Ram shook his head. ‘I can’t believe you’re comparing me to a cactus.’
She laughed. ‘There’s no comparison. Colin is a low-maintenance dream. Whereas you—’
His eyes were light and dancing with amusement. ‘I’m what?’
She felt her pulse begin to flutter. ‘You have a private jet and a house in the rainforest.’
‘And you care about that?’
She glanced up. Something in his tone had shifted, and he was watching her, his grey gaze oddly intent.
‘No, I don’t,’ she said truthfully. It might sound rude, or ungrateful but she wasn’t going to lie just to flatter him. ‘It’s lovely to have all this, but it doesn’t matter to me. Other things are more important.’
Her father had taught her that. His gifts had always been over the top—embarrassingly so in comparison to what her mother had chosen for her. But there had been no thought involved, nothing personal about his choice. Nothing personal about the money he’d sent either, except that it had grown exponentially in relation to his neglect.
‘Like what?’
Ram was gazing at her curiously, but just as she opened her mouth to reply, his phone rang.
Glancing down at it, he frowned. ‘Excuse me. I have to take this.’
Standing up, he walked away, his face tight with concentration.
She caught bits of the conversation, but nothing that gave her any clue as to who the caller might be. Not that she needed any. It would be work-related, because of course, despite what he’d said and what she’d chosen to believe, work would always come first. She just hadn’t expected to have it pointed out to her quite so quickly.
Finally he hung up.
‘Sorry about that.’ His face was impassive, but there was a tension in his voice that hadn’t been there before.
Looking up, she forced herself to smile casually, even though she felt flattened inside. ‘When do they want you back?’
‘Who?’ He stared at her blankly.
‘Work. Do you need to leave now?’
Ram didn’t answer. He was too busy processing the realisation that since getting off the plane he hadn’t thought about work once. Even the launch seemed to belong to another life he had once lived. And forgotten.
He shook his head.
‘It wasn’t work. It was Pandora. My mother. I was supposed to have lunch with my parents today, only with everything that’s happened I forgot.’
Catching sight of Nola’s face, he shrugg
ed.
‘It’s fine—honestly. My mother’s portions are so tiny it’s hardly worth the effort of going, and besides it gives Guy, my father, a chance to complain about me, so—’
‘You could still go,’ she said hastily. ‘I can just stay here and—’
She stopped mid-sentence as his eyes locked onto hers.
‘Why would you stay here?
‘I don’t know.’ She hesitated. ‘I just thought... I mean, obviously I’d like to meet them.’
Was that true? Her pulse jumped.
She was still wary of escalating their relationship too fast. But was that because her perception of marriage was so skewed by the past? Maybe lunch with Ram’s family would help balance out her point of view. And, more importantly, it might give her some insight into the father of her child, for while she had talked a lot—about herself, her parents, even her cactus—Ram was still a mystery to her.