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‘You’re happy?’

‘Yes. I love babies,’ she admitted a little self-consciously.

‘And why shouldn’t you?’ Raffaele replied lightly.

‘How do you feel about this?’ she pressed with intense curiosity.

‘Delighted,’ Raffaele said quietly. ‘I wrongly assumed that this result would take a lot longer to achieve.’

And at least one of the happy bubbles inside Maya burst because ‘achieve’ wasn’t the kind of word she wanted him to use. It wasn’t an emotional word; it was a businesslike word that went best with other words like target and goal. It was a reminder that she wasn’t in a typical marriage, a reminder that, indeed, her marriage as such was probably already winding to an end even as they spoke because that had been what they had agreed.

‘And now you’ve got your freedom back just like you wanted,’ Maya pointed out, because she could not resist the urge to speak out loud her greatest fear. She would get used to the idea that he was no longer a real part of her life, she told herself fiercely; she would forget that he had ever begun to mean something more to her.

Raffaele tensed, stunning dark golden eyes suddenly narrowing and veiling, curling black lashes concealing his expression. In silence, he nodded, a faint frown line etched between his ebony brows. ‘It’s a little soon to be thinking like that,’ he murmured tautly. ‘In fact, it’s kind of insulting. I have more respect for you than you seem to think.’

But Maya wanted much more than respect, she thought painfully, hoping that what she felt for him wasn’t really love but some lesser affliction like a teenager’s overwhelming crush, which could often be short-lived. She could swiftly recover from a crush, after all. For the sake of her own peace of mind, she knew that she had to start moving on from their relationship as fast as she could.

CHAPTER SEVEN

BARELYFORTY-EIGHTHOURSlater, Maya suffered a miscarriage.

The day before, Raffaele had insisted that she should see a Greek doctor to have the test result confirmed and have the usual health checks. Maya would’ve preferred to wait until they returned to London in a week’s time but she had given way in the end because she wanted to follow all the rules. She had told the doctor about the incredible tiredness engulfing her and he had smiled and advised her that that was normal in early pregnancy.

That evening when they were sailing towards the island of Sicily, sheer exhaustion persuaded Maya into having an early night. Cramping pains in her abdomen wakened her after midnight and she sat up with a start, switching on the bedside light and pushing back the sheet to check that her misgivings were correct.

‘What’s wrong?’ Raffaele demanded.

‘I’m bleeding,’ she whispered sickly. ‘I’m having a miscarriage.’

In a matter of seconds, Raffaele leapt out of the bed and lifted the phone to wake his pilot and instruct him in urgent Italian. As if she were standing somewhere outside herself, Maya watched him as he pulled on jeans, reluctantly appreciating his extreme cool in a crisis and the way he took charge. ‘There’s no point in taking me to a hospital,’ she told him ruefully. ‘There’s nothing they can do to stop what’s happening at this stage of a pregnancy.’

‘Youmustreceive medical care,’ Raffaele sliced in fiercely. ‘And don’t take that pessimistic attitude. It may be something else amiss, something that can be treated.’

He wouldn’t let her go for a shower, wouldn’t even let her stand up or walk. He bundled her up in a towel and a sheet and carried her up to the helipad where the helicopter was already powering up. Maya stopped arguing. She didn’t need a doctor to tell her what had happened, and she knew how common early miscarriages were. Her baby, barely more than a tiny bunch of cells, was already gone. Rationally she knew that even then, but her brain was having a much harder time coming to terms with the knowledge.

The cramps became more severe during the flight and she struggled to hide the fact that she was in pain because there was nothing anyone on the flight could do about it.

Watching her, Raffaele felt sick and powerless, not sensations he was used to feeling. Her eyes were dark with strain in the white taut triangle of her face and her breathing was erratic, her hands clenching in on themselves. He knew she was in pain and he reached for her hand. ‘Maya—?’

‘I’m totally fine. Let’s not fuss about this,’ she told him briskly, snatching her fingers free of his and turning her head away, tears burning free of her lowered eyelids to trickle down her rigid face in silence.

Naturally, Raffaele didn’t want her to lose the baby because that would mean starting all over again, she thought painfully. Just when he had been on the very brink of reclaiming his freedom, his neat little plan had fallen apart and they were being thrown right back to where they had begun. He couldn’t possibly be feeling whatshewas feeling. The baby itself wasn’t real to him the way it was to her. Onhisterms, their precious little baby had only been a means to an end, and she hated him for that, simply couldn’t help hating him for it.

The helicopter ferried her to a private hospital in Sicily and she was whisked away from Raffaele. Once she had been examined and scanned, she was given pain relief and finally tucked into a bed in a quiet room where a doctor came to tell her what she already knew: her pregnancy was gone. She had thought she was prepared for that news, but it seemed that she was not and that somewhere deep down inside she had still cherished a dim and foolish little hope that her worst assumptions could yet be proved wrong. Only, unhappily for her, her pessimistic outlook had been correct.

And she felt gutted, absolutely gutted with hurt and disappointment. In the silence of the night, broken only by occasional quiet footsteps of the staff in the corridor beyond her room, she lay wondering if she had done anything that could have contributed to the miscarriage. Maybe she had eaten something she shouldn’t have or caught an infection, maybe she shouldn’t have had the occasional glass of wine after the wedding, maybe she had been too active scrambling over rocks and along goat paths in Raffaele’s energetic wake while they were exploring, maybe her body just wasn’t fit enough to host a healthy pregnancy.Stop it, stop it, her brain urged her as all the things she could have done wrong tumbled together in a crazed shout of self-condemnation inside her aching head.

It was so pointless to think that way because none of it could change anything: her baby was gone as though it had never been and that absolutely broke her heart. The tears she had struggled to hold back surged then in a blinding, stinging flood and she buried her convulsed face in a pillow to muffle her sobs.

‘I’m so sorry...’ Raffaele breathed stiltedly from the doorway because he knew how thrilled she had been about the baby.

In fact, he had been sincerely startled by her sheer enthusiasm at the idea of becoming a mother because the kind of women he usually mixed with invariably felt the need to deny the maternal urge as though it were a weakness or an unattractive trait likely to scare off eligible men. But not Maya, no, not Maya, who was who she was without fear or concern as to how she might appear to others and who wanted what she wanted without apology.

Tragically, he didn’t know what to say to her and that felt like an enormous failing to him at that moment. He had spoken at length to the medical personnel, had heard every empty cliché that had ever been voiced on the topic of miscarriage and he didn’t want to trot those same words out for Maya’s benefit.I’m sorry, an expression of regret, seemed the only appropriate response.

In dismay at his appearance, Maya rolled over and sat up to focus on him through swollen eyes, angry resentment shooting through her in a heady rush of sudden energy. ‘Of course, you’re sorry...this development sets back your plans!’

‘As of this moment I have no plans,’ Raffaele intoned, moving forward, all lithe grace and self-containment. ‘We need time to grieve.’

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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