realised aloud. ‘When you were by yourself, after you’d left me. You asked him if the things I did or didn’t do would have made a difference.’ Her words rang out in accusation. Before he spoke, she already knew.

‘I was trying to make sense of what happened, Mia,’ he admitted quietly. ‘As I imagine you were. Or,’ he added, his tone suddenly turning quietly lethal, his eyes narrowing just the way they’d used to, ‘Maybe you were just relieved.’

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