AllFreeNovel
Share Us
All of which had turned him into the very laughable, very unrecognisable cliché of a reborn man.
Fairly certain it was that same alien sentiment that was leading him to re-examine other ideas he’d sealed in the never again vault, he’d left a napping Suki in her suite and retreated to the studio.
He looked around him at the half-finished works that had documented his turbulent state of mind.
Pieces he’d promised to his galleries for fast-approaching exhibits lay abandoned, giant hunks of metal, stone and marble enshrouded beneath black cloth.
Ignoring them, he crossed the cavernous space to the back of the studio where untouched slabs of stone and marble were lined up on wheel brackets. Running his hands over the raw material, he settled on the smooth Carrara marble.
Wheeling it to the middle of the room, he yanked off his T-shirt, powered up his tools and started to sculpt.
Three hours later, the frame of his idea had begun to take shape. Unsettlingly, so had the idea that the parameters of the bargain he’d struck with Suki could...should be altered.
Like the master strategist the world claimed him to be, he stepped back from fully embracing it, weighing the pros and cons as the days passed.
In many ways it wasn’t a road he wanted to go down again. But there was more than himself to think about now. And his child outweighed any con that stood in his way.
So he chipped away, until the one that remained was Suki herself.
* * *
The first six weeks of pregnancy rolled by in a dizzying tumult of blinding joy, hopefulness and inevitable moments of abject fear. The urge to make plans, choose a nursery and start decorating immediately was tempered by the need to exercise brutal caution. With each day that passed, Suki counted her blessings. Hell, she even welcomed the double bout of morning sickness that plagued her this time round.
Through it all, Ramon remained a steady presence at hand to see to her general well-being. Just as he’d made it his mission to get her pregnant, he took on the role of ruthless overseer with aplomb, never straying far when she was awake, reciting bare but reassuring statistics when worry threatened to take over.
He found excuses to be in the room when she tested colour swatches on walls and supervised the staining of the new mantelpiece. He threw a casual arm over her shoulder and held her at a distance when the restorers reinserted the mosaic windows and even helped her re-plaster the priceless tiles.
The belief that he would be committed to his child was indelibly cemented into place. Between that, the doctors’ continued reassurance about her healthy pregnancy and the fact that her mother had undergone the first round of treatment and come through with flying colours should’ve placed her somewhere on cloud nine.
Except for one large hole in the fabric of her contentment.
She and Ramon no longer shared a bed. Despite knowing the day was coming, his immediate and complete withdrawal following confirmation of her pregnancy had lodged a nasty little ball of anguish in her chest she hadn’t been able to destroy no matter how much she tried.
And she’d tried.
By reminding herself how her presence here came about. By summoning up Svetlana’s drop-dead gorgeous form, comparing it to her own and reiterating that she would always be found wanting.
And if that wasn’t enough, she had Ramon’s own words to remind her why she needed to find a way to deal with the silly torment of her crush.
We were engaged to be married. Of course I cared...
Except Suki couldn’t hide from the fact that this time, it was more than a crush. Her crush had been unwieldy and inconvenient. So much so she’d given in at the first true lesson in temptation in the hope of getting rid of it.
But this...
This ache grew mockingly bigger, churning more anguish with each passing day. And it stemmed from the simple knowledge that she missed him. Missed his sometimes acerbic tongue. Missed him teasing her about her love of Teresa’s cooking.
Most of all, she missed falling asleep in his arms. A fact she readily accepted was her most foolish yearning of all.
‘What’s wrong?’
She jumped at the sharp demand, her heart racing as her hand stilled from the light gloss she’d been applying to the frame of an antique painting that had once hung in the drawing room that was being restored.
Carefully she modulated her voice so her feelings wouldn’t bleed through. ‘What do you mean? Nothing’s wrong.’
‘Then why were you standing there with your face contorted and your hand on your stomach?’ came the sharper query.
Realising the direction of his thoughts, she dropped the rag, set the painting against the wall, and turned. ‘Ramon, there’s nothing wrong, I prom—’ The rest of the words died in her throat at the sight of him.
