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‘The doctor wants to see you first, sir.’
‘Jenny!’ he cried.
‘He looked like a broken man,’ the receptionist was to tell her colleagues in the canteen later.
Fearing the worst, Matteo paced the room they’d placed him in, and his eyes were bleak when the doctor walked into the room.
‘My wife? How is she?’
‘Your wife is fine, sir—’
‘And the baby.’ Matteo swallowed. ‘She has lost the baby?’
The doctor shook his head and smiled. ‘No, the baby is fine.’
‘It is?’
‘Absolutely. The heartbeat is perfect—the scan is normal. We’ve put a drip up, of course, because your wife was dehydrated, and we’d like to keep her in for—’
‘But why has this happened?’ breathed Matteo, and dug his nails so hard into his clenched palms that he did not notice he had drawn blood. ‘It is shock which has caused this?’
‘Shock? Oh, no. Your wife has food-poisoning, Mr. d’Arezzo. You should tell her to keep clear of prawns in future—particularly during pregnancy.’
Hot on the heels of exquisite relief that his wife and his baby were going to be all right came the bleak realisation that Jenny would never want him now. How would he feel if the situation were reversed? Could he bear to think of her in the arms of another man? And then to read about it in graphic detail in a newspaper, even if the facts had been twisted?
He walked along the corridor, and when they showed him into her room she was asleep against a great bank of pillows. She looked so small and so fragile that his heart turned over, and seeing the curve of her belly made an indescribable pain hit him.
Feast your eyes on her now, he told himself. For this will be the last time you shall see her so defenceless and vulnerable. Your access to her and to the baby will be barred from now on, and she will look at you in the wary and watchful way in which divorced wives do. From now on your relationship with Jenny will consist of brief meetings and visitation rights—and a whole legal framework.
‘Aren’t you coming in?’ she said softly, without opening her eyes.
He stilled. ‘Jenny?’ he whispered hoarsely, as if a ghost had spoken to him.
She opened her eyes. ‘Hello.’
He started. ‘Did you hear me come in?’
‘Yes.’ And she had felt his presence, too—her senses were so alerted to him.
He rubbed his hands over his face, suddenly weary. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I.’ She managed a smile, wanting to banish some of the bleakness in his black eyes. ‘But that’s what comes of eating seafood! I shall have to be more careful in future.’ She gave him a wobbly smile. ‘But the baby is safe, thank God.’
He felt as if she had driven a stake through his heart. ‘Jenny, don’t!’ he said savagely. ‘Rail at me and tell me you hate me, send me away, but don’t do this to me! For when you are kind it makes it so much harder, and I cannot bear to see it crumble—not what I thought we were on the way to regaining—’ He shrugged his big shoulders. ‘I just don’t think I can bear it,’ he repeated brokenly.
Jennifer stared at him. ‘Matt—you’re not making any sense. Didn’t you hear me properly? Don’t torment yourself. Please. Your baby is safe. Isn’t it wonde
rful?’
‘Yes, it’s wonderful,’ he said heavily. ‘But I deserve all the torment in the world.’
‘Would you mind telling me what the hell is going on?’
He blanched, praying for the courage to give his wife the facts which would finally put closure on their marriage. ‘You haven’t been shown a newspaper?’
Jennifer stilled. ‘No. They’ve been keeping me quiet.’
He nodded. ‘Well, you’re going to find out sooner or later.’
