‘I’m sure if you tell yourself that enough times, you’ll come to believe it,’ he said knowingly before she heard his footsteps cross the stone floor away from her.
The door opened and closed, and the footsteps vanished.
When Marnie heard the knock on her door three mornings later, she pretended to be asleep.
Even though it was the main door and not the adjoining door being knocked on, her instinct that it was Domenico was proved right when she heard the tread of his steps and breathed in the fresh scent of his shower gel. She kept herself perfectly still, just as she’d done the last two mornings, even when she heard him place her breakfast tray on her table. She could only be grateful he couldn’t hear her heart. The roar it was making would prove in an instant that she was faking.
As she’d done yesterday and the day before, she counted to one hundred after he closed the door before getting out of bed.
Her breakfast was the usual two slices of toast, an array of condiments to choose from, and a pot of tea.
Sitting on the windowsill, she ate slowly and methodically, knowing not to rush it. She felt more like her old self than she’d done in months and would not do anything that might encourage the nausea to return. It was a picture-perfect day out there, and now that Domenico had left for work, she was ready to get out there and breathe the fresh air into her lungs.
After a quick shower, she donned a pair of jeans and a pretty white button-down top. It was the first time in months that she’d dared wear jeans, the material too constricting against her belly to risk it aggravating the nausea, and now she was awed to find they were too tight to do up.
A look profile-on in the mirror proved what her jeans were telling her. She’d developed a little bump, and for the first time in so, so long, she smiled. Properly smiled.
Pressing her hand to it, she was awed all over again to find her skin had tightened, almost like it had shrink-wrapped itself over the baby to protect it, and it hit home to her, truly hit home, that this little bump contained her baby. That was her baby in there, nestled in the safety of her belly. Somehow, they’d both got through the worst of her illness. They were both still there, and she felt an almost overwhelming urge to call Domenico and tell him to come back so he could see it for himself. He would be as thrilled to see the bump as she was, and before she could stop it, a wave of misery sluiced through the joy to know they would never share the joy of their child together the way their child deserved.
But their child deserved every chance at safety and happiness. Marnie had lived through the hell of parents who hated each other, and she would never put her child through it. It had been terrifying when her father walked out and she’d been left alone with her drunken mother, but at least she’d been able to sleep at night without being woken by their screaming rows. At least she hadn’t needed to hide in her wardrobe anymore.
She might not be able to give her child a two-parent family, but she would love and protect it to her dying breath. Domenico would too. They just couldn’t do it together, and she had to pray that one day he would accept it and stop fighting.
Deciding to keep the jeans on, she left the buttons undone—the way they fit at her hips meant there was no danger of them falling down—and headed down the stone stairs. After grabbing a bottle of water from the kitchen, she slipped out of the villa’s rear.
The villa’s grounds were split into clearly defined areas, and it was to the intricate rose garden that Marnie headed. Created hundreds of years ago in imitation of the rose gardens beloved of the English royalty, in its centre was a beautiful marble fountain of the goddess Venus rising out of a pearlescent scallop shell.
The wall of the fountain’s basin was a couple of feet high. After removing her sandals, Marnie sat astride it before twisting round to dip her feet in the refreshing water, and tilted her face to the sun.
Eyes closed, she breathed the clean, fragrant air deep into her lungs and imagined the sun’s rays penetrating her flesh, injecting her with its energy, and as she imagined it, she felt it, tiny electric tingles dancing on her skin.
‘I thought I’d find you here.’
So startled was she at the unexpected sound of Domenico’s voice that she lost her balance, would have tipped backwards and crashed onto the gravelled ground if his super-quick reflexes hadn’t seen him whip an arm out to catch her.
‘Steady,’ he murmured, gently righting her. ‘My apologies. I didn’t mean to scare you.’
Her heart pounding at both the shock of his appearance and the shock of his touch, she splayed her hands on the wall either side of her thighs and tried her hardest to catch her breath. ‘I didn’t hear you coming.’
‘That was obvious.’ He sat beside her, but facing the other way. ‘You were lost in your own little world.’ She heard the smile in his voice. ‘It looked a very peaceful world.’
‘It was.’ She swallowed more air into her lungs. ‘Why aren’t you at work?’
‘I’m taking the day off.’
She closed her eyes. ‘Why?’
‘Because I’m not going to get very far in convincing you to come back to me if we don’t spend any time together. This is our fourth day here, and I’ve seen nothing of you, not with me working all day and you refusing to spend time with me in the evenings. We need to talk, Marnie.’
‘Iknewit.’ Shaking her head, she gave a bitter laugh. ‘I knew that coming here was you making your first move.’
‘And yet still you came.’
Unable to deny it, she sighed. Marnie had known from the off that Domenico was going to use their time in Rome to start the game again. ‘Is this where you tell me you’ve stolen my passport and plan to keep me locked up until I agree to remarry you?’
He chuckled lightly. ‘It is a tempting thought,fiore mio, but no.’
She squeezed her eyes. ‘It’s way too late to start with endearments, and what does that even mean?’
