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‘There you are,’ he said, as though he’d been looking for her for days.

Which brought a very good thought to her still-sluggish mind. ‘How did you find me?’

‘Were you hiding from me, Sarah?’ he asked, close enough to touch, but not doing so. In fact, he stayed where he was, about a foot away from her on the path. As if they were two polite acquaintances.

She frowned, shaking her head a little. ‘But I didn’t give you my address. How did you know where I’m staying?’

He compressed his lips. ‘Let’s talk about it inside.’

‘Inside?’ she repeated, wishing her brain would fire back to normal speed.

‘It’s not going to take long before someone starts taking photos of us,’ he muttered. ‘I could do without that, and I’m pretty sure you could, too.’

Her lips parted as she glanced around and saw that, yes, people had indeed recognised Tate Carrigan. He was right. No conversation was safe for them to have on the footpath.

But the idea of going into her small apartment was anathema to Sarah. That space was her sanctuary; the thought of Tate being in there…it would make it impossible to forget him. Not that she was having much luck with that, anyway.

‘Please,’ he said, after a beat, and the way the word seemed to wrench from deep in his gut got through to her, for she heard desperation in the single syllable. The kind of desperation that had been eating her alive since she’d left the station.

And no wonder. She knew what this baby meant to Tate, and how important it was to him to be in the child’s life. She nodded slowly, then forced her feet into action, walking past him, careful not to touch, even when she wanted to, and unlocked the main door to the building. Once inside, they climbed the flight of stairs to her apartment, which she unlocked quickly and stepped inside, breath held for some reason as he walked past her and looked around.

Predictably, it felt smaller with him in it.

He glanced across the furniture and then stopped looking and turned back to Sarah, the full force of his attention on her. ‘How are you?’

His question had a thousand answers. She could tell him that she was more miserable than she’d ever known possible, that she was missing him with the force of a thousand suns, but that wasn’t really what he wanted to know.

‘I’m doing all the right things. Eating well, sleeping, exercising.’ She lifted her coffee cup in the air between them, staying where she was, near the door. ‘Only drinking one coffee a day, even when that kills me.’

A muscle jerked in the base of his jaw as he placed the brown paper bag down on an occasional table to his right. ‘There are some cakes in there, for you. You like cakes.’

She glanced towards the window, shocked by how his statement felt like a punch. He remembered her loving cakes? She’d only eaten them once, with him, at the bridal shop in Sydney. She had told him, though, that she considered baked goods their own food group, and wasn’t averse to cupcakes for breakfast. And he’d remembered.

‘How did you find me?’ she asked, taking a sip of her lukewarm coffee, simply so she had something to do with her hands.

He thrust one hand into his pocket, frowning. ‘I used an investigator.’

Weirdly, it was the last thing she’d expected him to say.

‘I know, it’s not the healthiest decision I’ve ever made,’ he muttered. ‘But I needed to speak to you.’

Her lips parted on a rush of breath. She didn’t know what to make of that. ‘You could have called.’

‘I didn’t have your number.’

She closed her eyes as the reality of that sank in.

‘And I suspect you wouldn’t have answered, anyway.’

She took another sip of her coffee, her brain whirring to keep up.

‘Besides, I wanted to see you.’

Her heart burst.

‘To give you this.’ He pulled his hand out of his pocket and held it towards her. She moved on autopilot across the room, and then almost recoiled when she saw what he was holding.

‘I don’t want it.’ The engagement ring had been so beautiful, but it had also started to taunt and torment her, after she’d left him. After she’d poured out her heart and been met with ice-cold rejection.