She introduced them to Kieron curtly, her eyes darkening with pain when he bent to pick up Caterina, who was gazing at him in wonder.
She gurgled something approving, her tiny hands fastening on to his shirt, and Briony was unaware of the anguish in her eyes, until Gina touched her lightly on the arm, jolting her into awareness.
‘I just dropped by to return Briony’s lipstick’ Kieron explained. ‘She dropped it in my car the other night. I was hoping to be offered a cold drink,’ he added tauntingly, ‘but somehow we never got round to it.’
He was making his meaning plain, but there was no way she could invite him into her flat, Briony thought on a wave of fresh anxiety.
Gina came to her rescue.
‘I made some fresh lemonade before we went out. Why don’t we all go upstairs and have some?’
‘I’ll put a wrap on first,’ Briony muttered, anxious to escape and check up on Nicky.
Fortunately he was still asleep. She dropped a light kiss on his nose as she changed into a cotton dress, wondering feverishly how quickly she could get rid of Kieron.
He and Paolo were talking about cars when she went upstairs. She was thirsty herself and Gina’s lemonade was coolly refreshing. Gina started to tell her about their afternoon, when Caterina who had been playing contentedly on the floor with her toys suddenly electrified Briony by looking up at Kieron and saying quite clearly, ‘Nicky’. It was her first proper word and she sat back looking very pleased with herself at having silenced so many grown-ups. Paolo was the first to recover, swinging her up into his arms and tickling her until the flat rang with her giggles.
‘Who’s Nicky?’ Kieron asked in amusement. ‘He seems to have had a profound effect on your daughter.’
‘Oh, he’s just a little boy she plays with,’ Gina said hurriedly. ‘She isn’t talking properly yet. All men are “Nicky” to her at the moment,’ she improvised wildly.
Briony couldn’t have said a word to save her life. After that first awful moment when her eyes had flown automatically to Kieron’s face she had been incapable of saying anything. If Nicky himself had suddenly appeared in the room and claimed Kieron as his father she couldn’t have been more shocked.
Kieron left shortly afterwards, Paolo going with him to inspect his car. When they had gone Briony remained standing by the window staring into the garden.
‘He is Nicky’s father, isn’t he?’ Gina said softly.
It was pointless lying.
‘Does he know?’ Gina answered her own question. ‘Of course not. But you introduced him to us as your boss?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Briony said dryly. These people were her closest friends, and yet even to them she felt she could not confide the whole truth. Once one’s ability to trust had been destroyed, nothing could restore it, she reflected unhappily, making her escape by reminding Gina that Nicky would be waking up.
‘Thank goodness he didn’t wake up earlier,’ she added on a shudder.
‘Perhaps it would have been better if he had done,’ Gina said softly. ‘He needs his father, Briony.’
It was no longer ‘a’ father, but ‘his’ father, Briony noted bitterly as she left.
* * *
That was the third letter she had had to re-type this morning, Briony thought tiredly as she pulled it out of her machine.
Kieron was in a savagely critical mood, which seemed to intensify with every passing day. He kept her working late almost every night and if was often way past Nicky’s bedtime when she got home. She had been scouring the papers for another job, but there had been nothing. Hardly a day went by without Kieron making some caustic comment about her relationship with Matt. He had found Matt in her office one lunchtime, bursting in on them in a furious temper and demanding that Matt left her alone to get on with her work. It had been on the tip of her tongue to remind him that it was her lunch hour, but the atmosphere between them was so tensely inflammable that she had thought better of it. Time enough to tell him what she thought of him, if and when she got another job.
At the moment he was absent from the office. There had been a question of libel over an article they had printed—the nightmare of every editor, and he was down with the sub-editor of Features talking about it. The heat which seemed to hang over the city in a pall, combined with the long hours she was working, was leaving Briony feeling limp and drained. Gina complained that she did not eat properly, and Briony knew that her accusations were well founded. Since Kieron had arrived her appetite had diminished, and besides, with all the work she had to do, there simply wasn’t time to eat. It had occurred to her that he was deliberately driving her hard, hoping that she would break, and this knowledge only strengthened her resolve not to give in.
The phone rang and she reached for it listlessly, her face paling as she heard Paolo’s anxious voice. At first she didn’t understand what he was trying to tell her, and then when she did, she dropped the receiver with a low moan, covering her face with trembling hands, trying to comprehend what had happened. The outer office door suddenly swung open and Kieron strode in, his eyes fastening on her shocked face and the dangling receiver.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ he bit out, reaching for the phone.
B
riony snatched feverishly for her handbag, getting unsteadily to her feet.
‘I’ve got to go out.…’ She was trembling with pain and fright, her eyes cloudy and vague, unaware of who was with her or even where she was.
‘Sit down,’ Kieron commanded curtly, pushing her back into her chair, but she struggled to sit up, her face white and drawn.