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Joshua was flourishing in this beautiful neighbourhood. But he was getting bigger – already at nursery school, and soon he’d be old enough to notice that he didn’t have a father.
That his friends did, and that he was without.
Guilt simmered beneath the surface, but she ignored it, dressing for the day ahead and focusing only on what she had to get done. She dressed Joshua in his little winter uniform, adding a school beret and jacket for warmth, made him breakfast (‘dippy’ eggs and toast soldiers with a weak cup of tea, ‘just like mummy’) and caroling him out of the door just in time for the scooter ride to school.
She didn’t see the dark car parked across the street. Sleek and black, with tinted windows and an all-too-familiar frame at the wheel.
She walked beside Joshua, listening to his chatter, smiling distractedly, until they reached the Victorian townhouse that held his school.
“Love you, mummy,” he said, stepping off the scooter and handing it to her as always.
“I love you, too.” And she crouched down, wrapping her arms around his waist, holding him tight to her chest, and breathing him in.
This was her truth.
He, right here, was her everything.
Xavier had broken her heart and had ruined her for all men, for any future love or relationship. He’d made her see only the worst in people, so that no matter how wonderful life turned out to be, it never touched her heart.
But he’d given her Josh, and for that she had to feel a degree of gratitude. She had to feel something like gladness. Because Josh was her life.
“Have a great day.” She pressed a kiss against his thick dark curls, and straightened, watching as he walked into the building. His teacher, Miss Lane, stood at the top, waving as she reached down to say ‘good morning’ to Josh.
The tuition fees were covered by Apollo as well. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for Nell, and by extension, for Ellie and Josh. He was their savior, their knight in shining armour, and though Elizabeth had grappled with allowing him to help, there really had been no refusing. “If you don’t let him help you, then I will,” Nell had said with a grin and a lift of her shoulders.
But deep down, though she was grateful, she hated it. She hated feeling like a charity case, and she hated Xavier for turning her into that.
What had her life been like before she’d met him? What had she wanted to do with herself?
She could barely even remember.
She stopped at a café on the short walk home, grabbing a take away latte, making banter with the barista. “Scooter safe,” he grinned as she walked out the door.
She laughed, a slightly brittle sound given her emotionally turbulent state. She wasn’t concentrating, she certainly wasn’t looking where she was going. Which was why she walked straight into six and a half feet of pure muscle.
“Oh, I’m …” the words died on her lips when she looked up (and up) to see Xavier staring back at her as though he would quite like to strangle her.
He was angry. More than angry.
“Xavier?” She swallowed, trying desperately to reclaim her own dark emotions, her own resentments and bitterness – and failing. In that moment, she felt only the drugging sensual pull of their connection.
“Get in,” he muttered, nodding towards the kerb. A sleek black sports car was parked right beside them, on a double yellow line, of course.
“No.” She sipped her coffee, desperate to appear nonchalant. “And does it ever occur to you to ask instead of demand?”
“Would you get in the car so we can discuss the matter of my son?”
Her fingertips were numb; her coffee slipped right through them, dropping to the pavement. Caramel-coloured liquid spilled out, running in all directions. She stared down at it, her pulse firing, her mind racing.
He’d seen Joshua.
He’d seen their son.
He knew.
All of these conclusions hammered into her. She lifted her gaze to his face and there was not an ounce of understanding there. Not a hint of the vulnerabilities that had played in his eyes the night before. He took advantage of her shock the lift the scooter from her fingertips.
“Get in the car.”
