‘Knocked up?’
‘Pregnant.’ Janey gave a malicious laugh. ‘Don’t think for one moment, Catherine, that I don’t know what I’m doing. Don’t for one second think that this baby is an accident.’
‘Janey, I’m sorry.’ Catherine stood up. ‘I wasn’t suggesting you don’t want your baby. I just never thought you…’ She struggled helplessly for a second. ‘You’ve never shown any interest in babies.’
‘And I don’t intend to start.’ Janey’s eyes narrowed spitefully. ‘Do I really have to spell this out, Catherine? I’ve never had it so good. I can go into a shop, any shop—and not look at the price tags. I can walk into the best restaurants without checking the prices. And if you think I’m going to let it end then you don’t know me at all.
* * *
Maybe Marco does love me, maybe this would have carried on indefinitely, but I’m not prepared to take the risk. So I’ve created my own little insurance policy.’ She patted her stomach, but without a trace of tenderness, laughing mirthlessly at Catherine’s shocked expression. ‘And if you’re worried about my lack of maternal instincts, then don’t waste your time; Marco can afford the best nannies. I won’t have to do a thing. So you can save the big sister lectures, save the boring speeches—because I don’t need you, Catherine.’
Even a year later the words hurt.
The shiny cool gold of Janey’s wedding band held its own batch of memories—only this time they weren’t exclusive to Janey.
Rico, smart in his dark suit, pausing a fraction too long before handing the rings over, his hand hovering over the Bible before dropping them down in an almost truculent gesture. For Catherine had come the welcome realisation that she wasn’t alone in her doubts about this union…
‘How are you doing?’
The nurse was back, providing a welcome break from her painful memories, and Catherine gave a tired smile, standing on legs that felt like jelly and smoothing down her skirt as she picked up her jacket.
‘I’m fine, but I think I’d like to go to the children’s ward and sit with Lily.’
Lily.
A wave of bile threatened to choke her as she thought of her niece, orphaned and alone in the children’s ward, and for a moment she wrestled with a surge of hatred—hatred for her sister that was surely out of place now she was dead.
‘They said they’d call down when they were ready. It shouldn’t be too much longer. I know you must be exhausted, dealing with all this on your own, but at least we’ve finally managed to locate Marco’s parents. Apparently they’re holidaying in the States; that’s why it’s taken so long.’
‘His father and stepmother,’ Catherine corrected. ‘His mother died a long time ago.’
‘Well, they’ve been contacted.’
Catherine gave a weary nod. She hadn’t expected the Mancinis to drop everything, and even though she knew a lot needed to be organised and a lot of choices needed to be made, secretly she was relieved nothing would be done tonight.
Tonight was hard enough.
‘Someone called Rico’s coming, though; he rang on his mobile and said for you to wait here…Are you all right, Miss Masters?’ Catherine could see the nurse’s mouth moving, the concern in her face as Catherine swayed slightly.
‘I’m fine. It’s just…’ Her pulse seemed to be pounding in her temples and her tongue was dry as she ran it over her lips. Legs that had just found their bearings seemed to be collapsing beneath her again as the nurse pulled the chair nearer and guided Catherine into it.
‘Take some slow, deep breaths, Miss Masters, and keep your head down. That’s the way. You’re just a bit dizzy, that’s all, which isn’t surprising after all you’ve been through. I’ll get you some water. Just wait there. It’s all been such a shock for you it isn’t any wonder you’re feeling faint.’
Catherine gave a weak nod, burying her head in her hands and feeling a vague stab of guilt at the nurse’s kindness.
Today hadn’t really been a shock.
It was agony. It hurt more than she could even begin to bear. But the nurse was wrong again. The sad end to these lives hadn’t been a shock. The way Marco and Janey had lived their lives, flaunting society’s rules, sure that money would protect them, that rules didn’t somehow apply to them…today had been inevitable.
It wasn’t the accident and its aftermath that had caused her near-faint—although, Catherine admitted, it would certainly have contributed to it—it wasn’t even the long interviews with social workers, trying to map out a tentative path for Lily, and it had very little to do with the fact she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. It was all down to the fact that Rico was coming. After all these months she was finally going to see him.
‘Rico,’ she whispered his name out loud, dragging in the stuffy hospital air and closing her eyes, allowing her mind to drift away for a slice of time, drift away from this awful room and the awful day to the beauty she had once witnessed. The horrors of the days receded as his face came into focus—a face she had pushed out of her mind for a year now, refused to dwell on, forcibly removed from her consciousness, but a face that had always been there, slipping into her dreams at night, supposedly unwelcome but shamefully, gratefully received.
He had made her laugh.
The wedding she had dreaded had turned out to be the most exhilarating, heady night of her life, and it had all been down to Rico.
It had been Rico who had come up to her as she’d sat, seemingly aloof but actually tense and awkward at the head table, watching confused and bewildered as Janey and Marco made a mockery of everything sacred and t