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‘Yes.’ She nodded. For a moment she thought that he was going to reach out and pull her into his arms, and how she wished he would. All she wanted was to lay her head on his shoulder and howl her heart out so that some of this horrible emptiness might go away. She wanted to lose herself in his powerful embrace and have him tell her that everything was going to be all right, and this time around she might be prepared to believe him.
But he did nothing like that. He just gave her arm the kind of gentle pat he might have administered to an aging family pet. ‘Babies survive brilliantly on formula milk,’ he reassured her.
Hopefully, she looked at him. She’d forgotten that he’d read just about every book which had ever been written on the subject. ‘Do they?’
‘Of course they do. And in a way this might make things easier.’
‘Easier?’ Justina blinked at him. ‘How’s that?’
‘Well, up until now the fact that Nico relies solely on you has governed our timetable, hasn’t it? But now he’ll be able to come over and spend the night with me. It’ll free you up to do some work. Especially now that my new house is looking so good.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve had a nursery installed.’
It was appalling that in the middle of such disruption and change and worry about her baby Justina should feel completely redundant and jealous. But she did. ‘You’re sure you don’t want any input from me?’ she questioned. ‘About the nursery, I mean?’
‘No, thanks,’ he answered coolly. ‘I have plenty of ideas of my own.’
She forced a stoic smile. ‘Right.’
It got worse.
The first time Nico was due to spend the night with Dante, Justina got him ready with everything he needed for his first overnight trip away. She was trying to push off the heavy blanket of sadness which had fallen over her and to quell her own rising sense of nervousness—not least because they’d arranged she should take him over there herself. She had planned to dress up for her first visit to Dante’s new home. Maybe wear that cashmere dress he’d never seen, with her hair hanging loose and a pair of decent shoes. She was going to make sure that she looked amazing. She hadn’t dared ask herself why such action seemed important, because she was afraid of setting herself up for something which might ultimately fail.
But now the doorbell was ringing, and instead of a cashmere dress and sexy shoes she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt liberally smeared with mashed banana. She opened the door to see Dante standing there, his dark hair windswept and his tie loosened a little at the neck. He looked formal, yet rumpled, and quite ridiculously sexy, and she had never felt more unattractive in her life.
‘I’m supposed to be dropping him round to you,’ she protested, wiping away the little beads of sweat which were inconveniently forming at her forehead.
‘I know that—but I had a meeting nearby and so I thought I’d save you the journey.’
‘But...but I wanted to see the new nursery.’
There was a pause. ‘You can see it another time.’
She recognised the blocking tactic and her smile froze. He didn’t want her there. Had her refusal to marry him backfired in the most spectacular way possible? Had she pushed him so far away that there was to be no coming back?
She thought she saw him glance at his watch. ‘You seem in a hurry to get away!’ she said brightly. ‘Can’t I persuade you to stay and have a coffee before you go?’
Levelly, he met her gaze. ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea, do you?’
She looked into the flat expression in his eyes and flinched. ‘No,’ she said hollowly. ‘I suppose it isn’t.’
‘So why don’t I just take Nico and leave you to have a well-earned rest?’ He lifted his eyebrows. ‘Planning on doing something special on your first night of freedom, are you?’
From some dark and lonely place deep inside her she produced a grimace of a smile. ‘I haven’t decided,’ she lied, as if she had a million different options open to her.
‘Well, have a good one, whatever it is. And I’ll see you tomorrow.’
The apartment felt so quiet after they’d gone, and so empty. She prowled around the big modern rooms as if she was looking for something—she just wasn’t sure what that something was. The giant mirror in the bedroom gave her a glimpse of her hair, which was sticking to her clammy brow, and she thought it was no wonder that Dante hadn’t been able to wait to get away. But she knew that it was about much more than her looking as if she’d been dragged through a hedge twice over. She had thrown his offer of marriage back in his face and in doing that had wounded his pride—perhaps for ever.
She showered and put on a robe, but still she couldn’t settle to anything. She supposed she should eat something, but there was very little in the fridge apart from two fat-free yogurts and half a bar of chocolate. She hadn’t been eating sensibly and she was going to have to start.
This is what it’s going to be like from now on, she told herself grimly. This is your future and it’s only going to get worse. She had let fear stop her from taking what she really wanted. Too scared to embrace the start of a brand-new life, she was going to have to sit back and watch while Dante forged a future with someone else. Because sooner or later he would meet a woman. Someone who would love him as a man like him would always be loved. Who would learn to love Nico, too. Why, her beloved son might one day call another woman Mamma.
‘No!’ Justina shouted forcefully, as if there was someone else in the room to hear her. And then, because it felt so liberating, she shouted it again. ‘No!’
Her hands were trembling as she ran into her bedroom and pulled on some clothes. Then she dashed outside to find a cab, giving Dante’s address in Spitalfields in a voice which was shaking.
The air was unseasonably warm and the rush-hour traffic had died away. She stared out of the cab window as they grew closer to his home. Much of the area had been rejuvenated, and everything seemed to be bursting with life. She could see mothers with buggies and the colourful sign for a local nursery school, festooned with bumble-bees and butterflies. Despite its inner-city location it seemed a homely area, and much more suitable for a baby than her sleek apartment block, where she didn’t even know a single neighbour.
Nerves threatened to assail her as the cab drew up outside an imposing black front door. She could see lights blazing from a first-floor room. She could hear birds singing in the nearby garden square as she paid her fare, and her thumb was trembling as she jammed it onto the doorbell.
