‘Nico?’ Had she not said his name, he would not have thought it was her.
She looked nothing like the woman he had met that day, nothing like the woman he had held that night.
She had put on weight, a lot of weight, her face was puffy and swollen, those gorgeous blue eyes peered out from two slits and that lush, ripe body was bloated now. Her once wild tumble of dark curls hung tired and lank and even that delicious mouth was dry and cracked, but it was not that which made her so unrecognisable, it was more her stance, the defeat in her as she opened the door as if all the fire, all the energy, all the passion that made her her had been extinguished.
And Connie was painfully aware of that.
She could see the shock in his features, the same shock she felt sometimes when she stared dull eyed at her reflection in the mirror and tried to reconcile what she saw with the woman she once had been.
She wanted to close the door, to hide—for never, ever would she want him to see her like this.
‘You didn’t call.’ It was not the words he would have chosen to greet her with if he could do it again, but he had not rehearsed this. In fact, he had pondered all the way what he might say to her, and had decided he would see when he got there. ‘I said, if ever you needed anything …’ He looked her slowly up and down. ‘And clearly you do …’
It was a touch brutal and again he wished he could retract his words as he saw her chin rise in defence.
‘So sorry!’ Connie snapped. ‘Had you given me some warning, I’d have put on make-up, and answered the door in something a little more fetching …’
She missed the slight twitch of his lips as he realised not all of that energy in her had died. She missed it because an angry, sinewy voice came down the stairs and then several loud thumps as his stick hit the floor and Connie’s heart raced again, for she was not allowed visitors. ‘Connie,’ the voice demanded, ‘who is it?’
‘Just a delivery,’ Connie called, and then looked at Nico with urgent eyes. ‘You have to go. I’m not allowed to entertain.’
‘I’m not asking to be entertained,’ Nico said,’ just to talk.’
‘I’m not allowed guests,’ Connie said. ‘Please, Nico, just go.’
‘So what time are you off?’ He saw her eyes screw closed, saw her shake her head and go to close the door, but he blocked it with his shoulder. ‘When do you have a day off?’
‘Please,’ she begged. ‘I don’t get time off. I have to be on call …’ She saw him frown, saw incredulity flicker across his gorgeous features and she just wanted him gone, did not want to be seen like this, but Nico just stood there. ‘He’s bedridden,’ Connie explained. ‘He needs someone here at all times.’ Still Nico stood. And for a fleeting second she saw escape, that maybe Nico could help. Maybe she didn’t have to tell him about her father. It was so wonderful to see him. His beauty, his presence she had never even for a moment forgotten, but somehow, to be kind perhaps, her mind had dimmed it; somehow she had convinced herself that he was surely not quite as stunning as she remembered. Yet here he was and she didn’t want it to end. ‘I’m going to the shops in the morning …’ Connie attempted. ‘Maybe we could meet for a few minutes for coffee.’
‘A few minutes …’
He heard something else then, the wail of a baby, and clearly it irritated the old man, because the thumping on the ceiling became more insistent and he demanded that she shut up that noise.
And Nico was furious, incensed on both her and the infant’s behalf, and he would not leave her there, not for a single night. There was no sensible thought pattern, no grandiose gesture. He just felt sick at what was taking place here, and he watched her eyes widen in horror as, without invitation, he pushed easily past where she held the door.
‘You can’t come in …’ Connie whimpered, but he could, and Nico put a finger to his lips and stood in the hallway. Connie stood shaking, wondering how she could get rid of him without making a noise.
‘Connie,’ came the reedy voice, ‘I need you …’
Nico’s jaw tightened. He stood in the dingy hall of a home that must once have been beautiful but now smelt of neglect and old man. Constantine did not belong here and surely neither did the baby that was still wailing. ‘I’m coming, Henry …’ She turned to race up the stairs, but he caught her wrist.
‘It sounds as if your baby needs you first.’
‘And I’ll tend to him soon,’ she whispered, but she was terrified to leave her baby. She could see Nico was angry and assumed it was at her. What if he simply took him? What if, as she tended to Henry, he simply plucked her son from his from the crib and left?
His son.
Connie felt her breath tighten in her chest, could not leave her babe, yet could not dare keep Henry waiting, especially as the banging was nonstop now.
‘Go to him,’ Nico said in a low voice. ‘I will wait here …’
‘No.’ She dared not trust him. She ran to the kitchen and scooped up her baby, and hushed him for a moment, but he was fretful as he nestled into her chest and heard his mother’s hammering, panic-stricken heart. She fled up the stairs with him, then gently placed him on the carpet outside Henry’s room where his screams intensified, but he was safer surely on the floor than in reach of a father who might choose to take him.
Henry was not best pleased. Connie had taken an hour off this afternoon to visit the doctor and he hated the baby that demanded his aide’s attention, and the noise, he told her, as she repositioned his pillows and rubbed his back, was not acceptable. ‘He’ll be quiet soon,’ Connie assured him. ‘He needs feeding and then he’ll settle.’ Then she felt Henry’s eyes linger on her heavy, aching breasts and she wanted to slap the disgusting old man, for his leers, for the endless silent innuendos, for the smile on his face as she washed him.
For so many things.
Except it was here or the street.
‘I’ll check on you later,’ Connie said when Henry was settled, but still her baby wept.
‘I’d like that.’
She did not respond, tried to ignore his veiled meanings, because, as she told herself so very often, he was all talk—but how she loathed it.
Loathed it so much her skin crawled in his presence, but she tried to look for the good in things. It was here she had worked through her pregnancy and Henry had hired someone to care for him for three weeks after a very difficult delivery and allowed her to stay there.
She picked up her babe and held him, closing her eyes against dizzy fatigue, and hoped against hope that the tablets the doctor had given her would work, that the cloud would soon lift and she could start creating a proper future for herself and her son.
‘We’ll get there,’ she said to her tiny baby, holding him tight, but he would not be soothed. All he wanted was to be fed. ‘Soon,’ Connie hushed, because first there was a difficult conversation to have, an unexpected visitor to attend to, and, most importantly, Henry must have no idea she had allowed someone to enter his home.
Nico watched as she came down the stairs, holding the still crying baby, and she pressed her finger to her lips, warning him not to speak. She gestured for him to follow, which he did, down the long hallway to the rear of the house where she pushed open a large door. He found himself in a kitchen area, much brighter than what he had seen of the rest of the house. There was a certain homeliness to it—there was a crib and there was also a sofa decorated brightly with cushions.
She turned on the television and still she did not speak, placing the baby in his crib and trying to placate him with a dummy. She stacked and turned on the dishwasher and then turned the television up louder and only when there was enough noise filling the room to disguise their words did she speak.