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Her eyes told him she believed otherwise.
‘Look, I believe you when you say that you have arrangements in place and all sorts, but it sounds like a recipe for hurt to me. And I would never knowingly hurt someone. It’s a promise I made to myself a long time ago.’ She looked right at him. ‘I could have so easily gone the other way, Abe.’ She never did the woe is me with her childhood, but she opened a tiny window on it then.
‘I was moved from pillar to post and some of those pillars and posts weren’t very nice. I was so close to sticking my fingers up at the world. I was so close to going off the rails but instead of being nasty, I chose to be kind. And, as much as I want to, I can’t really believe that Candice is okay with it all.’
‘Naomi, she is. I pay for her apartment and—’
‘Abe, I don’t want to hear it. We had a wonderful day out and we shared a kiss at the end...’ She tried to downplay it, to somehow neatly file it away. ‘Let’s not make it any more complicated than that.’
‘It doesn’t have to be.’ His voice dropped to huskiness and his eyes were as black and as enticing as treacle. A personal preference perhaps, but treacle was up there with her favourite things. Yet more dangerous than a sugar hit was the pull of Abe, and how she had to fight not to lean into him.
To forgive and forget, or at least pretend to.
Thank goodness for Ava, Naomi thought, for without her she might just have given in, but instead she gave a slight shake of her head, as if to clear the spell. ‘Please, Abe.’ She just came out and said it. ‘It might be completely straightforward to you but it’s all just too sordid for me.’
He just sat there as, without malice, she gave her verdict.
She was close to tears and didn’t want him to see them, or to resume this conversation, so she chose to make a rapid escape. ‘Could you hold Ava for me, please?’
‘Sorry?’ Abe said, his mind miles away.
Her words had been like a punch to the gut, but he didn’t show that, of course.
‘I need the loo and if I put her down now she’ll just start crying.’
He hadn’t held Ava.
Not once.
He held out his arms and when Naomi handed her over, she was so tiny and light that it felt as if he was catching air.
And Naomi disappeared and left him, literally, holding the baby.
Sucha new baby.
And he knew that Ava would be okay.
Abe had spent his early years looking out for his brother, and the later years protecting Ethan’s false image of his mother.
He must have got something right, Abe decided, for it would seem Ethan was far more capable of love than he.
Naomi’s summing up hung in the air.
Sordid.
Abe had never looked at his life from the outside before and until then he had never really cared what others thought.
Yet he found himself caring what Naomi thought.
If she’d just let him explain...
He and Candice had come to an arrangement a long time ago, when they had first broken up.
Or rather when he had ended things.
He thought back to Candice’s pleading and pointing out the anger emanating from the board about his reckless ways. It had been Candice who had suggested that they lie and pretend that they were back together. If she could appear to have forgiven him, then surely the rest would follow?
It had worked.
