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Danny squealed again and took three more steps towards her, before losing his balance and veering off to one side.
‘You can walk!’ She swung him up into her arms and hugged him tightly. ‘Clever, clever boy!’
She beamed at him and ruffled his hair. His button eyes were shining and he looked as proud of his achievement as she was.
She sank down onto the cream sofa and smiled at him. It was incredible—Danny was walking. It was one of those all-important milestones. She should go and tell Nik—he would be so proud, too.
She stopped and bit her lip.
She couldn’t go to Nik. He’d made it crystal-clear that he didn’t want to see her. He might be interested in Danny’s achievement, but she wasn’t to be the one to tell him. Now he asked Helen how Danny was getting on. She would pass on the information tomorrow.
Suddenly tears welled up in her eyes. She wanted someone to share her joy over Danny’s milestone. And she wanted someone to share her unborn baby’s milestones.
Tomorrow she was going to the hospital for her first scan. Nik knew about it—he’d seen the appointment letter—but he’d never even bothered to mention it to her. He simply didn’t care.
Carrie felt cold inside. Cold and numb.
She lay down on the sofa, hoping for sleep to block out her misery, but the sleep she craved would not come. The leather was cool and ungiving beneath the skin of her cheek and it seemed to draw out the heat of her body through the thin cotton of her dress. She hugged a cushion, but it provided no warmth or comfort.
She couldn’t believe things had come to this. She’d just wanted to do what was best for Danny, to make sure his future was secure, but as she looked into her own future all she could see was darkness. She felt as if she was being sucked into a black hole and the life was being slowly crushed out of her.
Nik stood on the balcony and stared out to sea. There wasn’t another human being in sight, which was normally how he liked it when he had the opportunity to take a break from work. But today it seemed curiously empty.
He’d grown used to having Carrie and Danny around the villa, and even though he’d kept his distance he liked to have some idea where they were.
He started back towards his study, but then heard Danny’s happy cries coming from the garden at the front of the villa. He looked out of a window and saw him playing with his nanny. He frowned and headed out to the garden.
‘Why do you have Danny now?’ Nik called, walking quickly towards them. ‘This is not the time of day you normally spend with him.’
‘Mrs Kristallis has gone to the hospital,’ Helen said. ‘Her appointment letter said that they prefer you not to take children with you when you go for your scan.’
Nik stopped and stared at Helen.
‘The scan is this morning?’
‘Yes,’ Helen said. ‘I thought you knew.’
Without another word Nik turned and strode away across the lawn.
The radiographer rolled a hand-held probe across the gel on Carrie’s stomach and strange echoey noises started coming from the ultrasound machine. Carrie stared at the monitor, trying to see her baby, but she didn’t understand the shifting black and white images that flashed before her.
Where was her baby? Was it supposed to take this long to get a picture of her baby on the screen?
‘Is everything all right?’ she asked.
The radiographer didn’t reply, and Carrie belatedly remembered what she’d discovered earlier—she didn’t speak English. Instead she kept frowning at the monitor with a look of intense concentration on her face and continued to move the probe across Carrie’s stomach.
She lay still as stone, trying to keep calm, but horrible fears were building inside her. She tried to make her mind go blank, to relax, but it was impossible. How long was it supposed to take to see her baby on the screen? She knew it had only been moments, but it seemed like an age.
She wished she wasn’t alone. She wished the radiographer spoke English.
She wished she knew her baby was all right.
Suddenly the door opened and Nik came into the room. He took one startled look at her face, then was by her side in two powerful strides.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, taking her shaking hand in his.
‘I don’t know. Nothing, maybe.’ Carrie’s voice trembled as she spoke and she felt tears prick in her eyes. ‘She doesn’t speak English, and I haven’t seen my baby on the screen yet.’
