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‘Why didn’t you wake me?’
‘Your boyfriend said to let you sleep.’
‘He did?’
‘You must have been tired,’ the nurse reflected, oblivious to the grim note in Natalie’s voice. ‘You didn’t stir when he put you to bed,’ she recalled.
Natalie gulped. ‘Rafe put me to bed?’ Rafe, it seemed, had been busy. Not content with deciding what was best for her, he was usurping her authority with her child as well! The man just couldn’t help taking charge. Well, he was about to learn that she didn’t need anyone to make her decisions. She chose to forget all the occasions when the burden of making all the decisions concerning Rose’s welfare had lain heavily upon her shoulders.
‘Carried you like a baby,’ the youthful health professional confirmed with a very unprofessional gleam of envy in her eyes.
Natalie decided it was high time she put the record straight. ‘He’s not my boyfriend, he’s my boss.’
‘Boss?’
‘Yes, boss,’ Natalie declared defiantly as she stomped off.
Rose’s bed was in a bay of four but at that moment she was the only occupant. Natalie’s impetuous stride halted as she entered. The main lights in the ward were dimmed but the night light above Rose’s bed illuminated the area beneath. And the people.
Rose was seated cross-legged on top of the duvet and Rafe sat in an easy chair, leaning on the bed with his dark head resting on his crossed arms. She could not see his face but she could hear the deep rumble of his voice in the quiet of the room. Rose too was listening to what he was saying, her little face rapt.
An emotional lump formed in Natalie’s throat as she stared at the tableau. She’d never been more aware of the things that, even with the best will in the world, she couldn’t provide in Rose’s life.
Suddenly Rose’s childish laughter rang out and, brushing the back of her hand across the dampness on her cheeks, Natalie moved forward to reveal herself.
‘Mummy, Rafe’s been telling me a story about a boy who had a pet dragon but nobody else can see him.’
‘Mr Ransome has been very kind, but he’s got to go now and you must get some sleep, so snuggle down.’
Reluctantly the child complied. ‘Kiss,’ she commanded imperiously to Rafe, who complied.
‘Well what have I done now?’
Natalie pulled a concealing curtain around them. ‘Where to start?’ she hissed. ‘How about with taking unilateral decisions?’
‘You needed the sleep, Natalie.’
‘I need to stay in control. Listen, you’ve been very kind, but—’
‘Butt out and clear off. Right, am I allowed to say goodbye to Rose?’
‘Of course.’ His swift surrender had deflated her.
‘I’ll see you on the fourteenth?’ The curtain rattled as he pulled it aside.
Natalie frowned. ‘Fourteenth?’
The wedding.
‘We agreed it was the least I could do as I had robbed you of Luke.’
‘I didn’t agree to anything…’ Natalie’s brow furrowed as she tried to think back, but her recollections were frustratingly hazy. ‘Did I…?’
Rafe smiled. ‘Morning dress, right? Oh—’ he turned back ‘—don’t even think about coming into work tomorrow or Friday. No buts, I’m the one in control there.’ Or so goes the rumour, he added drily to himself as he walked away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘OH, YES, very nice,’ Mike said vaguely as his daughter waved her new patent leather shoes in his face for his approval. Deliberately not looking at his ex-wife’s angry white face, he bent down awkwardly to his daughter’s level. ‘How would you like to come with me and Gabby to America, Rosie?’ he asked the excited child in a coaxing voice.
‘Will I see dolphins?’
Mike, who didn’t have the faintest idea that his little daughter was fascinated by dolphins, looked momentarily nonplussed by this response. ‘Sure we’ll see dolphins.’
‘Will Mummy be coming?’
‘No.’
The child’s face fell. ‘Well, thank you very much,’ she said politely, ‘but I think I’ll stay at home.’
Mike’s smile grew fixed. ‘In America we’ll have a swimming pool in the garden.’
Rose’s eyes grew round. ‘In the garden!’ she gasped in awe. ‘We don’t have a garden here, but we have a window-box.’
Natalie gritted her teeth as Mike shot her a triumphant look and hissed, ‘Out of the mouth of babes.’
‘Rose, go and put on those pretty socks we bought to go with your dress and then you can go with Daddy to have the man put flowers in your hair.’
‘Why can’t you do that?’
‘Because Aunt Gabby’s friend is much better at fixing flowers in your hair than I am.’ He’d have to be, she reflected grimly, to justify the expense of Gabby flying him along with a make-up artist across the Atlantic to fix the bridal parties’ hair and faces.
Ironically, when Mike had turned up in person to take his daughter to the hotel suite where Gabby and the other bridesmaids had spent the night she had actually felt touched by the gesture. How naïve does that make me?
She waited until the little girl had danced away before turning furiously to her ex-husband. Without preamble she grabbed him by the lapel of his morning suit—that got his attention.
‘Good God, Natalie, there’s no need to get physical!’
‘That just about sums up our marriage.’
Mike coloured. ‘What’s got into you, Natalie?’
‘You can ask that? You come here on the morning of your wedding,’ she began in a quivering voice of disbelief, ‘to tell me you’re going to apply for full custody of Rose. What do you think has got into me? You must be insane if you think I’m going to allow you and Gabby to take Rose out of the country!’ she hissed. ‘Besides, no court in the country would give you custody just because Gabby doesn’t want to risk stretch marks,’ she mocked, releasing him and pressing a hand to her trembling lips.
Was there…?
Mike looked shaken but stubbornly determined as he smoothed the fabric she had released. ‘Our lawyer doesn’t agree with you, Nat. He says we have a very good chance. What can you offer Rose compared with us?’ He looked around the neat little room with distaste.
‘Love…?’ Natalie suggested ironically.
‘Sure, sure, we all love Rosie, she’s a cute kid.’
‘And she’s house-trained.’
‘It’s the quality of life we can give her,’ Mike insisted piously. ‘She needs a proper family life.’
‘Pity, you didn’t seem to think so when you walked out on us.’
Mike flushed angrily. ‘You’re a single parent, Nat, living in a poky little flat. You’re always saying how you struggle to make ends meet.’
‘That could have something to do with the twelve months you didn’t pay me child support.’
‘Yes, well, things have changed. Since the exhibition I’m doing very well and, besides, I’d have thought you’d have been grateful to have someone else take the burden off your shoulders.’
‘Rose is not a burden and if you ever say that in front of her I’ll make sure you regret it.’
‘For God’s sake, Nat, what do you take me for?’
‘A selfish, insensitive prat…shall I go on?’
‘There’s no need to get abusive. With us Rosie would have all the advantages and opportunities money can buy.’
‘Money can’t buy everything.’ It could buy lawyers, though; lawyers who could twist the facts to suit their clients.
‘And we’re a married couple.’
Natalie felt a fresh flurry of uncertainty. He might be bluffing, but then again perhaps such things did still weigh heavily? ‘Nobody cares about that sort of thing…?’
Mike heard the uncertainty in her voice and smiled. ‘I know this is hard for you—’ he placed a hand on her shoulder ‘—but you have to think about what is best for Rosie, Nat.’
Eyes flashing fire,
Natalie angrily shrugged off his hand.
