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“All good?” he asked.
“It was only a blood test.” She sighed. “A pointless blood test, but I guess that doesn’t matter.”
Outside the clinic, the air was oppressively hot, and perspiration immediately beaded along her hairline. She kicked at a rock with her sandal as they walked along the street. They’d arranged for the driver to meet them at a café down the road so she and Jules could get iced coffees before they headed back to the house.
“Mari, I’m so sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you. God, I wish I’d never said anything to him.” Jules let out a frustrated sigh. “I was angry at how he was treating you, and he stood there looking down his nose at me, and I was so fucking jealous that you were with him instead of me.”
“If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else. The distrust was already there, it only needed a catalyst.” They walked slowly, and Marianna slipped her arm through Jules’s for support. Her dress billowed around her legs as a breeze pushed past, but it was hot and offered no reprieve. “It’s going to be hard to raise a kid together if he doesn’t believe a word that comes out of my mouth unless there’s some categorical proof. But what else can I do?”
“Are you asking me what I think, or do you want me to say what you want to hear?” he asked.
“I don’t even know anymore.”
“Why don’t you give yourself some mental downtime? Decide not to worry about it until the results come in. You know exactly what they’re going to say, so his reaction will help you decide what to do next.”
Marianna bobbed her head. “That’s a good idea.”
“Evelyn had her third earlier this year, and I can tell you it hasn’t been easy for her marriage. They love each other so much, but the lack of sleep and the physical demands of raising kids has put a strain on them. Lord knows my nieces and nephew are a handful. It’s hard even when you’re working as a team. When you’re not…”
“I know. It’ll be impossible.” She shook her head.
“How are you going to explain to your kid that you and Nico had a fight so he took off for days on end without contact?”
Dammit. Why did Jules have to make so much sense?
“You think they won’t notice at some point that you two don’t have feelings for one another? They’ll go to other people’s houses and see other people’s parents. They’ll put two and two together. Maybe not for another ten or fifteen years, but at some point they’ll figure it out.”
Marriage to Nico had looked like the best option in the beginning. Having two parents under one roof and the means to give her child a good life seemed the perfect solution. She wanted to be a good mother. She’d even wanted to be a good wife. A real wife. Didn’t that mean making a sacrifice? Letting go of her ideals about her future to make sure her child could be raised in a home with both parents?
Maybe not. Maybe by squashing her own chances for happiness she was only going to be teaching them that she didn’t respect herself.
The smart thing to do would be to walk away, go back to Australia and fight for custody when the time came for it. But the thought of leaving Nico settled in Marianna’s stomach like a stone. It felt…wrong. She knew the real him was the man who’d held her hand as she’d jumped into the ocean, who’d bundled her in his arms and his face pressed into her hair while he whispered sweet nothings in Greek when he thought she couldn’t understand. That’s who Nico was, underneath it all. But how long could she put up with being shut out?
“I know you want to do the right thing for the baby, but shouldn’t that mean putting yourself first so you can be happy and healthy enough to take good care of them?” Jules asked. “If your son or daughter was in your shoes twenty years from now, what would you want them to do?”
“I’d want them to be happy,” she said immediately.
The problem was, in either scenario Marianna wasn’t sure how she could be happy. Because she was certain that living with Nico while he held her at arm’s length would be torture. Yet leaving now and not knowing how things might turn out would be just as bad.
“Are you sure I can’t convince you to come home with me?”
Marianna stopped and turned to Jules, pulling him into a tight hug. “I won’t jump from one false relationship to another. It’s not right for either of us. You deserve real, consuming love.”
“And you?”
He was right. What kind of an example would she be setting for her child if she let herself live a lie? If she lied to her baby from day one? Was that the message she wanted to impart?
No. It wasn’t.
“I deserve it too,” she said eventually as she broke away from her best friend. “But I want to give us a chance. I’ll wait for the letter to arrive, and then if Nico is still determined to treat me like a leper I’ll have my answer.”
Chapter Sixteen
Something hurt. No, scratch that. Everything hurt.
Nico blinked and tried to clear the fog from his vision. It was this damn bed. The hotel mattress was too hard for his liking. Though the sheets were expensive, they remained cold next to him. He stuck his hand out, his palm smoothing over the cool space on the other side of the king mattress as if to remind himself that he was alone.
