‘Is that why you let me pressure you to see your family?’
‘You didn’t pressure me, David. You supported me. And that’s why I knew I needed to see them.’ She smiled. ‘Sometimes knowing and doing are very difficult things to combine, but with will-power and support it can be achieved.’
Their drinks were delivered, and David eased back in his chair, looking at her for a moment.
‘Why do I get the strange feeling you’re talking about me here?’
‘I guess I’m not so subtle, eh? There’s a cloud hanging over you, David. I’m not saying I know what it is, but it’s there, and it’s stopping you from moving on with your life.’
‘Is this because I’ve said that things wouldn’t ever work out between us?’
‘Sort of. You say cryptic things, you don’t give me explanations for them, and then you kiss me as though you just can’t help yourself.’
‘I can’t.’ He rubbed a hand across his brow, massaging his temple for a moment. ‘It’s true, though, Eden. It can’t work out between us.’
‘You need to give me a solid reason why not, David. I am in love with you. I know it for a fact. And although you may not believe me, I am not the sort of girl to fall in love with just anyone.’
‘Not Tony or Jett or the plethora of other men you’ve mentioned?’
‘All of them friends. Most of them colleagues. Despite that, it’s beside the point—because none of them make me feel the way you do.’
‘Eden, we can’t. Don’t love me. Don’t want to be with me.’
‘Why not? You told me that I didn’t know who I was, that I spent my time helping everyone else and never spent enough time just being myself. Well, I listened to you and I’ve realised you’re right. I didn’t know who I was, what I wanted out of life. Of course I’m happy with my job, with helping people, but I do want more.’
‘You want marriage and a family.’
‘I want you.’
‘You want what every other woman wants. I can’t provide it.’ His voice had taken on a coolness she’d never heard before, and for a moment she actually believed he believed the words he was saying.
‘Just for me, or for any woman?’ she asked, determined to keep her voice calm and controlled. This could turn out to be the most important conversation of her life, and she needed to make sure she didn’t blow it. She tried to mask the confusion and hurt she was experiencing.
She thought she’d dealt with the pain of his first rejection, but it was surging back tenfold and she felt as though she was a teenager again, having him tell her to keep her distance and not to pursue him.
‘Any woman.’
Eden sighed and felt a weight lift from her. It wasn’t just her. She could work with this. ‘I’ve done a lot of soul-searching these past few days—deep soul-searching. I’ve listened to what you’ve had to say, I’ve processed it. And I’ve made peace with my family and myself with regards to the past.’ She pulled her hair from the band and flicked the locks over her shoulder, massaging her scalp a little.
David was mesmerised for a second, just watching her as she pulled her fingers through her gorgeous curls. His mind went blank and he completely lost track of what they’d been discussing. He loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. It was always like that around Eden. He would try to talk sensibly with her, but then she’d distract him and he would become mesmerised by the way her eyes darkened to a deeper shade of green whenever she became passionate about something. Now was no exception, and although she wasn’t getting riled up, the emotions were still there…She was just better at controlling it now that she was older.
She was so amazingly attractive he was having a difficult time keeping his breathing even, not to mention his train of thought. He needed to be harsh, to let her see that this time he wasn’t going to give in, wasn’t going to let her talk him around. It was for her own good.
‘I know exactly what I want to do with my life, David, and that in itself is very freeing. It’s something I couldn’t have done without your help.’ She was having difficulty forming the words, especially when he was looking at her as though he was about to toss aside the coffee table which separated them, not caring if drinks got spilt or if he wrecked the lobby. His eyes told her he wanted her, wanted her so badly he was willing to throw all sense and reason out of the window. So how could his mouth say that he didn’t want to be with her, that she was better off without him?
‘Because you’ve helped me, because I’ve taken those boxes out…the ones I’d hidden for so long…because I’ve looked inside them and really tried to figure things out, I think it’s only fair that I return the favour. That I help you figure out what it is that you want out of life.’
‘I know what I want, Eden.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Peace.’
She waggled her eyebrows up and down suggestively. ‘I can give you peace.’
He laughed without humour. ‘You give me anything but peace, Eden. You’re the one who ties me up in knots, who makes me forget where I am, what I’m doing. Who makes me wild with jealousy if I hear you talk about another man—friend, colleague or otherwise.’
‘And why aren’t these good things?’
‘Because I want peace.’
‘Peace is boring. Well…not all the time, but you know what I mean. There needs to be a balance, David, and you’re never going to get that until you talk to me—until you can trust me enough to tell me what it is that has you one hundred percent certain that we can never be together.’
‘Maybe I just don’t love you.’
Eden heard the words, felt them pierce her heart, and then instantly rejected them. ‘That’s not the case.’
‘Are you saying that I am in love with you?’
‘You must be—otherwise your actions would be far more rational than they are. You love me. I love you. But we also need to trust each other, David. Please.’
Her tone was imploring, and before he realised she’d even moved, she’d reached forward and taken his hands in hers. The touch filled him instantly with desire and need. This woman was everything he’d ever wanted and more. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, he did, with every fibre of his being, but he’d known this conversation had to happen at some point.
Why not now? Why not confess the truth? She would be mortified, hurt, and then she’d leave him alone. It would mean the rest of the time she spent in Sydney they’d just carefully avoid one another until she finally went back overseas to work with PMA.
‘OK.’ The word was spoken very quietly, and Eden’s eyes widened. She didn’t say anything, instead waiting for him to gather his thoughts, to tell her what it was that had been keeping them apart ever since she’d returned to town.
‘When I was an intern—’ He broke off, looking into her eyes, seeing the reassurance there, feeling it in her touch. This was it. He was going to do this. He took another breath and slowly let it out. ‘When I was an intern, there was an accident—a radiation leak.’ His voice was strong, matter-of-fact, as though removing all the emotion from what he was saying helped him to deal with it.
‘David!’ Eden was astounded, and couldn’t help voicing her concerns. ‘Were you sick? Poisoned? How bad was it?’
‘I suffered radiation sickness, but after a few months I made a complete recovery.’
‘Does Sash know?’
‘No. I was living in Melbourne and I didn’t want to worry her. She’d just started her first job as a teacher and was having the time of her life. She didn’t need to be worried about me.’
‘So you recovered, then?’ Even as she said the words Eden started piecing together all the information she’d inadvertently gathered during the past few days. Such as the number of times David had raised the fact that she would want children. Such as Jacquie saying she’d had trouble conceiving for years. Such as David saying there were other reasons for his marriage failure.
‘None of us who were affected su
ffered permanent damage—or so we thought.’ David paused, looking down at their entwined fingers. This was it, and he wanted to savour this last moment—her hands against his, the love he saw in her eyes, the way she cared too much. He was going to hurt her and he was sorry for that.
‘When Jacquie and I wanted to start a family, we had difficulties conceiving.’ He swallowed, forcing himself to go on.
‘The radiation had made you sterile.’ Eden spoke before he could get the words out.
‘Yes.’
She waited, wondering if there was more. When he didn’t say anything else, she pressed. ‘And?’
‘And that’s it. I can’t father a child, Eden.’ He was a little exasperated, and annoyed with her for playing dumb. ‘Ever.’ He withdrew his hand from hers and clenched his jaw, trying to summon the strength to say the next words. ‘So you see, there’s no future for us. There never can be. It’s over.’
CHAPTER TEN
EDEN frowned, watching him closely. ‘What’s over?’
‘Haven’t you heard a single word I’ve just said?’ His exasperation with her increased. ‘I can’t be with you, Eden. I can’t give you the happily-ever-after fairytale you’ve wanted all your life. I can’t father a child. The sterilisation is permanent.’
‘So?’
‘So! How can you just sit there and say “So”?’
‘Simple. Listen and I’ll say it again. So?’
David was dumbfounded by her reaction. This hadn’t been what he’d expected at all. ‘Don’t you want to have children? Children of your own?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Then you’re better off without me.’
Eden sat back in her chair for a moment, her drink, the hotel lobby, other guests—everything forgotten as she focused on the man opposite her. ‘Are you honestly sitting there and telling me that even though I don’t care that you can’t father a child we should still not be together?’
Her eyes were starting to flash the way they did when she became really mad. David swallowed. He was so attracted to the way she looked, but at the same time wary of her simmering temper. ‘Now, Eden. You have to see sense. You’re obviously in shock.’
‘Don’t tell me what I am. I know my own mind, David.’
‘Then you’ll know that while everything might be fine at the moment, and you might think you can accept this revelation of mine, say it doesn’t matter to you, at some point in the future it won’t be all right. I’ve been down this road before. I’ve heard my ex-wife cry herself to sleep because she couldn’t have a child. I’ve signed divorce papers and I’ve vowed that as far as I was concerned I would never have a family. There is no treatment for this. It’s absolute.’
He shifted in his chair, leaning forward, determined to get through to her. ‘I know how deeply you feel, Eden. I know how badly things affect you. And even though you say now that you don’t mind not having children of your own, one day you will, and one day you will look at me with hatred in your eyes.’ And then you’ll leave me. He didn’t say the last words out loud. He couldn’t bear to.
It was better all round if they ended things here. Tonight. They’d be able to move on, to find what came next in their lives—because being together would never be an option.
‘You’re scared.’ Eden nodded, as though she’d finally hit the nail on the head. The final piece of the puzzle.
‘I’m trying to be rational here, Eden.’
‘You are so scared that if you even try something new, if you take a chance, you’ll end up being hurt again. I can understand that. Honestly I can. I took a chance when I was seventeen and dated you. I loved being with you, spending time together. The hectic times, the fun times, the quiet times. In the beginning I was desperate for you to see me as something more than just a friend. After you’d accepted that things were great. And then…you left. But when you left, what you didn’t know was that I was in love with you. Real honest-to-goodness love.’
That stopped his thoughts in their tracks, but he quickly dismissed her words. ‘You were seventeen, Eden. Too young to know what love really is.’
‘Perhaps. But I know the pain I felt. I know it took me a very long time to get over you—long after I’d left Sydney. Helping other people, being there for others, was a way I could hide myself, could lock my heart away whilst still doing some good in the world. If I helped other people, then I didn’t have to look inwards at myself, didn’t have to face the fear that I might be all alone for the rest of my life because the only man I’d ever loved didn’t love me back. There was no way I could ever settle for second best. That’s just not me.
‘I told you that I cried myself to sleep the night I heard of your marriage. I wasn’t teasing. You were gone. You’d been taken from me—by some other older, more sophisticated woman. I’d lost you—lost what was never really mine in the first place. I’d lost you. It was then I fully realised my feelings for you were far more than that of a teenage crush or puppy love. They were serious—because to be lusting after another woman’s husband was definitely wrong. Yet I couldn’t stop myself. You were in me, a part of me, and I’d just locked it all away. If I ignored it, then the pain wasn’t as bad.
‘I wanted more than anything to get home for Sasha’s wedding, because I knew you were divorced. You were free again. I thought that perhaps now…now that I was older, you would finally see me as the woman I’d become. I hoped that you would flirt with me, that you’d take me out into the moonlight, dance with me, kiss me.’
David nodded. ‘It wasn’t to be.’
‘No.’ Eden sighed. ‘And then Sasha had her accident. My poor, darling Sasha, whom I love like a sister. I came home, unsure of how it would be to see you for the very first time in twelve years, and I have to say it’s been the roller-coaster I’d always imagined it would be.’ She smiled at him then, and David wasn’t sure whether he should relax or stay on alert. ‘You are the only man who can make me go weak at the knees with one simple look. You make me smoulder when you touch me. You fill me with fire when you hold me close, when you kiss me, when you look at me with love in your eyes.’
She leaned forward, placing her hands on the table in front of her. ‘Only you, David. Only you have ever affected me like this, and only you will continue to affect me like this.’ She shook her head. ‘If we can’t be together then you’re sentencing us both to a life alone, a life of living with regrets, when it doesn’t need to be that way at all. I don’t care if you can’t have children, and I don’t know how to make you believe that.’ Her words were spoken in earnest.
‘You say that now, but it won’t last, Eden. One day you will care, and if I can prevent you from experiencing that pain then I will.’
Eden snorted with derision, her eyes flashing fire. ‘Oh, how magnanimous of you. Protecting me? How sweet!’
David glanced around them, aware of other patrons. ‘You might want to lower your voice.’
‘Might I? I might want you to believe me when I say it doesn’t matter, but that isn’t going to happen either.’
‘But you want children.’ His words were ground out from between his teeth, and she realised that he too was trying to control his temper.
‘Yes. Don’t you?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I want. I can’t—’
‘Be honest, David. It’s obvious you do want a family of your own, so at least admit it. If not to me, then at least to yourself.’
He shook his head and looked away, wishing they’d risked going up to her room to have this discussion. But he’d thought himself more able to control his undeniable attraction to her in a public place. Besides, he hadn’t expected her to react in this manner at all. Then again, this was Eden, and he should have known to expect the unexpected.
‘Why do you think I became a paediatrician?’
‘Probably the same reasons I did. You love children and you want to help them, to protect them, to guide them. That said, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re too scared t
o take the step before you. You’re not willing to enter into a relationship with me because one day I might hurt you. You’re not willing to believe that the two of us can be happy together—the two of us, David. Let’s just focus on that for now. I love you, and I know you love me.’ Her words had become more insistent and a little louder. ‘So why can’t we move forward? Why can’t we take that to the next level?’
‘You’re starting to disturb the other guests.’
‘I’m hardly yelling, David, and besides, when you’re in love with someone it should make you feel so free, so uninhibited, that you can shout from the rooftops—not knowing who hears, not caring who knows.’
His eyes widened for a moment, and he wondered if she was about to stand up and declare to all and sundry just how she felt about him.
Eden stood, and he held his breath. She walked around to stand beside him before leaning down to kiss him. It was a kiss of desire, of hope and of promise. Then she turned, picked up her coat and bag, and walked calmly to the lifts. He watched as she disappeared from view, the lift taking her away from him.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, ignoring the people around him as he pondered her words. Did she really not care about his secret? Could he believe that she accepted him as he was? That she truly loved him? That she wouldn’t leave him in years to come? Could he take a chance on love? True love? Was Eden worth it?
‘Yes.’
Two days later, David walked into his sister’s hospital room and glanced around. ‘Where is she?’
Sasha put down the book she was reading. ‘Who?’
‘Eden. Who else?’
‘I haven’t seen her.’
‘Sasha,’ he warned.
‘What? She came to my physio session earlier this morning, but I haven’t seen her since. Why? Is there something wrong with a patient?’
‘You know darn well what’s going on.’
Bride on the Children's Ward / Marriage Reunited: Baby on the Way Page 16
