He didn’t say anything. She turned to face him to find his eyes resting on her face with an intensity that set fire to her soul.
The silence stretched and she felt a compulsion to fill it. “I always swore I’d have lots of children or none.”
Something crossed his features then, a dark look she couldn’t interpret. It was gone so quickly, banished by his smile, that she thought she might have imagined it.
“There were times when I wished I was an only child,” he said with a lift of his shoulders.
“I think all children fantasise about more space to themselves, but when you live it, it’s… I mean, for example, there’s no one to share secrets with, no one to help with mum and dad as they get older. I’m alone, really.”
Her voice, without her knowledge, had grown small, plagued with the loneliness she’d known all her life.
“Would you have told a sibling about him?”
Her eyes flared wide and an involuntary ache moved through her. “I…I don’t know.” She lifted her slender shoulders, focussing on the tabletop, trying to unscramble her thoughts. “I suppose that would depend on the sibling.”
“But in theory?”
“It’s hard to say. I have – had – friends. I’m close to my dad, in some ways. But I didn’t tell anyone because I just felt so…I couldn’t believe I’d let it happen. Even as I was still with him, believing he would change, I saw it from the outside, I saw how foolish I was.”
“Not foolish,” he contradicted.
“It’s hard to explain. I externalised a lot of it, as though it were happening to someone else.”
“That makes sense.” He reached across, putting a hand on hers, and she felt as though he was going to say something. He hesitated, and her breath snagged inside her lungs, as though it would be something important, something she desperately needed to hear. Then, he smiled, and the warmth that travelled through her was like the sun beaming into all of her pores. “I’ll run you to the cottage after breakfast.”
“I have a meeting this afternoon.”
She paused, midway through re-reading the chapters she’d written that morning, hovering her highlighter over the printed pages. “Do you need me to go?”
“Go?” He laughed. “No. Hardly.” Then, a furrowed brow. “I’m hoping it won’t take long. We’ll be in my office.” He nodded down the corridor. “In all honesty, it’s something I was hoping to put off until…next week.” She felt the subtext of that – until you’re gone – and it made her heart heavy. “But apparently it’s urgent.”
“I’m not keeping you here am I, Nico? I mean, if you need to go to Rome, we can…”
“We can?” He prompted, moving towards where she sat cross-legged on the sofa.
“We can finish this. Us. Early.”
He pressed a finger beneath her chin, lifting her face to his and the look of confusion on his features had her heart beating in treble time. “Believe me, cara, that is the last thing I want.”
Her pulse throbbed in her body, making her limbs heavy and weightless all at once.
“Stay here. Swim. Wait for me. As soon as my meeting leaves, I will be fully at your disposal.” She put the manuscript aside, lifting her arms and wrapping them around his neck.
“And I’ll most definitely make use of you.”
“I should hope so.”
In dozens of nightmares, she’d heard Michael’s voice. It had followed her when she’d least expected it. In the supermarkets, on busses, in her sleep, in the shower. She was used to hearing phantom versions of Michael’s voice.
So when she heard him in Nico’s lounge room, she didn’t immediately react. Not outwardly, at least. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and not just because she was wearing soaking wet bathers, not just because she’d come from the warm sun outside and the water of the pool to the relative cool of the house.
It was his timbre, his depth; both were completely familiar and utterly spine tingling. She froze, and looked around, needing to reassure herself that she was imagining it. He couldn’t be here. It wasn’t Michael. It wasn’t him.
Except, when she angled her face, she saw him. Unmistakable, unforgettable Michael. She watched as Nico extended a hand, shaking Michael’s, and though Nico’s face was grim and his manner firm, he was nonetheless shaking the man’s hand. As one might a friend, or business partner.
Fight or flight instincts ran rampant through her body and yet she did neither. She froze, completely. Unable to move, unable to think, unable to speak.
“Maddie.” Nico’s voice came to her as if from a long way away. Her knees were trembling, her head felt as though it might explode. “Did we disturb you?”