“Yes,” she snapped, exasperated by the sisterly concern. “Goodnight.”
She crashed the receiver onto its cradle and resettled herself in the bed, her back turned to the empty side, stubbornly intent on doing her utmost to block it out of her mind. She wanted—needed—oblivion for a while. Tomorrow she would think about what had happened tonight. It was too hard, too confusing, too awful to come to grips with it now.
Cheat!
She shut her eyes tight and willed the tormenting word to stop its relentless beat on her brain.
Cheat...cheat...cheat...
It wasn’t true...it wasn’t! She’d met him more than halfway in everything. Until...
He just didn’t understand how much having the baby meant to her...how devastating it was to have her body reject what she most wanted. It had nothing to do with Giorgio. Nothing!
Her arms automatically cradled her stomach. The empty place inside her ached and ached. She couldn’t have borne to have sex with Matt, feeling him where she’d lost the baby. It wasn’t fair of him to expect it of her... wasn’t fair... The wedding ring on her finger didn’t mean he could take her without her consent, even though he might think she had bargained that way...no sex without the ring.
Cheat...
No...no...
It didn’t work if it wasn’t mutual. At least he had realised it and let her go, left her alone, alone to the emptiness she couldn’t bear and couldn’t fill.
She rocked herself in anguish, rocked herself to sleep, and clung to sleep, even through a shifting blur of troubling dreams where everything she reached for moved out of reach and dwindled away into nothing.
Then there was a bell ringing, piercing and persistent, forcing her to swim groggily to the surface of consciousness. Daylight hit her eyes. She quickly closed them again. Tomorrow had come and she still didn’t want to face it.
Cheat...
She writhed as the hateful word slithered out again.
The ringing sound was the doorbell. Desperate enough to grab at any distraction, Peta hauled herself out of bed, pushed her arms into her dressing gown, and tottered out to the door, wrapping the edges of the gown around her, tying the belt, running her fingers through her hair. One thing was certain. It wouldn’t be Matt. He’d use his key.
She opened the door, carelessly resigned to dealing with someone. Except the someone was Megan who pushed straight past her into the apartment without so much as a by-your-leave. She was alone, no baby Patrick in tow, for which Peta was grateful, though she wondered who was minding him.
“Are you taking to sleeping through the day as well as the night?” Megan sniped, bristling with every sign of being on the warpath.
Peta sighed, wishing her sister had stayed away. “What time is it?”
“Time you came to your senses.”
“Oh, don’t start...”
“I’ll do more than start. I’m through with your sensibilities, Peta. You’ve crucified a decent man and I’m going to nail you to the wall for it if it’s the last thing I do!” She shot her a scathing up and down glance. “I’ll grant you a cup
of coffee first. And believe me, that’s sisterly love!”
She’d whirled into the kitchen before Peta got her breath back from the fast and furious attack. Crucified? The evocative word sent a shiver down her spine. She swiftly assured herself Megan was exaggerating the situation, as she always did when she was upset. Matt must have called her, though surely he wouldn’t have confided the awful nastiness of last night’s scene.
Cheat...
She shuddered and hurried after her sister, finding her tipping fresh grains into the coffee-maker. “I don’t know what Matt told you...”
“He called me out of concern for you, Peta.” Her eyes flashed contempt. “You, who haven’t given him one smidgeon of concern since you miscarried. As though it wasn’t his baby, too.”
It whipped up a hot flood of guilt and shame. She’d been so immersed in her own grief, she hadn’t seen his, and he must have felt it, wanting a baby as much as she did. He’d said as much last night. She should have responded. The leaden weight in her heart had been too heavy to shift.
Megan clicked the grain-holder into place and switched the coffee-maker on with angry snaps. “I never thought I’d say this about my own sister...” She turned, her eyes stabbing home the point. “...But you’re a blind, self-centred bitch, Peta.”
Shock punched her heart. She opened her mouth to protest but Megan swept on.