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“Wow.” She blinked at Janice then stepped into the room, placing Josh down in the middle of a timber floor that had been polished to a glossy sheen. A table sat at its centre, long enough to accommodate at least thirty guests, and there was an enormous candelabra placed right in the centre. More fine art adorned the walls, a grand piano stood proudly in the corner and the curtains were all draped in burgundy crushed velvet fabric secured with golden-tassled cords.
“Wow,” she said again, shaking her head.
“Shiny,” Josh agreed, so Ellie smiled, and reached for his plump little hand. He put it in hers and her heart squeezed.
“When you and Mr Salbatore feel like dinner – he usually eats at eight o’clock – just bring it in here and enjoy.” She smiled. “There is a sound system programed with various playlists, and I’ll set the fire before I leave.”
“And what time do you leave?” Ellie asked breathlessly.
“In about twenty minutes.” Janice smiled encouragingly. “But I’m always just a phone call away.”
Ellie shook her head, not wishing to intrude on this lovely woman’s down-time just because she, Ellie, was vibrating with nerves and anxieties at the very idea of sitting opposite this man for dinner.
“As for Master Salbatore here,” Janice said with a grin. “I suspect he would prefer to eat in the kitchen.”
“Yes,” Ellie agreed, thinking longingly of that comfortable, warm space with its neat four-person table and smell of just-baked bread. “I think you’re right.”
At eight thirty, Ellie went in search of Xavier. Her nerves were stretched to breaking point and there was nothing for it but to confront the man who’d caused all this upset and angst in her life. Josh had been asleep for hours. His fever hadn’t returned, but he was obviously wiped out from fighting off his bug.
She’d put him to bed after dinner, and then she’d begun to wait.
And she’d waited.
And minute by minute her anxiety had grown and her nerves had quivered and her doubts had exploded so that, by half past eight, she was a quivering mess. If they were going to have dinner together in that ghastly mausoleum of a room, that living museum, then she’d have sooner got it over and done with.
She found him in his study, and though she knocked before entering, and he called for her to enter, the sight of him still had her feet planting themselves to the same spot on the tapestried rug. His head was bent, his eyes focused on a point on his desk and his body was stiff. Stone-like. As if he were a statue.
Her breath whistled from her lungs and that seemed to capture his attention. He lifted his head, his eyes bleak, his skin pale beneath his darkly golden tan. “Yes?” It was a hiss. A sibilant demand for an explanation as to her arrival.
She swallowed and then assumed an air of defiance that was an utter forgery. “Janice said you eat at eight,” she intoned with her own measure of disdain. “It’s now gone half eight and I came to check if I should wait for you.”
“Is it?” He frowned, glancing at his wrist watch, his mistrust of her now par for the course, yet still oddly hurtful.
“Josh went to bed hours ago,” she confirmed. “He was tired because he’s been sick.” She was nervous and it had resulted in her babbling. She made a conscious effort to cease it and focused instead on her purpose for being in his office. “Would you like me to heat you some dinner?”
He cocked a single brow but oh! How expressive it was! How condescending and insulting. “Are you role-playing the part of the housewife now?”
“If I was doing that,” she said snippily, “I’d have cooked the dinner from scratch, wouldn’t I?”
His eyes sparked with hers and then he scraped the chair back and stood, his frame so bulky and large that she took a step back without realizing it. He grimaced in recognition.
“Leave it,” he said. “I’ll eat later. I don’t think I’m ready to play the part of the doting husband just yet.”
And he turned away, as though he couldn’t bear to look at her. He turned away and she felt as though ice had spread through her veins.
She felt pain, and she ached, and she wanted, more than anything, just to go home.
Chapter 9
SHE PRETENDED TO BE asleep when he came to bed, much, much later. She couldn’t have said what the time was, when the door opened, piercing the blackness of his room with a fine-blade of light, and she couldn’t have looked at her phone to check without giving away the fact she was awake.
Something she most definitely wasn’t willing to do.
But damn it, she’d slept all day, and her mind was rushing over the past and the future and sleep had been disastrously illusive.
She’d been thinking about the day she’d discovered she was pregnant, and the first thrill of excitement that had filled her. Excitement at the thought of having a mini-Xavier, a little boy or girl who would be so like its Spanish father. She’d been so happy, for the briefest second, because she’d been remembering that beautiful weekend.
And then the truth of their situation had intruded and she’d realized that she was pregnant with the baby of a man who didn’t want her. A man who’d used her for sex, for a bit of fun before settling down with the woman he loved.
