‘My parents are very anxious to finally meet you.’ ‘How is your mother?’
‘She spends a lot of time at Rafe’s grave. It’s hard,’ he admitted, ‘to know whether that is a good thing or not.’
‘The flowers she sent were beautiful and the phone call was very sweet. She must be anxious to see you.’
She looked at her belly. It was difficult to imagine that one day her baby would grow up and leave her.
‘Over the moon since she heard the news about the baby. As for seeing me, I think there is a little of the double-edged sword about that.’
Erin gave a baffled frown. ‘How do you mean?’
‘She cannot see me without being reminded of Rafe.’
Just as he was every time he caught sight of himself in a mirror! Not that Erin imagined for a second that he needed any reminder. She suspected that he would feel the loss of his twin for the rest of his life.
‘It’s strange. If Rafe hadn’t died, you wouldn’t be sitting here with me now. And—’ she looked down and gently massaged the gentle mound of her belly, which over the past week had become too pronounced to be hidden by loose clothes, ‘—there would be no baby.’
‘We might have met anyway,’ he suggested.
‘Possibly,’ she conceded. ‘But we’d never have married. The circumstances would have been different.’
You would have been different, she thought, looking at him. You wouldn’t have had a gaping big hole to fill.
‘A bit like that film … have you seen it? I forget the name. It’s all about one pivotal decision. You take one path and it’s happy ever after. You take the other and.’ She mimed a slashing motion across her throat.
As happy-ever-after paths did not usually include divorce and emergency surgery, Francesco assumed she considered she thought she had taken the latter.
‘Well, we are not living in a film, cara. We are living in the real world, a world where you are married to me, and I am the father of your child.’
The severity of his clipped delivery caused her smooth brow to furrow in bewilderment.
‘So you will just have to put your personal feelings about me to one side.’
This suggestion drew a shaky laugh from her. ‘God, but I wish it was that easy.’ That easy to stop loving him so much it hurt.
When Erin glanced up from her brooding contemplation of her interlocked fingers she was startled by the suppressed pain in his face.
She didn’t have the faintest idea what she could have done or said to put it there, though she had no doubt if it hadn’t been for her invalid status he would have quickly told her!
Francesco stayed for a little longer and explained about the travel arrangements for the following day, but the easy intimacy of earlier had vanished. When he left he didn’t kiss her.
For the first time she was actually grateful that she was on bedrest because it meant that there was no chance of her acting on her compulsion to run after him. An act she would undoubtedly have regretted later.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ERIN woke, her body bathed in sweat.
She lay there waiting for her heart rate to slow, the images from the repetitive nightmare still vivid in her mind. She turned her head and glanced at the clock. It was just after one.
With a groan she lifted herself on her elbow and punched the pillow.
Clutching it to her chest, she turned over. ‘It’ll be better when I’m out of here,’ she told herself.
‘Hospital beds are notoriously uncomfortable.’
A small fractured cry left her lips as the shadowy figure in the chair rose.
‘What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.’ Erin experienced the confusing rush of emotions that she always did when she saw him.