‘It’s about Juliano. It’s important. Now, we can do it out here or I can come in there but wearehaving this talk – now.’
‘Fine.’ The taps shut off. ‘Pass me a towel.’
Alessandro threw the towel from the nearby rack over the top of the shower stall and she yanked it down the other side.
A minute later she said, ‘Nightshirt.’
He grabbed that too and tossed it over and in no time she was exiting the shower, eyeing him with irritation. ‘If you’re going to try and justify what you did, you’re wasting your breath,’ she warned as she pushed past him.
Alessandro counted to ten before he turned to follow her out. No, he wasn’t. It was better this way. Let her think what she wanted. It couldn’t be worse than the names he’d called himself. If this was his punishment for entering into a loveless marriage, for the argument with Camilla that day and its subsequent domino effect - so be it.
He didn’t want, neither did he deserve, her feelings. He’d squandered love once already and now he was paying. He didn’t expect happiness.
His gaze roved over her face. Her cheeks were flushed from the hot shower. She looked all pink and fresh. He could smellsoap and he wanted to pull her close and bury his nose in the place where her neck met her shoulder. He did not, shoving his hands into his pockets, instead.
‘I told you, it’s about Juliano,’ he said gravely. ‘He knows something is up. He’s worried about you.’
She sighed. ‘He is pretty intuitive.’
Alessandro nodded. His son had been through a lot already – too much – and that had made him into a true empath.
‘I was thinking today,’ she said, tentatively, ‘we should float the idea of me moving out at the end of the week so it’s not sprung on him. We can tell him the unit’s finished earlier than expected.’
It wasn’t the answer Alessandro wanted. She’d made such a difference in their lives it was hard to believe she’d been in it for such a brief time. Like Mary freaking Poppins. Juliano, who’d already been through a major loss, was going to miss her. Hell, he was going to miss her. These past three nights without her in his bed had been so damn empty.
Lonely.
‘Fine,’ he agreed. ‘Perhaps in the meantime you could act like we haven’t been quarantined for Ebola?’
She glanced at him sharply. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You haven’t exactly been your usual touchy-feely, happy-go-lucky self,’ Alessandro pointed out. He missed that the most. The little smiles she’d give him, the brush of her hand on his arm or his back as she went by, the quick automatic ruffle of Juliano’s hair.
She wrapped her arms around her middle and glared at him. ‘Gee, sorry about that. I don’t know what on earth could have come over me.’
Alessandro watched a spark of anger glitter in her eyes and her cheeks redden further. ‘I never meant to hurt you, Nathalie.’
‘Yeah, well, you did, Alessandro,’ she snapped. ‘So, you’ll have to forgive me if I can’t just shake that off and act like nothing happened.’
Her bitterness was tangible and Alessandro felt lower than snake’s belly. The last thing he’d wanted to do was hurt another woman. Especially one who had come to mean so much in such a short space of time.
But, damn it, he’d never promised her anything. Certainly not love or any kind of happy ever after. Same with Camilla. She’d known the deal when they’d married. But she’d never tired of turning the screws ever tighter. The weight of his guilt was like a boulder on his chest and sometimes he felt like he could barely breathe.
Alessandro was so sick of carrying around all that extra weight. He’d let Camilla pile it on him, but standing in front of Nathalie he was suddenly utterly over being the guilty party. ‘I never asked you to fall in love with me,’ he snapped.
Nat had been feeling progressively worse over the last half an hour. Her head was throbbing, her body felt like one giant bruise and, as she’d climbed up stairs that had felt like scaling Mount Kilimanjaro, waves of cold chills had washed over her limbs. The steaming hot shower had helped with that situation but it was time to face facts – she had the flu.
Probably the swamp flu. As if a broken heart wasn’t enough…
It had been years since she’d had flu and she’d forgotten how awful the symptoms were but they were coming back to her in all their vicious glory. She felt so wretched that all she wanted to do was burst into tears, but there was no way she was lettingthatcomment slide.
It hurt to talk, it hurt to think, but she was riled now.
‘No, you didn’t,’ she yelled causing her head to throb even more and her throat to strain but Nat didn’t care. ‘You just wanted me in your bed. And what a bonus you got in me, huh?’
‘I think you know I feel more deeply than that,’ he said tightly. ‘How many times have I shown you these last weeks?’
Nat wasn’t sure if it was the fever she was brewing or his simplistic statement that caused her hysterical laugh. ‘Sex?’ Her eyebrows practically hit her hairline as her voice rose an octave to almost a squeak. Blood surged through her neck veins and pounded around her head, flushing her cheeks further. Her head felt like it was about to blow off her shoulders.
