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She nodded, but didn’t move. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said finally. ‘I don’t understand what happened.’
His throat moved as he swallowed. She caught the action and wondered at his own emotions. ‘The doctor said that, more than likely, there was a genetic abnormality within the baby. An “incompatibility with life”, she called it.’
Skye squeezed her eyes shut, the detail layering more guilt onto her wounded heart.
‘There was nothing you could have done differently.’
‘Of course there is. It was my baby. My body. I should have...’
‘There was nothing you could have done.’ He was insistent.
‘Do you know what I thought? Only a week or so ago? I told you that I wished I was having the baby with anyone but you.’ Her voice cracked. ‘What I meant was that I wished I wasn’t pregnant with your baby.’
She let the words hit their mark, strangely pleased when his face paled beneath his tan and his eyes squeezed shut for a moment.
‘I wished I wasn’t pregnant, and now I’m not.’
‘One thing has nothing to do with the other,’ he said after a moment, the words gentle.
‘I didn’t deserve the baby.’ A hollow whisper. ‘That’s why I lost it.’
‘No, stop. You must stop.’ He drew his brows together, his expression sombre. ‘Do not torment yourself with what you should and could have done differently.’ His mouth was a grim slash. ‘If either of us was at fault here, if either of us should have behaved differently, it was not you.’
He turned his attention back to the canal. ‘I am sorry, Skye. For everything I’ve done to you.’ She jerked her head around to face him, shock making the details of his appearance somehow brighter than they should have been. The grey flesh beneath his eyes; the stubble on his chin that spoke of a lack of interest in grooming, the way his mouth was drawn downward.
Her heart ached for him.
And for herself.
And for their baby.
‘I’m going inside,’ she murmured, turning and moving back into the villa.
* * *
A week after the loss, Skye was no longer in any physical discomfort. Her body was itself again. But her mind and heart would never be the same. She woke early one morning and went to the terrace, diving into the water of the pool wearing only her underwear. She swum for an hour, up and back, up and back, hoping that she would exhaust herself to the point of sleep finally. Real sleep, not sleep tormented by dreams of what their baby might have been like, and the certainty that she’d lost something she’d never replace.
A week after that, and she had learned to numb herself to the grief. At least, some of the time.
And she had accepted that she had to move on.
All the while, Matteo had watched her, had been close to her without invading her space, had accepted her state of non-communication and had waited for the time when she would open up to him again.
His waiting was futile, though, because she never would.
Later that night, once Melania had set the table for dinner, Skye poured herself a large glass of Pinot Grigio. She sipped almost half of it, placed it at her setting at the table, and went in search of Matteo.
When she found him, her heart almost cracked open once more.
He was in his study, holding the stupid stuffed toy he’d bought for the baby.
The ground lurched beneath Skye and it took every ounce of strength she had been trying to rediscover not to break down in tears.
‘I’ve booked a taxi,’ she murmured. ‘It will be here soon. I thought we could discuss the logistics of our divorce before I go.’
God, the words had sounded so clinical and professional when she’d rehearsed them, but now they just seemed discordant and wrong.
His eyes, hollow and almost looking suspiciously moist, lifted to hers. ‘Why?’
