Their Marriage Reunited (10 page)

Lilly couldn’t help but sympathise with his whole family. It must be awful to know that Cameron didn’t want anything to do with them. It must be ten times worse for Alexa knowing that her husband didn’t want to return home to her. Lilly understood why Alexa would turn to Connor but she didn’t forgive her for trying to take him away from her.

“On a lighter note, we’ve found the beach.”

Lilly smiled up at Connor as he dragged her on to the pure white sand. It was the most beautiful beach she’d ever seen and she didn’t hesitate to slip off her sandals and scrunch her toes in to the luxurious sand. It felt so warm and soft and she laughed as she walked along and felt her feet sinking in to the sand.

“You look just like I remember,” he said softly. Lilly’s smile faded slightly as she turned to face him. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of her husband looking just how she remembered him too. She remembered when they had been so happy and full of love for each other. It had been a time when they had been filled with hopes and dreams for the future. It was almost like they were back there again when they had been at their happiest and when they had actually envisioned forever being their future.

“I wish we could go back to the people we were,” Lilly said. It took both of them by surprise. She hadn’t thought about those happy times in ages, hadn’t allowed herself to think on something that she didn’t think she would ever experience again.

“We’re still those people. We just have to give ourselves a chance to rebuild what we had,” Connor said. Lilly wished it were as easy as he made it sound. Maybe given time they could create something better.

Lilly would always remember that day as one of those simple yet perfect days that made all the crappy days bearable. It had been so perfect from the moment that they’d landed on the island. It wasn’t just the beautiful surroundings or the hot weather but rather the fact that she had finally started to reconnect with Connor. There’d been no pressure to go back to how things were and yet it was almost like it used to be. They’d connected just like they always had and conversation had been easy between them. They’d caught each other up on what had been going on in their lives over the past few years without touching on any of the awkward subjects that would have spoilt it.

Lilly had been enjoying wandering along the beach and dipping her feet in to the sea, it was Connor who insisted that they go back before she started to burn. Their light conversation continued all the way back to the lodge and for once Lilly didn’t find herself overthinking things but instead simply enjoyed herself.

When they arrived back at the lodge Connor insisted that she go and sit out on the deck and she readily complied. The view was magnificent from there and she smiled as she sat quietly listening to the sound of the ocean breeze. When Connor returned she was surprised to find that he came bearing cocktails and she accepted one with a smile.

“Cocktails?” she asked for she hadn’t thought Connor would be the type to drink them. When they’d been together he had preferred stronger spirits or the occasional wine.

“You can’t have a holiday without there being cocktails,” he insisted and her smile widened. It was just like Connor to think of every detail. It was why they had always worked so well together. She could be quite scatter-brained and focused on the things in life that inspired her while he had always been the one who organised those scattered thoughts in to a reality.

“I wouldn’t know since I’ve never had a holiday before,” Lilly said. Connor stared at her in mock horror as he put a hand to his chest and acted with great dramatic flare.

“Never had a holiday? You know what they saw about all work and no play,” he said and Lilly rolled her eyes. She’d forgotten how he could make her laugh while playing an absolute fool.

“I hear it makes people dull,” she said as she sipped at her drink. Connor frowned at that as he took a sip of his own drink.

“The way I hear it all work and no play means that you end up with the world on your shoulders and no way to relieve the stress,” Connor said. Lilly concentrated on her drink. She didn’t want to let him know how close he’d come with that assessment. She’d felt like the world had been on her shoulders for too many years and had been too proud to let anyone help her ease the load.

“Maybe that just applies to men with billion pound businesses and high powered clients,” she suggested. Connor gave a noncommittal shrug at that as he observed her. Lilly could tell that she hadn’t fooled him at all and she thought it was odd how well he knew her even after all this time apart.

“I haven’t heard you mention your dad. How’s he doing?” Connor asked, eager to change the subject. He’d thought that discussing her father would have given her something else to focus on but wasn’t prepared for the way that she tensed and shot him a wary look.

“I haven’t seen much of dad recently,” she said evasively and it made Connor wonder what it was that she wasn’t saying. It frustrated him that they seemed to have so many secrets and every conversation was a battlefield covered in those untold secrets. No matter how careful he was he always managed to step on one and make things awkward between them again.

“I thought you made a point of seeing him regularly,” Connor said. It had been a bone of contention between them when they had gotten married because her father hadn’t approved of him and had tried to create problems between them. Lilly had always stuck up for her father and had ignored the fact that they didn’t get along.

“Dad’s just been busy with work a lot,” she said in a breezy tone that didn’t fool Connor for an instant. She was clearly uncomfortable with the questioning and was hiding something. He also highly doubted that her father had been busy with the business since he’d heard through the grapevine that the old man rarely turned up at work anymore and when he did he was three sheets to the wind.

“Are you sure that’s all there is to it?” Connor asked. He knew better than to push her for answers she wasn’t willing to give but it just seemed strange that she was being so cautious when discussing the man who had raised her and whose side she had taken in her parent’s divorce.

“What else could there be?” she asked with a fixed smile in place. Connor knew that there was more to it but they were on their honeymoon and he was very aware that one wrong word and every bridge that they had built lately would come crashing down around his ears. It went against everything in him but reluctantly he moved the conversation away and didn’t push for more. He could see the relief that went through her at that and it made him more determined than ever to get to the bottom of whatever she was hiding.

Their honeymoon seemed to pass quickly and things were going well for them. They had managed to traverse the uncomfortable conversations fairly well and hadn’t touched upon anything that managed to cause an argument. Their honeymoon had been filled with fun, laughter and plenty of lovemaking. They had grown closer over the past few weeks and all the secrets were starting to weigh on Lilly. She was struggling to keep herself detached from Connor and everyday became a battle against revealing everything. She knew that there would be no going forward for them until everything was out in the open but at the same time she didn’t want to face the past all over again. There were only two possible outcomes of telling Connor the truth. Either he would tell her that it was all true and she would have to face that pain and betrayal all over again, or he would tell her that it was all lies and she would hate herself for wasting all this time because of a lie. She would hate herself even more for allowing a lie to cause the miscarriage of their child. Even though the doctors had tried several times to reassure her that it wasn’t her fault she hadn’t been able to completely dispel the fear that it was. Lilly wasn’t sure which scenario would be worse and it was one of the reasons that she had avoided bringing the past in to the present and risking their reunion.

“You seem deep in thought,”

Lilly started as Connor dropped in to the chair next to her. She had been sat out on their balcony watching the sunrise as she contemplated what she should do next. She couldn’t keep going the way that she was. She felt like she was standing on the edge of a cliff, unable to step back but afraid to take that final step too. She couldn’t fully reunite with Connor until everything was out in the open but she was scared to open herself up to that vulnerability.

“I was just thinking about us,” Lilly answered honestly.

“Not having second thoughts are you?” Connor asked in what she supposed would be considered a flippant tone. She saw beneath that to his own vulnerability though, and for the first time Lilly considered the effect her actions had taken on him. What if he had been innocent of everything her father had accused him of doing? Had she been punishing him all this time for something that he didn’t even do?

“I was thinking that maybe I was wrong and that maybe I was young and stupid,” Lilly said uncertainly. She didn’t miss the sudden look in Connor’s eyes at that. He wasn’t an idiot and she was sure that even he could tell she was having doubts about the past.

“Why did you leave me?” Connor asked. Maybe it was the direction that her thoughts had been taking or maybe it was the fact that she could see how much her answer meant to him but for a change Lilly found that she didn’t want to live this lie anymore.  She wanted everything to be out in the open so that they could finally take that step no matter which way their relationship ended up going.

“I left because of my father,” Lilly said. She could see immediately that it wasn’t something Connor had anticipated. She wasn’t sure if that was because he hadn’t expected her to be honest or because he hadn’t realised that her father was a part of it.

“I don’t understand. What did your father have to do with any of this?” Connor asked. Lilly took a slow, steadying breath and looked out at the beautiful scenery before her though she was too lost in the past to really take it in.

“My father always hated us being together,” Lilly said. She remembered all the fights she’d had with her father about her love for Connor and recalled even more of the fights she’d had with Connor over her father.

“I know he didn’t approve of us being together, though I never understood why.”

Lilly hadn’t understood either at the time. All she’d known was that she had chosen to stand by her father through everything and then he had ruined everything that she had built. He had hated her relationship from the moment that it had started and had hated everything about Connor. She hadn’t really understood until recently why her father had taken such an issue with it all.

It had been her mother who’d explained it to her. Lilly had thought that her father must have manipulated her mother in the same way that he had her when he’d ruthlessly destroyed her chances of happiness. Her mother had finally told her the truth.

All those years ago her father had loved her mother unconditionally and he had treated her like a princess. He had been kind and loving towards the woman that he had wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He’d had everything he could have ever dreamed of with his perfect little family. Then her mother had ruined it all.

Her mother had explained how she’d fallen in love with someone else. She’d realised that she couldn’t possibly stay married when she was having stronger feelings for someone else. She explained to Lilly that she hadn’t intended to get married again or even to get in to a serious relationship no matter how she’d felt about the man in question. Instead she’d done exactly what she’d promised herself she wouldn’t. She’d found herself pregnant with her lover’s child and it had shaped the way her future had gone. She’d told Lilly that she didn’t regret any of it but it explained her father’s behaviour. He wasn’t simply an evil man who had wanted to destroy her marriage and happiness. Instead he had been trying to protect her. He’d suffered when love had gone sour. Her father had only wanted to protect her from the same fate. Instead he had left it too late and destroyed everything.

Lilly had understood her father’s reasons behind what he did but she still didn’t condone them. He’d had no right to interfere in her life like that and because of that one terrible moment Lilly had lost both her husband and her unborn child in one foul swoop. She had never been able to forgive her father for what he’d done and the one time she’d seen him she’d realised that he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself either.

“My father was wiser than me. He knew that I had fallen hard for you and he wanted to protect me from falling any deeper and having my heart obliterated from the fallout when our relationship ended,” Lilly explained. Connor stared at her for a few moments in silence as he absorbed what she was saying and then he slowly shook his head.

“Our relationship wouldn’t have ended,” he said in such a sure tone that it pissed Lilly off completely.

“You can’t know for certain what would have happened. We were young and naïve and further down the line we would have broken apart without any interference but by then it would have been so much worse,” Lilly instantly denied.

“I know without a shadow of a doubt that we wouldn’t have split up,” Connor denied immediately and Lilly glared at him in frustration.

“You can’t possibly know that for sure,” she denied instantly.

Connor could have told her that she was wrong. He knew that they would have lasted through the time because he had felt it from the moment that they had met, that bone deep feeling that they were meant to be together. He’d always known that she would be the woman that he married, the mother of his children and the woman that he would grow old with. Even after all this time separated he still knew deep within his soul that Lilly was the one woman for him and without her his life wasn’t complete.

“I know that something scared you off and that if it hadn’t then we would still have been together and we would have been happy,” Connor said and Lilly regarded him with clear scepticism.

“You have no way of knowing any of that. For all you know we would have been in exactly the same situation,” Lilly said. Connor smiled at that. He knew that he would never have let things get to that stage. If he’d had any inkling that Lilly was planning on walking away from their relationship then he would never have walked away from the hospital that day until he’d gotten to the bottom of it all. He had regretted letting her talk him in to leaving since he’d done it, but at the time he’d thought that it was the best thing to give her some space. If he’d known that it was about more than losing their baby then he would have stayed and pushed her in to telling him what was wrong. There was nothing that they couldn’t sort if they communicated.

“I’m sure we would have had disagreements and arguments,” he conceded.

“Exactly. We would have ended up in a huge argument and ended up in the same place we are now,” Lilly insisted. It pissed Connor off at how willing she was to believe that they couldn’t have made it. She sounded like she had never once considered that they might remain married until death parted them whereas he hadn’t been able to imagine anything else.