He wasn’t around all the time, but he was around too much. He telephoned her every day without fail. She assumed to make sure that she hadn’t fallen down the stairs in a state of pregnant idiocy. And he showed up every weekend, and usually once or twice during the week. Sometimes just for a cup of coffee, and to make sure that everything was working properly in the house. Occasionally he swept aside her objections and made her go out with him for a meal.
Every second in his presence was sweet torture. She wanted to step back, had braced herself with little lectures on the healing aspect of his frequent visits, told herself that the more she saw him the easier it would get to be in his company without feeling the need to find some smelling salts just in case she came over dizzy and passed out.
But none of her mini-lectures had worked and she was just as susceptible to his presence as she had been from the very first second she had laid eyes on him.
While he... He did everything befitting a man whose sole concern was the welfare of his unborn baby.
He had made sure to employ a gardener, so that she wouldn’t have to do anything remotely manual for herself outside, even though she’d tried to tell him that it wasn’t necessary. He roamed through the house, making sure that everything was working, that no lights needed changing—presumably because the thought of her actually getting onto a ladder to change a lightbulb was far too risky.
He treated her like delicate porcelain and she hated it—because it was a parody of domesticity when she yearned for the real thing. She longed for the days when he hadn’t been able to look at her without wanting her...when he hadn’t been able to be in the same room as her without touching her, and when the sight of a bed had always led to a passionate, inevitable outcome. She wanted his attentiveness to be for her, and not just because she was a vessel for his baby.
Her whole body yearned for his touch. She couldn’t imagine how much of a turn-off she must be for him now, with her prominent belly and her pregnant waddle, and her assortment of unappealing clothes which, as the weather had become increasingly colder with the approach of winter, were all in various shades of black or grey.
And she still wondered whether there was another woman in his life—some frisky lawyer he was keeping under wraps because he didn’t want to unsettle her.
Wild horses wouldn’t have dragged the question out of her. She wasn’t sure whether it was because there was no way she would let him see just how deeply her feelings for him ran, like an underground torrent waiting to burst through given the slightest opportunity, or whether she feared how she would feel if he ever confirmed her suspicions.
She clung to the thought that once the baby was born they would be able to formalise some kind of arrangement. She would no longer need supervision as the woman carrying precious cargo and they would be able to work out visiting rights—a loose arrangement which would give her the freedom to get on with her life without him constantly intruding.
A sudden sharp twinge made her wince and she looked uncertainly at the mobile phone on the sofa next to her.
It was dark and cold outside, and a brisk wind was whipping a sharp drizzle against the windowpanes.
Inside, it was cosy and warm. Another twinge drove her from the sofa and she breathed deeply, tried to stay calm, because the baby wasn’t due for another two and a half months and she didn’t want to start panicking over every little twinge.
Neither did she want to ignore something that could be serious...
With a stifled gasp as another sharp pain in her stomach drove her from the sofa, she picked up the telephone and dialled through to Sergio. Just hearing his voice when he answered filled her with strength, and for a few seconds she almost regretted calling him.
‘It’s probably nothing...’ she began.
About to manoeuvre across a roundabout, Sergio swung the car left, heading away from his apartment. He had picked up the fear in her voice with an ease that surprised him—although why it should, he had no idea. He seemed able to read nuances in her in a way he had never been able to with any other human being in his life before.
‘What’s probably nothing?’
‘You’re annoyed that I called, aren’t you?’