Riccardo watched her downbent head and stilled. ‘Right. I wasn’t actually going to bring up this subject just at the moment…’
‘I know. We should maybe wait until we finish eating, but why not just get it over with and discussed? You’re on edge, I’m on edge. You’re right about us not being strangers, so why should we beat about the bush when it comes to discussing something as important as this?’ Charlotte was rapidly going off her food. ‘I was horrified when you moved yourself into my house, but I have to admit that the experiment worked much better than I thought it was going to.’
‘The experiment?’
‘Yes.’ She rather liked the sound of that word: experiment. It sort of removed her from being personally involved, turned them all into little white mice scurrying round and round in a cage. Little white mice didn’t fall victim to broken hearts. ‘Face it, Riccardo, you might think you know it all, but—’
‘Hang on a minute!’ He slammed his fist on the table. ‘Why don’t you climb down from your perfect pedestal for a minute and stop the categorizing?’
‘I wasn’t categorizing.’
‘No? Then why do you imagine that I think I know it all? Would that be because I’m still the bastard who turned his back eight years ago? It’s a damned long time to be still affected by the past, Charlie! Anyone would think that there’s a reason for that.’
‘A reason? What kind of reason?’
‘So what sort of timescale do you have in mind here?’
Just at that moment, washing the dishes seemed a very good idea. He took her plate, impatiently ordering her to stay put when she offered to help with the tidying, at which she subsided into a series of polite utterances: ‘Are you sure?’ and ‘Okay, if you insist.’ Riccardo felt his mood drop another couple of notches from foul to downright filthy.
Now for the first time he could see that there would be no point to his staying under her roof. She had been right after all. An unnatural relationship for the sake of a child would have been all wrong, and sooner or later Gina would have been affected by it, far more so than if they did the inevitable now and went their separate ways.
He would not debate her decision. Pride slammed into place and settled over him like an ice-cold shroud.
‘Well, I think we can both agree that you’re doing an amazing job bonding with Gina.’
‘And you thought that I wouldn’t?’ Riccardo asked coldly, his back to her as he ploughed into the dishes with the speed of someone vastly unconcerned about grease remnants.
‘No! I just thought…’ She might have spent the past two-and-a-half weeks watching far too much television and lurking behind books in an attempt to avoid him, but she would miss the way her heart fluttered whenever he was around, miss the way he interacted with Gina, making her smile and just being there to pick up the slack when Charlotte had been feeling exhausted. She would even miss the way they sometimes sided against her when she began giving one of her speeches about nutrition. Tears threatened, and she swallowed them back. ‘I thought you might have found it difficult to bond at first. I mean, it’s not as though you have a lot of experience with children.’
‘She’s an easy child. Intelligent. Outgoing. Outspoken.’ He ran water over a plate and slung it on the draining board, where it balanced precariously against a frying pan.
‘Yes. And I’m really pleased that things worked out…Well on that front. I suppose she’s at the perfect age—curious, willing to give people and situations the benefit of the doubt.’ When she closed her eyes, she could relive the sight of him naked, his broad shoulders and athletic, muscular frame glistening with perspiration as he drove deep into her. She cleared her throat to dispel the burgeoning image. ‘But of course, that’s only part of the big picture, which is why I accept that this living arrangement has to come to an end. As far as timescale goes, well, I guess you’d agree that sooner is better than later. I mean, I know it’s going to be hard for Gina, because you’ve been on the scene for over two weeks now, but I think that you’re well bonded enough with her that she can feel secure in the knowledge that even when you go she’ll carry on seeing you.’