Page 117 of Just Say Yes
‘I love you.’
My mouth snapped closed like a turtle.
‘Please, just hear me out. I know it was a sneaky way of getting to see you but I couldn’t get hold of you any other way. Please? I appreciate I don’t have the right to ask any of this, but I needed to tell you some things. Things you deserve to know.’
‘It’s a little late now, Lorcan.’
‘You’re right. But you deserve to hear them anyway.’ He waited to see what I would do. My mind was running in circles but eventually both it and my body tired and I lowered myself back down.
‘Thank you.’
I remained silent.
‘I’m not really sure where to start. I made such a giant cock-up of it all.’
My only reply was a slight quirk of one eyebrow acknowledging that he’d at least got that bit right.
‘I don’t have a child.’
‘But your sister said…’ I couldn’t help myself interrupting.
‘I know. And I can see now how it must have sounded. And I can also see now how it must have felt when you realised I’d kept something from you when you’d bared your soul to me. It was unforgivable – although I’m of course hoping you might find a way, but my whole family think I’m an eejit and told me not to get my hopes up.’
I tried to smother the beginning of the smile that wanted to play on my face, easily imagining them saying those exact words.
‘Siobhan and I were engaged, and she got pregnant. I was over the moon. I mean, I couldn’t have been more thrilled. She seemed less so but, when I questioned her about it, she said she’d just been nervous about telling me because that hadn’t been our plan so soon into the marriage.’
‘That’s understandable.’
‘Yep. That’s what I thought too. Until a couple of weeks before the wedding when she told me that the baby wasn’t mine.’
‘Oh… Lorcan.’
Even now I could see the pain of that revelation on his face.
‘She’d known it wasn’t all along. I’d been surprised because we’d always used protection but, you know, accidents happen and I had no reason to think anything else.’ He took a deep breath and I gave him a moment as I caught a passing waiter and asked him for a black coffee, which came moments later and Lorcan took a sip. In truth, I always thought tea was better for crises but right now he looked as if he could do with the caffeine. Either that or a fortnight’s sleep.
‘It turned out she’d been seeing an old boyfriend. They’d connected on Facebook and got chatting and then, one thing led to another. And that another led to a baby.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
He shook his head. ‘She told me she was in love with him and, as painful as that was to hear, I could cope with that. The thing I couldn’t cope with was that she’d known from the beginning the baby wasn’t mine. And yet she let me carry on thinking it was, attending scans, shopping for baby things, reading bloody baby books.’ He drew a hand across his brow.
I didn’t know what to say. I could understand Siobhan being caught in a difficult situation but to let this man believe she was carrying his child when she’d known all along he wasn’t the father just seemed cruel.
‘After that I went a bit over the top against the whole relationship thing. Long term seemed pointless. So far as I could see – wanted to see – it just led to disappointment and heartache. Mam hadn’t been happy in her marriage either, but divorce wasn’t a thing in Ireland and then Siobhan. I chose to ignore the fact that my sisters had had beautiful wedding days and happy marriages. I was wounded and didn’t want to see anything that might challenge that view.’
‘I can understand that.’
‘Then you came along and you were this beautiful, bright, funny woman with a wonderful heart but your big thing was weddings. I knew it couldn’t work. There was no way I was going to change my mind but I knew you wouldn’t either. Your parents had been happy and you made no secret of the fact you wanted marriage eventually. And it’s obvious to anyone how much you love your job and how skilled you are at it. It was only right that you wanted a partner who respected and understood your career. I couldn’t be any of those things. I didn’t think I even wanted to be. But I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I wanted to be with you all the opportunities I could.’
‘I thought Peyton and Patrick wanted you on hand all the time with the arrangements?’
His expression was sheepish. ‘Their actual instruction was just to keep an eye on things but that they had full faith in you. After our first meeting I knew I was in trouble and tried to stay away. But once I’d met you again at the restaurant, I used every excuse I could to see you.’
‘I see,’ I said, not sure what else to say. My mind was whirling, trying to make sense of everything, but what it kept coming back to were the words Lorcan had spoken when I was about to leave.
‘I love you, Maddie. I think I’ve loved you from the moment you told me there had only been the one murder at the model village. Which I thoroughly deserved, by the way. My first words to you came out wrong and I was cringing the rest of the time and trying to think of a way to apologise but then it just got too far and I felt it would be even weirder to bring it up.’
