‘Ah, the old days, when I had to beg clients to cast you because you always looked so shy and serious until you got in front of a camera. That does seem a long time ago. Now you’re all grown up and married to the most eligible man in Europe! How’s it going, darling?’
‘Fine.’ Lily heard the slight stiffness in her voice and forced herself to smile. ‘I’m doing everything by the book. Tristan has registered me with the top obstetrician here, so I’m being well looked after.’
‘That’s good! Fantastic!’ There was a pause, and Lily could vividly picture Maggie briskly tapping the ash from her cigarette into an ashtray placed precariously on the landslide of paper and magazines on her desk. ‘Well, in that case, darling, how’s everything else? You’re keeping busy? Only you would not believe how inundated I am with requests for you to work. Simply swamped with demands from just about every luxury brand imaginable, all wanting the new Marquesa de Montesa to represent them. Of course I tell them all that it’s impossible—that you’re absolutely off the circuit and far too busy with your gorgeous husband and your glamorous life to work, for heaven’s sake… Am I right?’
Lily hesitated for a fraction of a second, before saying brightly, ‘Yes, yes, that’s right, very busy,’ but the lie seemed to echo around the emptiness of Tristan’s stark and beautiful apartment. She tried to soften it a little. ‘It’s the baby, really. I mean, I’m sure if you could see me now the only work you’d be offering me would be the back end of a cow in a butter commercial.’
Unconsciously while she’d been talking she found that she’d pushed up the cashmere jumper of Tristan’s that she was wearing and was gently rubbing the flat of her hand over the neat mound of her bump. At almost six months pregnant she already felt huge, and although she was deeply relieved that the stage of morning sickness had passed she found it constantly surprising how the simplest tasks suddenly seemed overwhelmingly challenging.
Maggie was not to be deflected. ‘Come, come now, darling. I saw that picture in Hello! of you and Tristan at some function last week. Pregnancy suits you—although,’ she teased, ‘I’m not sure it can be entirely responsible for the luminous glow in your cheeks…’
Lily felt her face grow warm. The reception had been held at one of the impossibly grand function rooms at the Banco Romero and had been a stilted affair with endless formal photographs, for which Lily had been expected to take her place at Tristan’s side.
That was the reason for the glow in her cheeks, she thought miserably. Because for a few moments her husband had circled his arm around her waist and held her against him. Because just the feel of his body against hers in a room full of strangers was enough to turn her knees to water. Who, looking at those photographs of the Marqués de Montesa so close to his pregnant wife, would have guessed that that was the first time he had touched or held her in weeks?
Ten weeks, to be precise. Since the night that she had worn the Romero jewels.
‘No, really,’ Lily stammered now, ‘I love being pregnant. I know it sounds mad, but I really do.’ Her voice softened, and her hand stilled on the bump as a wave of primitive love washed through her. Tristan’s coldness and distance were so much more bearable because she had the constant comfort of the child inside her, making its gentle, rippling, fishlike movements. ‘It’s like being under some as tonishing enchantment. My body has taken on this amazing life of its own.’
‘Oh, rats,’ drawled Maggie. ‘I was hoping I’d find you bored to tears and desperate to get back to work. You’re still doing the next instalment of the perfume ad, I suppose—but that’s not until after the baby’s due, which is ages away.’ Maggie paused, and Lily heard her take a deep drag of nicotine before she continued thoughtfully. ‘I don’t suppose you’d consider a lifestyle feature, just to keep the masses happy would you? Something along the lines of “my fairy-tale marriage to the gorgeous blue-blooded Spanish billionaire”?’
Lily suddenly felt very cold. ‘No. No, I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
‘Darling, why not? You’re so buried in domestic bliss that you’re perhaps not aware that your fabulously romantic marriage has made you absolutely the hottest ticket in town. I’ve heard rumours about paparazzi photographers remortgaging their houses to pay for tip-offs about your antenatal appointments, and which parties you and Tristan will be appearing at. You can’t buy this kind of publicity, so when it comes along, by God, you have to make the most of it…’
Lily’s knuckles were white as she gripped the phone. ‘No, Maggie, and—oh, gosh—talking of antenatal appointments reminds me, I’m going to be late for one if I don’t get a move on. Thanks so much for ringing. It’s gorgeous to talk, and I’ll phone you if I change my mind about work or anything.’
A little later as she sat behind the silent Dimitri on the way to her appointment at Dr Alvarez’s office Lily thought back over the conversation. My fairy-tale marriage to the gorgeous blue-blooded Spanish billionaire indeed.
What a joke.
What would Maggie say if she knew that at this moment Lily didn’t even know where the gorgeous blue-blooded Spanish billionaire was, or who he was with? He had left two days ago on one of his frequent ‘business trips’, as usual giving no clue as to when he would be back. And although in many ways his physical absence was easier to bear than the great yawning distance that he so carefully put between them when he was home, it still hurt.
How, she thought bleakly, had she ended up deceiving all the people she cared about most?
She was saved from coming up with the answer to that question by Dimitri’s guttural voice with its impenetrable Russian accent.
‘Nearly there, Marquesa. I park at front?’
‘Yes, please, Dimitri.’ She smiled ruefully. It made no difference how many times she told him to call her Lily. ‘How is Irina?’
He didn’t reply, but once the car had come to a standstill in front of Dr Alvarez’s building he reached into his pocket for a creased piece of paper and handed it to her with a little grunt. It showed the grainy amphibian outline of his sister’s unborn twins.
‘Oh, Dimitri, look! They’re adorable! And getting so big… When are they due?’
He had come round to open the car door for her. ‘Six weeks. But maybe they come sooner.’
Lily gathered up her bag and prepared to ease her bulk out of the car and Dimitri put a steady hand beneath her elbow. It made her smile to think that she’d mistaken the gentle giant for a gangster the night she’d arrived in Barcelona. It seemed so ridiculously naïve now. But then so did a lot of the things she’d thought back then.
‘How is she?’ Lily asked gently. Dimitri had told her that Irina had lost her husband and both of their families in a terrible bombing raid on their village. Dimitri had been trying to persuade her to come to Barcelona before the babies were born, but she was unwilling to leave the place that was her last link with her husband.
‘Always tired. Her blood has not enough…’ he frowned ‘…metal?’
‘Iron,’ said Lily. ‘Are they looking after her all right?’
Dimitri nodded, implacable behind his dark glasses. ‘Señor Romero make sure. He pay for best doctors. He look after her.’
How typical of Tristan, thought Lily as she made her way slowly up the steps to Dr Alvarez’s consulting rooms. Dutiful to the last—even to the unknown sister of his driver, thousands of miles away in Russia. She hated the mean little part of her that resented the idea of Tristan looking after anyone else. But she had so little of him, so very, very little, that it hurt to know that she shared those dry crumbs with anyone else.
Sighing, Lily paused at the top of the steps and took the mobile phone from her bag and dialled his number. Waiting for him to answer, she pictured him sprawled across the bed in some lavish hotel, a sultry beauty lying with her head on her chest, her dark hair spilling over the rumpled sheets. As the ringing continued she imagined him reluctantly disentangling himself from the long, tanned limbs of the beautiful woman and cursing quietly as he searched through the pile of hastily discarded clothes on the floor for his mobile…
‘Hello?’
Lily’s heart rocketed as his voice reached her ear; dark, rich, husky. She felt the heat flood her face. Her face, and her body.
‘Tristan, it’s me. Lily.’
‘I know.’
‘Oh, yes. Yes, of course.’ She closed her eyes, willing the surge of stupefying need that just hearing his voice had aroused to subside again. ‘Look, I’ve just arrived at Dr Alvarez’s office for my scan. He has this high-tech equipment that means that you can see it on the Internet…’ She felt her throat tighten. ‘I just thought…if you’re anywhere near a computer…’
There was a long pause.
‘Tristan? Are you still there?’
‘Yes.’ She thought she heard him sigh, but it could have been static on the line. ‘I’ll connect my laptop now.’