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“Jane,” Liz called after her, and Jane turned around, surprised to feel a jab of compunction at Liz’s obvious distress. “I miss you. Please don’t shut me out.”
Jane’s heart turned over. She continued to stare at the Italian woman. “I have to go now.” Liz’s face fell. “But let’s have a tea this afternoon.”
Liz instantly beamed. “Yes. I’ll bring cake.”
“Okay. I’ll see you later.” She strode swiftly out of her gate and walked in the direction of the High street. She needed a pregnancy test, and she needed it ten minutes earlier.
She bought four tests, just to be sure, but each one displayed two bright blue lines. Two gorgeous blue indicators that there was a little life form in her stomach.
Her heart swelled with pleasure, and then immediately began to contract with worry. What if something went wrong again? What if… she couldn’t bear it. And she wished, then, above anything else, that Carlo was there to reassure her.
Carlo.
She groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. It was his baby. She would have to tell him. They would be tied together for life, through this child. And she would never be able to get over him.
Jane dug her mobile from her pocket and dialled his number before she could change her mind.
“Pronto?”
Jane’s breath burned in her lungs at the sound of his voice. “Carlo,” she whispered, her gut tightening with the violent strength of her emotions.
Carlo immediately sat up straighter. He stared around his office, his mouth dry. What time was it? He blinked, and focussed on the clock above the door. It was after lunch. Hell.
He rubbed his bleary eyes, and gripped his phone all the tighter. As though it were actually Jane in his hands, and somehow, by holding her, he could stop her from slipping away again.
The longer he was silent, the more her nerves stretched unbearably. “Are you there?” She said, finally.
He moaned softly to himself. Then, reality began to burst through his surprise and sleep-addled brain. “Is everything okay, Jane? Are you okay?”
Her laugh was tremulous, and it turned his veins to ice, with fear. “Jane?” He demanded insistently.
“Right, yes. I’m fine. I mean, I am. But I need to talk to you.”
He stood immediately, and moved towards his office door. He hadn’t showered in two days, but he could do that on the plane. “I’ll come to you.”
“Oh. Now?”
“Well, later today, yes. I’m still in Rome.”
“Of course.” He heard her swallow. “Thank you.”
Jane disconnected the call, and began to shake. Her day had started off like any other, and in the space of an hour, she’d sold her house, discovered she was pregnant, made amends with her best friend, and invited her ex-husband over for a tete a tete.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jane, dressed in a simple black dress and chunky gold necklace, with her blonde hair brushed until it shone, felt impossibly nervous. She paced her downstairs lounge, her stomach twisted in so many knots it was just a tangle of wool. How long did it take to get from the airport, she thought mutinously, eyeing her watch for the hundredth time in ten minutes. He’d texted from City over an hour ago. Surely he should have been at her house by now?
Jane poured herself another glass of water and returned to her pacing. What if he’d been in a car accident? What if he’d been racing to get to her, and something had happened? The very notion filled her with nausea. She couldn’t imagine it, and so she didn’t.
Another nerve-crippling twenty minutes later, her doorbell rang.
She sucked in a deep breath and began to move across the floor.
When she opened the door, and stared back at Carlo, she almost sobbed.
“What’s happened to you?” She demanded, staring at him in absolute horror.
He must have lost half his body weight in the three weeks they’d been apart. His hair was long, and his face was covered in stubble. Not a designer five o’clock shadow, this was genuinely unkempt facial hair.
