Too damned right he’d have tried to stop the divorce being finalised. A baby changed everything.
Her husky voice was tired. ‘I didn’t know for certain.’
He did some quick mental maths. They’d ripped each other’s clothes off six weeks ago. By his reckoning, she must have been carrying this secret for anything between two and four weeks. If he were a gambling man, he’d put his money on her having sat on it for close to four weeks, especially when he worked back to the date of her last period from when they’d still been together. Marnie’s menstrual cycle ran like clockwork.
On the ground floor, she flopped onto the nearest armchair in the reception room, too tired to walk to the living area.
‘Can I get you a drink?’
Her eyes briefly met his. ‘Water, please.’
‘Any food?’
A quick shake of her head.
Figuring it would be quicker to get the water himself than ask one of the staff to get it, and needing a moment to get a grip on his growing anger, Domenico went to the kitchen and filled a pint glass for her, oblivious to the caterers clearing up around him.
She took the glass with a murmured thanks and had a few small sips from it.
He sank onto a hard-backed chair close to her and studied her some more. The lighting up here was much brighter than in the basement, and now he could see just how tired she was. And thin. She’d lost more weight than he’d thought in his initial assessment.
‘Are you not eating?’
‘I try,’ she whispered. ‘I’m just struggling to hold anything down. I kept trying to put it down to stress, but I think I was in denial.’
‘Deliberate denial?’ He tried not to sound too pointed.
Her stare fell to the floor. ‘Maybe.’ He had to strain to hear her, but then her voice strengthened a little as she looked back at him. ‘I know this baby is what you married me for, but I’m not coming back to you.’
‘We’re going to be parents, Marnie.’ It was a fight to keep his voice even-tempered. ‘You know how I feel about children being raised by committed parents.’
‘I do, yes, but I feel just as strongly that children shouldn’t be raised by parents who hate each other.’
‘I don’t hate you.’
Her lips fleetingly curved in a sad smile. ‘Since when have you been a liar?’
He ran his fingers through his hair and tried, again, to keep a grip on his temper. The only thing Domenico hated about Marnie was how she’d outmanoeuvred him with the divorce. She’d let him make love to her night after night, never breathing a word about any unhappiness, while behind his back she’d been putting everything in place to leave him. She’d even given the tenants of her flat notice to leave so it would be free on the day she made her move. When she’d left the restaurant after handing him the divorce papers, she’d got into a cab and driven out of his life. He’d returned home and found much of her dressing room empty. While he’d spent his days working, she’d spent hers secretly packing much of her stuff away and transporting it across London. So sneaky had she been that she’d done it all under the household staff’s noses, because if they’d been aware of what she was up to, they would have told him immediately.
This was the first time she’d been back in his home since they’d left for their wedding anniversary meal.
Gripping the sides of the armchair, she got unsteadily to her feet. ‘We’ll have to have the big conversation about our baby’s future another time. I need to go home; I don’t feel well.’
‘Thisis your home.’
Still holding onto the armchair, she speared him with a pained stare. ‘This wasnevermy home, and even if it was, we’re divorced.’
‘That was your choice, not mine.’
‘Yet you were the one celebrating it with a party. Not me.’
‘I wouldn’t have celebrated if I’d known you were pregnant.’
‘No, you would have been running a rampage through the courts to stop the divorce going through. Never mind what I wanted, it’s all about whatyouwant. It’s always what you want that matters. Everyone else is just a bit player in the production written, directed and starring Domenico Cannavaro.’
‘That’s not true,’ he bit back angrily. ‘I gave you everything you could possibly want. I denied you nothing.’
‘No, you gave me everythingyouthought I could possibly want.’ Closing her eyes, she shook her head and breathed in through her nose. ‘I didn’t come here to rake over the past, Dom, and right now I don’t have the strength to argue.’
