Her gut squeezed and she made an involuntary gasping sound. It was too much. Seeing him like this again had made her entire body vibrate with a deluge of long-forgotten emotions.
“Abigail,” he said, injecting coldness into his tone with effort. She looked at him as though she wanted to strip him naked and make love to him right there amongst the grand and ancient furnishings. She looked at him as though it was three years ago. He spoke coldly to remind them both: they were simply a fragment of a long-ago past; nothing more.
She swallowed convulsively, just as she had the first time they’d met. She’d been nervous then, too. Shy. But she’d glowed with an inner-strength he’d found compelling. That was missing now.
“Thank you for seeing me.” Shock was receding and now the purpose of her visit was uppermost in her mind. Her voice was business-like. Her manner switching from emotionally-charged to focussed and detached.
He hadn’t expected that. She’d been furious when they’d parted. It had come out of nowhere for her. She had not expected him to end their relationship. Not when they’d become so dependent, and so quickly.
“Why are you here?”
Another visible effort to bring herself under control. She opened her mouth to say something and then squeezed her eyes shut.
He couldn’t have known then but she was trying her hardest to get the words out. Only even she, who’d lived with the reality of their son’s illness for so long, found it hard to frame the sentence; to admit the truth of his damaged heart. If Kiral had had any sense of the news she was attempting to broach he might have been patient. To have silently encouraged her. But he didn’t, and patience had never been Kiral’s strong suit.
His words rung with assumed boredom. Assumed because Kiral knew that if he didn’t conclude this conversation swiftly he would do something he would truly regret. “It is late, Abigail, and I am tired. My day has been long. Say what you’ve come to say.” He narrowed his eyes. “Did you come here because of my wedding?”
“What?” She shook her head distractedly. “No. I didn’t even know that was this week until … until I arrived.” She couldn’t meet his eyes but he didn’t doubt her honesty. The admission hurt him. He didn’t want to analyse why her lack of interest in his life bothered him; the emotion was not to his credit
“Then what is it?”
She heaved out an enormous sigh. “I need money.” Her fingers lifted and wrapped around the slender column of her neck. “I need money, Ki.” At his look of disinterest, she put a hand on his forearm. “Please help me.”
* * *
Two years earlier
“You need to tell him, sweetheart.”
Abi stared up at her mom’s face with guilt. Little lines of worry were bunched around her eyes and Abi knew she’d put them there. The last six months had been hard on both of them. Absentmindedly, she reached a hand out and stroked Michael’s hand through the hole in his humidicrib.
“I can’t.”
“Abi.” Annette sat down in the vinyl seat beside her daughter. She crossed her slim legs and stared at the small figure curled in the plastic cot. His little body was beautiful, despite the trails of cords that ran in and out of his nose and mouth and were tangled and webbed around his torso.
“Mom,” Abi interrupted. “He wouldn’t want to know.”
“That’s crap,” Annette shook her head firmly. “You told me this guy’s fantastic. That he’s smart, and kind and intelligent. You said you love him.”
Abi compressed her lips. “He is. I do. I thought he was all those things. But he can’t … he’s not … it’s not possible for him to hear about this.”
“Why not?” Annette pushed, putting a hand on her daughter’s knee to draw her gaze.
Abi’s eyes were enormous. “Because. He would take him away, mom.”
“Nonsense. He couldn’t. You’re an American citizen and so is Michael. This man couldn’t simply steal your child.”
Abi’s laugh was muted. She shook her head wearily. “I’m going to do this on my own, mom.”
And Annette recognized the stubborn assurance that ran through her daughter. She saw the petulant determination and sighed. “Not on your own, darling. I’m here too. I’ll always be here for you both.”