Confessions of a Pregnant Cinderella

For a second Skye was bombarded with a vision of Lazaro, passionately kissing a tall, sleek, beautiful woman in front of one of the massive windows in his penthouse apartment, while Skye walked back and forth in some suburban house soothing a fractious baby.

The spike of jealousy shocked her with its strength.

‘I don’t want to be treated like some commodity you can just move around, Lazaro. If you’re going to do that I’d prefer to get on with my life in Dublin.’

‘Living in a mould-infested basement flat and working as a waitress while doing street portraits for extra money?’

Skye flushed. ‘At least I’d be independent. And I know it’s not just about me any more...but I won’t go back to a life where I’m at the mercy of the whims of someone else.’

‘I’m your husband, Skye, not your mother. This is a partnership.’

Skye stayed silent at that, afraid of what more might spill out of her mouth if she opened it.

The breakfast went quickly, and afterwards Almudena and the stylist helped Skye to change into a going-away outfit. It was in the same style as her wedding dress but in a light blue colour. A matching jacket buttoned just above her bump.

Before she left the room to join Lazaro downstairs she saw the posy of flowers she’d picked from the garden earlier. They looked droopy and a little sad. Skye hated to think it, but she really hoped it wasn’t a sign.

When she got downstairs Lazaro was pacing and looking at his watch. He’d changed too, into a light grey suit, his shirt open at the neck. He looked up when she came down the stairs, those green eyes roving over her body. Little flames of heat licked at her nerve-endings.

His hair looked slightly messier than usual, as if he’d been running a hand through it. He was so beautiful he made Skye’s heart spasm.

No, she told herself fiercely. Not her heart. He didn’t have her heart. Yet. Never, she told herself with a kind of fatal desperation.

He reached out to her and she went forward, putting her hand into his. His hand was big and firm, closing around hers. Skye didn’t like the way his touch made her feel all at once safe and protected, but also as if she was standing on the edge of a precipice about to fall off.

/> He speared her with that green gaze. ‘Ready?’

Skye wanted to say no—to pull free, run back up to the bedroom, take off all the new clothes, the make-up, and go upstairs to that empty room and sketch until she felt grounded again.

But of course she couldn’t do that. So she just nodded and said, ‘I’m ready.’

* * *

Skye had slept for the relatively short flight to Venice. As much because she was genuinely fatigued as because she was finding it hard to compute that she was actually married to Lazaro. She really hadn’t wanted to investigate the swirling mass of emotions in her gut. So she’d slept. And had been woken by Lazaro to find herself in the bedroom at the back of the small plane.

She was wide awake now, though, being helped into a boat that would take them into Venice along the Grand Canal. It was afternoon, and the sun was high, but the late summer was taking the edge off the searing heat.

The boat rocked as Lazaro stepped on, and he sat beside her on the bench after exchanging a few words in Italian with the driver. They took off, and Skye relished the breeze moving through her hair, which was already unravelling. There was a refreshing fine mist of spray from the water and impulsively she stood up, so she could see when they entered the Grand Canal.

When they did, she sucked in a breath at the sheer beauty laid before her. The ancient Venetian palaces lining each side of the wide canal. The gondolas. The speedboat taxis.

Lazaro stood beside her. ‘Is this your first time in Venice?’

She shook her head. ‘I was here when I was about sixteen with my mother. We lived here for six months. It was like something out of a fairy tale for me... I’ve always wanted to come back.’

‘Does this mean you’re fluent in Italian too?’ There was a strange note in Lazaro’s voice.

Skye glanced at him and her heart skipped a beat. The breeze was ruffling his hair and against this backdrop he could have been a charismatic prince from medieval times. Or more likely a marauding pirate.

Skye struggled to recall what he’d said, and then she answered, ‘I know enough to get by.’

For a moment they looked at each other, the grandeur of the Grand Canal going unnoticed. Lazaro reached out and twined a tendril of loose hair around his finger, tugging Skye towards him.

‘What other languages do you speak?’

‘Passable French, Greek... Arabic. We lived in Cairo for a couple of months when I was twelve.’

He said, ‘You’re a very...surprising woman.’