Page 198 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

Mia stared at him in shock, speechless for a few seconds as she registered the utter anguish in Santos’s eyes. ‘You’re sorry?’ she whispered, not understanding. ‘Why?’

‘Because...! I should have checked for sea urchins. I should have called the emergency number sooner. I should have kept this from happening. I should haveprotectedyou.’ He gave a gulping sound that was halfway to a sob and filled Mia with wonder.

She had not expected this reaction at all. This was so far from her experience, her expectation, that she needed to cringe and apologise for being any kind of trouble...

The way she’d been made to feel in the hospital, after the miscarriage.

But maybeshe’dmade herself feel that way, and not Santos. It was an extraordinary thought, unsettling and hopeful all at once.

Santos stared at Mia as he shook his head. For two days he’d been wracked with guilt, wishing he could turn back time, do things differently. He thought of watching her slump forward on that beach, her skin blazing to the touch, her head lolling back as he’d lightly slapped her cheeks and begged her to wake up...

That it was happening at all had been terrifying and terrible, a blur of fear, guilt and horror. Santos had been reminded of his father’s heart attack, out in the orange groves; he’d been the only one there to perform mouth-to-mouth and attempt to save him. He’d failed. And, there on the beach, he’d feared he would fail Mia...

So many memories had come rushing back, tangling with the present, just as they had when Mia had miscarried... remembered grief as well as fear for the future. Knowing, absolutely knowing, that he could not survive losing another person in his life—losing Mia.

‘Santos,’ she said softly, ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘I could have prevented it,’ he insisted with staunch swiftness.

Mia let out an exasperated breath. ‘How?’

‘Checked the shore. Told you to keep your fins on. Chosen somewhere else to snorkel.Warnedyou, at least. I knew there were sea urchins in these waters and I never even told you so.’

His stomach churned with acid at the thought. How could he have been socareless? He knew the answer: because he’d been sohappy. He’d let his usually innate sense of diligence and responsibility slip away because he hadn’t wanted to bother with it, hadn’t wanted to feel its heaviness, but he should have. How he should have...

‘It was an accident, Santos,’ Mia said quietly. ‘It could have happened to anyone. And what are the chances that I’d have an allergic reaction? You said yourself that it’s very rare. This is just one of those things, and I’m okay.’ She stretched out one slender arm in supplication. ‘I’mokay.’

‘Yes, but...’ His voice wavered and he found he had to look down, blinking hard, his throat working in order to compose himself. Something was breaking apart inside him and he wasn’t sure he could keep it together much longer. This was something he hadn’t even realised he couldfeel, until Mia had been lying lifeless in his arms. He’d told her he loved her, but he realised then that those had just been words. When Mia had been in his arms, her head lolling back, he’d realised what itfeltlike to love someone that much, to fear losing them.

‘Santos, please.’ Her voice was a soft, pleading caress. ‘Please, come sit by me and tell me what’s going on—because this is about more than a sea urchin sting, isn’t it?’

Yes, it was. Slowly, reluctantly, he came and sat down next to her. She reached for his hand and he let her take it, craving her touch even as he dreaded this confession. He didn’tdothis kind of stuff.

An Aguila must always be in control of his heart and his mind...

But just now he wasn’t in control...of either.

‘Santos,’ Mia whispered. ‘Tell me.’

‘I shouldn’t have left you in the hospital room,’ he blurted in a low voice, his gaze on their clasped hands. ‘Before...after the miscarriage. I shouldn’t have left you to deal with all of that alone. I can’t believe that I did, that I could have been so cruel.’

She was silent for a long moment, and he made himself look up at her. Was she angry at him? Did remembering those old wounds hurt her the way it did him?

‘You were upset,’ she said at last. ‘And angry.’

‘Mia, I wasn’t angry.’ He hated that she thought he had been, that he’d acted as if he was, and that he’d let her think that for so long because on some level it had felt safer, stronger.

‘Santos...’ There was a note of sorrowful exasperation in her voice that tore at him. ‘You were. On some level, you were. You must have been. I mean, when I said I didn’t want... I wasn’t ready...’ She trailed off, not seeming to want to put it into the starkness of actual words.

‘I was hurt,’ he confessed quietly, the words coming out stiltedly because he still wasn’t used to being so honest or so emotional. It didn’t come easily, and it made him feel as if he was covered in prickles or open sores—maybe both. He felt desperately uncomfortable, that was for certain, as if he were in pain—and maybe he was. ‘I wanted you to want my baby,’ he told her in a raw voice. ‘And,’ he added, compelled to complete honesty now he’d started, no matter how much it hurt, ‘I wanted you to want what I wanted: a family...with me.’

Mia stared at him for a long moment, her brow still furrowed, although her expression had turned thoughtful. ‘I can understand that,’ she said quietly. ‘And I know my response shocked you and we had to work through our different reactions. We didn’t really get time to, I suppose, but...’ She paused, drawing a breath before she pressed on, ‘You don’t blame me for what happened—for the miscarriage?’

Clearly that was a deep-seated fear of hers, and it made him feel even more horribly guilty. ‘Mia, I never blamed you,’ he assured her, his voice a low throb of feeling. ‘I know you think I did, and I acknowledge that it may have seemed as if I did, and also that I might have acted like I did. But deep down, in my heart, in my soul, I didn’t. I promise you that, on my life.’

‘Not even some small part of you, Santos?’ she asked in little more than a whisper. ‘You barely spoke to me after the miscarriage. You barelylookedat me. I know you said you shouldn’t have acted that way, and I understand that now, butthen?’

The hurt in her voice reminded him of broken glass, and it cut him as if it were, splintering his soul. How could he have hurt her so dreadfully and not even realised at the time? Maybe not even cared, because the truth was he’d been hurting so much himself...and that was something he’d never explained to her.

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