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It came to her like a flash, and was followed by another rapid thought.
No, she would call Nico tomorrow. And if he wanted to meet her she would be free the next day to meet him—with Gabe.
She would not be asking Louanna to watch her son. Nico could get used to the idea, just as she had had to.
‘You look happy,’ Louanna commented.
‘I am,’ Aurora said, and then looked up to see her employer’s pinched face. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Of course I am.’ Louanna smiled. ‘My husband just called—he’s coming home a few days early.’
‘Oh, when?’ Aurora’s voice was as strained as Louanna’s smile.
‘Tonight.’
‘Then it’s just as well I’ve made plenty to eat,’ Aurora said.
He came through the door all smiles, and Aurora decided she must have imagined his dark moods, for he was pleasant to everyone.
Perhaps pregnancy had made her tired and more sensitive, Aurora thought as she put little Nadia and Antonio to bed and then came downstairs, to where Louanna was serving up the lasagne that Aurora had prepared.
‘Eat with us,’ he insisted.
‘No, really.’ Aurora smiled. ‘I’m going to take my supper down to the summerhouse and settle Gabe. Have a nice evening.’
She wasn’t avoiding him. The truth was that Aurora wanted to work out what she would say when she spoke to Nico.
‘Nico,’ she practised aloud, ‘there’s something I have not told you…’ Or, ‘Nico, this will come as a surprise…’
She fell asleep, still undecided how to break it to him, and woke to Gabe’s cries at two a.m.
‘Hey…’ she said as she gave him his bottle.
Aurora loved these middle-of-the-night feeds—the contented noises her baby made; the way his fat little hands held hers as she fed him. There was no time more precious to be holding her son as when the world was so peaceful and quiet.
Except tonight the world was not so peaceful and quiet—there was a light on in the main house. Louanna and her husband must be up.
Aurora’s heartburn returned as she lowered little Gabe into his bassinette and he slipped back to sleep.
She should just go to bed, Aurora told herself. It was no business of hers.
But as she listened Aurora changed her mind, and wondered if she should call the police.
Which would have been the sensible choice.
Except Aurora was bolshie and passionate, and she did not know how to look away…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Rome
THE GLORIOUS SIGHT of the city at night, from the vantage point of his helicopter, did not lift Nico’s spirits and there was no sense of relief to be home.
With wealth, Nico decided, came too much cream.
Here in Rome the chefs had been drilled as to his preference for plain food, but it hadn’t translated so well at the Silibri site. There the chefs had seemed determined to impress, but they had failed. Oh, the food had been spectacular, but for the first time Nico had heartburn.
Or was it more a sense of unease as he disembarked from his helicopter and saw his regular driver waiting for him?
