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The second time of telling had involved the same words, but no longer a statement, more a question conveying a snide implication that he had taken exception to.
‘She says she is pregnant? Are you calling my wife a liar?’
‘She is very efficient,’ he said now.
‘Oh, I have no doubt that she was only saying what she was told to. I assume that it was you who told her that any further communication would be through our legal teams.’
‘That,’ he reminded her grimly, ‘was your idea.’
‘I should have known it would be my fault.’ Without warning the fight drained out of her, leaving her feeling weak-kneed, shaky and fighting back tears.
‘Are you all right?’
She scraped together enough defiance to throw back a querulous, ‘I’m pregnant, not ill.’
His chest lifted in a silent sigh. ‘So, it’s true?’
‘Obviously not. I just made it up.’
‘Sorry, that was a stupid thing to say.’
She squeezed her eyes closed and felt his hand on her elbow. ‘Yes, it was.’ She opened her eyes and shook her head, unable to keep a quiver of emotion out of her voice as she tilted her head back to look him in the face.
‘You should sit down.’
‘I should be in bed. I was in bed.’ Conscious of her shaky knees and the fact she was grateful for the support of his hand, she nodded to the door just behind him. ‘The sitting room is through there,’ she said, afraid that he might take the next door, to her bedroom. Bedrooms were where all this had started. ‘Be careful. There are boxes we haven’t got around to unpacking yet.’
Skirting the packing cases, he continued to hover protectively until she had sat down on one of the sofas.
‘So, have you seen a doctor?’ he asked, dropping into a squat beside her. He scanned her pale features and felt a gut punch of guilt. She looked as if she had been crying for a week. Maybe she had. She looked so fragile that he was afraid to hold her. She looked as if she might break.
She nodded.
‘So, there’s no mistake.’ Under the fresh wave of guilt he was conscious of something new. A possessiveness, a protectiveness.
She shook her head, feeling tears threaten again as she wondered if that was what he had been hoping. That this was all some mistake that they would laugh about. She couldn’t really blame him.
‘And a scan?’
‘Not yet…what are you doing?’
He lifted the phone away from his ear. ‘Making arrangements.’
‘Dante, it’s half three in the morning.’
He shook his head as though the relevance passed him by.
‘I know in your world you can demand anything you want at any time of day and people will jump, but in my world we make appointments in daylight hours and get put on waiting lists.’
‘Waiting lists?’
‘If you want to do something, make me a cup of tea. Ginger. It helps the nausea. The kitchen’s through that way.’ She tipped her head in the direction of an arch at the end of the room that fed into the galley kitchen. ‘Teas are in the bottom cupboard, first right.’
She closed her eyes, pretty much too exhausted to see if he reacted and definitely too exhausted to argue. She didn’t open them until she felt a hand on her arm.
‘Drink,’ he said, watching her.
She did, blowing on the surface of the liquid first to cool it as he took a seat on the opposite sofa. He appeared lost in his own thoughts.
