Page 223 of Modern Romance Collection February 2025, 5-8

Dom reached for her hand. ‘Our twins.’

But Mari just turned her head to the wall and sobbed.

Dom took her home to her flat. Put her to bed, tortured by the sound of the soft sobbing coming from her room.

Marianne was pregnant with his twins.

And didn’t that change things. Those divorce papers in his car were going nowhere. Everything had changed. Divorce was out of the question, even Marianne must realise that.

The evening was closing in, soft rain falling outside, spattering against the windows when Dom took Mari a tray with a bowl of warm soup from a can he’d found in the pantry, along with a handful of crackers. ‘You have to eat something,’ he said when she shook her head.

Her cheeks were puffy, there were dark circles under her eyes and her hair was a mess, but even so, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She always had been. Even more so now because she was carrying his babies.

He gathered pillows to put behind her back, placing the tray on her lap and sat down on the side of the bed. ‘Do I have to feed you?’ he asked gently.

‘No,’ she said, so softly it was little more than a whisper. She picked up the spoon, dipped it into the soup, and took a sip. ‘I’m afraid,’ she said, resting the spoon back on the tray.

‘Of course you are, but you heard the doctor. There’s no reason to think that what happened last time will happen again. Come on, eat.’

She stared into her soup. ‘That’s not the only reason I’m afraid.’

Her words barely made sense.

‘Why else would you be afraid?’

She licked her lips. ‘I miscarried my babies.’

‘My mother told me. She truly felt for you.’

She lifted her gaze, her eyes sorrowful, searching his. ‘Twenty years ago,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t that mean anything to you? The twins I lost—they were your babies, Dom.’

Dom was reeling with shock. He stood up and gazed out of the window to the wet streetscape beyond, car headlights sending blurry beams along the bitumen.

His babies.Marianne had said as much to the sonographer, but his brain hadn’t let him connect the dots. He’d assumed that she’d been pregnant with her husband’s twins—that something had gone horribly wrong and he hadn’t wanted Marianne to try again. That he’d been happy with the two children he’d already had. Twenty years ago, she’d told the sonographer, and the babies had been five months gestation. And it was twenty years ago that Dom’s father had suffered his first heart attack and he’d returned to San Sebastián temporarily—until his father had died and temporarily had become permanently, and he’d put off his return to Australia again and again. Why hadn’t she told him? Why hadn’t he known?

He’d never had an inkling that she was pregnant. Why hadn’t she told him? If she’d told him he would have moved heaven and earth to get to her.

But he hadn’t known. And he’d lost her. He’d lost an entire family he didn’t know he had.

‘Where are they?’ he asked.

‘Sydney,’ she said. ‘Where I lost them. They’re buried together in a cemetery overlooking Bondi Beach.’

And Dom knew he had to go.

‘Take me there. Show me.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE SLOPING CEMETERYended in cliffs that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. It had glorious views along the dramatic coastline and out to sea, the sound of waves pounding and roaring against the mighty cliffs and the call of gulls providing the soundtrack to the otherwise hushed space.

Grass-covered paths separated the plots, all manner of headstones, from simple slabs of stones to crosses to angels, rising from the ground.

‘Why here?’ he asked as she led him quietly along the path, two small colourful posies in her hands. ‘Why this cemetery?’

She stopped and pointed along the coast. ‘Do you remember that day we spent on Bondi Beach? I think that day I was the happiest I had ever been. I wanted our babies to have somewhere beautiful to rest, near the place that had made my heart sing.’

Our babies.

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