“What’s wrong?” she asked, noticing.
He could barely bring himself to say it, afraid of what the answer would be. “All our lovemaking… Could it have caused harm to the baby?”
Eyes brimming with softness, she shook her head and pressed a kiss to his mouth.
That was good enough for him. Georgia refused to drink a single cup of coffee for fear of the caffeine damaging their child, not even budging when he’d told her his own mother had always regaled people with how she’d drunk six coffees a day through both her pregnancies without any harm to her children.
All the harm his mother had inflicted had come after the births.
Georgia, he knew with marrow-deep certainty, would never harm their child or allow harm to come to it. She would protect it with her life. She already had when she’d fought him that night in Bayswater. The wound above his hip that she looked at with mortified shame, he regarded with pride. The scar he would be left with would be a mark of her abiding love and protection for their child.
He couldn’t love her more.
The time wasn’t right to tell her the depth of his feelings; wouldn’t be right until this whole damned mess was over, but he could damned well show her.
Slowly sliding his tongue into her mouth, he gathered a fist of her silky hair and slid the hand on her abdomen lower down to gently cup her pubis.
She moaned into his mouth, the moan deepening when he slid a finger inside her and coaxed her flat on her back.
By the time his tongue had stroked her to a climax, her moans of pleasure had soaked into the walls.
The next morning, Niccolo reversed Benjamin’s Land Rover out of the quadruple garage. It was safer than taking the hire car: the Espositos would be on high alert for the first sign of it.
As well as his friend’s car, Niccolo had also helped himself to his wardrobe, namely jeans, a shirt and a sweater, all of which were too small for him. The first thing he would do when they reached Zurich would be to buy himself some new clothes. Georgia, too, who was also wearing another of Benjamin’s shirts. She’d put their own clothes through the washing machine – Niccolo had never worked a washing machine in his life – but the blood stains on his shirt and trousers and her blouse were too deeply ingrained to be shifted.
Once the car was clear of the garage, the shutters closed. A minute later, Georgia appeared through the front door, wearing Niccolo’s jacket. He’d insisted. It made him feel better about seeing her dressed in his friend’s shirt.
After depositing the spare front door key into its box, she climbed into the passenger seat.
“You set the alarm?” he checked as she secured herself with the seatbelt.
“Nine, three, nine, seven,” she recited promptly.
He met her stare. “Ready to do this?”
She didn’t waver. “Yes.”
He kissed her, a hard, meaningful fusion she returned, and then he put the car into gear.
They left Benjamin’s estate at the exact time planned. Dante, Niccolo knew, would be poring over real-time maps of the route they would be taking, all the timings he was coordinating at his end taking into account everything his screen was showing as happening.
The drive back towards London was conducted mostly in silence. They’d gone through the plan so many times that there was nothing left to say about it.
But not talking about it didn’t mean not thinking about it, and even though Georgia had found a decent radio station for them to listen to, Niccolo was certain she heard nothing of the music being played.
All the sensuality they’d shrouded themselves in was over. Their time had come.
What they’d planned was dangerous; there was no getting around it. Every eventuality had been discussed; precautions and alternatives made… But what of the eventualities none of them had thought of?
He couldn’t think of anything they’d missed, but instead of this reassuring him, it increased the angst growing exponentially in his chest with each passing mile. If anything they’d failed to prepare for happened, they were unprepared for dealing with it.
Two hours after leaving Benjamin’s, at the exact time planned, they drove into the suburban town Georgia and her sister called home and entered the pub car park off the main road. A handful of other cars were already parkedthere, presumably belonging to staff or diners who were either working or enjoying a Tuesday lunch cooked by someone else.Presumablywasn’t good enough, though, and with his handgun loaded and secure between his thighs, Niccolo drove past the vehicles slowly.
Vaguely satisfied the cars were all empty, he reversed into a space that faced the main road. Along with everything else, they’d planned for the traffic, and it seemed to be paying off. Traffic was light. The thinking was that drivers and passengers would be less likely to notice anything out of the ordinary if they were moving freely. One hundred meters further up the main road, something very out of the ordinary was occurring.
A delicate hand touched his thigh and squeezed. He covered it and squeezed. Gazes fixed forward, their fingers laced together.
There had been many times in Niccolo’s life when it had felt like life had slowed to a crawl. The hours before his first date. The weeks before Christmas. The months before he could escape his turgid family for England. Those times were nothing on the speed the world had slowed down to now.
