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The words got strangled by the heartbroken sobs for some time after that. Rafael simply held Abbie and rocked her gently until the grief subsided. Clearly this little boy hadn’t survived the treatment.

It could so easily have been Ella.

Rafael’s throat tightened and he could feel an odd prickling sensation at the back of his eyes.

Tears?

No. Not possible. He hadn’t cried since he’d been a very small boy. A man’s pride didn’t allow the showing of such weakness. He needed a distraction but there was none to be had at this moment. No work to be done. He couldn’t even pick up a journal article and lose himself in that for a while. And then Abbie made it even worse.

‘It could have been Ella,’ she choked out, echoing his own terrible thought. ‘I could have put her through all that suffering for nothing. Shelley must be feeling so awful.’

‘She’ll know that she tried everything she could to keep her little one alive. That it was the right thing to do.’

But Abbie was shaking her head as she tried to pull away from him. Rafael loosened his hold but still kept her within the circle of his arms.

‘I just didn’t think. I couldn’t see your point of view at all. Ella could have died, just like Toby, and all that suffering would have been pointless and...and, worse...we would have been half a world away from you. You would never have been able to hold Ella again. It was wrong, Rafael...’ Tears were streaming down Abbie’s face. ‘I’m sorry.’

Strangely, any threat of his own tears had evaporated. Rafael felt strong. He brushed tears from Abbie’s face.

‘Si, it could have been Ella but it wasn’t so I was wrong, too. We were both wrong. Isn’t it time that we forgave each other?’

Abbie was nodding. Her sob became a hiccup and, instead of pushing out against the circle of his arms, she moved closer, lifting her own arms to wrap them around his neck.

This embrace wasn’t about offering comfort or support. This was a new closeness. An affirmation of forgiveness.

It was Rafael who pulled back this time. So that he could cup Abbie’s face with his hands as he kissed her forehead and then her closed eyelids. Slowly. Softly.

He felt her eyes open as he finished the third kiss. And then they were looking at each other, the way they had when Leo and Lizzie had been kissing at the end of their wedding ceremony and it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to kiss his own wife at that point.

Just like it did now.

* * *

Oh...God...

This was what she had been aching for. The tenderness of those gentle kisses in the wake of an emotional storm that had washed away anything irrelevant.

Was this what forgiveness felt like?

If so, it was incredibly sweet.

Healing.

And then Abbie became aware of more than the calm after the storm. She could feel the softness of Rafael’s lips as they pressed so gently on her eyelids. She could feel the strength in his hands as he cradled her face. She had to open her eyes then and when she did, all she could see in his eyes was the caring.

The love.

She could feel herself rising to stand on tiptoe. To meet his lips with her own. They were so close right now. Closer than they’d been for a long time. Maybe closer than they’d ever been emotionally.

But it wasn’t close enough.

Abbie wanted more. She wanted them to be skin to skin. To have Rafael touching her in a way that would affirm life, rather than provide comfort in the face of death.

‘Take me to bed, Rafe,’ she whispered. ‘Please.’

Without a word, Rafael scooped her up into his arms and strode through the apartment without pausing to turn on any more lights. Their bedroom had French doors that opened into the private garden and there were lights beyond that. Enough to take the edge off the darkness in the room. And Abbie didn’t need more than that. Her other senses were more than enough.

She could hear the slide of fabric as Rafael peeled off his shirt, the thump of shoes being heeled off and the scratch of the zip as he got rid of his trousers. She could feel her own fingers shaking as she tried to undo the fastenings of her dress and she could hear the catch of her breath that was almost a gasp as Rafael’s hands closed over hers and took over the task.

It was colder in here, away from the fire. Rafael pulled the duvet from the bed and draped it over Abbie’s shoulders as she sat there while he took off her shoes and tights. And then he somehow wrapped them both in the fluffy, light down of the cover and they were lying on the bed with Rafael half over her and he was holding her face again as he kissed her.

A kiss that started as gently as the one during the wedding service. There was almost wonder in it. He was treating her as something fragile and precious. But Abbie was kissing him back now. She knew the first slide of her tongue against his would ignite the same kind of passion that had been unleashed with that kiss in the changing room and that was what she needed. She pushed closer with her hips, too, to feel more of his body as she opened her mouth to him and deepened the kiss.

A rough sound came from deep within Rafael’s chest and his hands were moving now. Swiftly tracing the outline of her body. Pausing to shape her breasts and bring her nipples to painful hardness, and then they were moving lower. Sliding over her hips and touching her exactly where it ached most.

It was Abbie’s turn to cry out incoherently. She didn’t want slow and tender. Not this time. She pushed against his hand and used her hand to reach for the hardness she knew she would find without breaking the rhythm as their tongues danced and passion spiralled to bright flames.

Rafael changed his position with the smoothness that could only come from the confidence of knowing someone so intimately. Her body welcomed him as if it had only been yesterday they had last made love and they were in total accord about the pace of this fiercely passionate coupling. They both knew it would be over too soon. But they also both knew that it would be very different next time. This was a release of tension that had become pent up enough to be destructive all by itself. And it was a statement, too. An underscoring of the forgiveness perhaps.

Whatever emotional currents ran beneath the physical communication, the hard, fast sex left a curiously calm aftermath. It took some time for their heart rates to drop and for both of them to catch their breath enough to be able to talk. Abbie was content to lie there in Rafael’s arms, their heads on the same pillow and their noses almost touching.

‘I’ve missed you so much,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve missed this.’

Rafael only had to tilt his face up a little to kiss the tip of her nose. And then her lips. The sound he made was one of absolute agreement.