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‘He has a family who love him—no thanks to you.’
She turned accusing eyes to him, hating his carelessness. Hating herself, too, for the decision she had taken to walk away from his baby. It was the darkest piece of her, so unexamined that she dared not flip that little piece of the puzzle over. She hated him for the decision his recklessness had ultimately forced her to make.
‘How could you, Dante?’
He would really like to ask her the same, but he was trying to be practical with a mind that was working a little too fast now. ‘Do you know the mother?’
‘It’s an anonymous baby door, Dante.’
‘Don’t be smart, Alicia. These rumours you were talking about on the plane—that’s what the hate is all about?’
‘Yes.’
He waited.
‘There was a lot of talk in the village about you visiting the house when you came home.’
‘What house?’ He looked at her. ‘Do you mean when I cleared out my mother’s belongings?’
She nodded.
‘I was busy—a night vigil, a funeral, you.’
‘Dante, you were there. Howcouldyou?’ she repeated.
He just stared at her for a long time.
‘No,’ he finally countered. He had again been about to ask the same thing of Alicia, but then he looked right at her and didn’t. ‘I don’t have to explain myself to you.’
‘Because you can’t.’
‘Because I don’t need to.’
‘Because youcan’t.’
He brushed past her then and she stood there, feeling ill at the way she’d blurted things out, waiting for round two. But then Alicia was suddenly frantic.
She followed him up to his bedroom where he angrily dressed.
‘You’re not going to the convent, are you?’
He ignored her and she watched him pulling on his jeans.
‘You can’t go there,’ she said. ‘Dante, please don’t rush in and disrupt his life.’
He didn’t answer.
‘I shouldn’t have told you.’
‘Clearly you could no longer contain your resentment.’ He looked at her. ‘I get that feeling, believe me,’ he said, making it clear he was struggling to contain his. ‘Could you please stop coming uninvited into my bedroom?’
‘You at least owe me an explanation.’
‘Actually, I don’t.’
He looked up, and it was then that she realised there would be no round two. She wasn’t worth a row, and he reminded her why.
‘We’re not a couple, Alicia. I told you—I don’t do all that. And, believe me, neither do I ever want to.’
