She nodded weakly and he helped her to sit on the side of the bed before departing for her room. Riffling through her drawers was not something Alessandro had ever pictured doing but he couldn’t find anything else resembling her usual oversized sleep shirt, so he just grabbed a regular T-shirt and underwear along with her hairbrush and toothbrush from her en suite.
When he returned to his room she was crossing gingerly to the shower – like every step was a chore – and Alessandro had to employ all his impulse control not to slip his arm around her waist for support. ‘You need a hand?’
She waved him away and he forced himself to go ahead and place her clothes and towel within easy reach and start the shower. It was at a good temperate when she entered, clinging to the door. ‘Do you need to sit?’
‘I’ll be fine.’ She glanced in the mirror and winced. ‘I look like a wrung-out dish mop.’
It was true, she was pale with dark circles under her eyes, which lacked their usual sparkle. Her blonde hair, normallyswishy and perky, hung limply around her face. But all he saw was the Nat who had brought his son back to him. Nat who had made his house a home. Nat who had wormed her way into a place inside he hadn’t thought was accessible to anyone.
‘A shower will fix that.’
She scoffed. ‘It’s a shower, not a miracle machine.’ But she shuffled towards it, clearly not too concerned about her looks.
Alessandro hovered, worrying about how weak she was. What if she got lightheaded and fainted? Or slipped and fell? But it was clear she was waiting for him to leave. ‘I’ll be right outside. Call if you need me.’
Less than fifteen minutes later Nat reappeared, looking much, much better. Still tired but her hair was brushed and pulled back in a ponytail using one of the hairbands she kept around her brush handle, he presumed. There was colour in her cheeks and she was steadier on her feet. He’d heard her cough a few times, as she had overnight, but that was to be expected.
‘Better?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded and then added a little stiffly, ‘Thank you.’
It was clear her time in the shower had revived her enough to remember how they’d argued just before she’d collapsed on him, but she was just too exhausted to rekindle anything. Alessandro was sure if she could have made it to her bed, she probably would have, but it was a measure of her energy levels that she crossed directly to his freshly made one instead.
Sighing gratefully, she crawled on to it, pulled up the sheet, shut her eyes and was asleep within seconds.
A few hours later Alessandro climbed the stairs to check on his patient. He’d just got off the phone from St Auburn’s,who had confirmed that Nat had indeed contracted swamp flu. Thankfully both his and Juliano’s swabs were so far negative. To his surprise, he realised Juliano, Flo in tow, was propped up on the pillow next to Nat, chatting away. Her eyes were closed but that didn’t seem to be bothering him.
Alessandro opened his mouth to motion Juliano to come away but then his son said something that rendered him totally powerless.
‘Please get better, Nat. I want you to be my mummy.’ Juliano stroked Nat’s forehead gently. ‘We love you Nat.’
Standing stunned just outside the doorway, his pulse throbbing through his ears, Alessandro didn’t know what to say or to think. He knew Juliano was close to Nat and that it would be a wrench when she left but he hadn’t realised his son’s feelings ran this deep.
She stirred then and Alessandro held his breath as her eyes fluttered open. ‘Love you too, matey,’ she murmured, before settling back to sleep.
Alessandro blinked. Was Nat lucid? Had she heard Juliano? He wasn’t sure. All he was aware of was a sudden roaring in his ears threatening to deafen him as his chest filled with an emotion that had been building and growing until it could no more be denied.
It wasn’t something he’d ever felt for a woman before so it had been easy to discount and ignore – but he knew what it was now. All that he cared about in the world was right in front of him. His son who he loved with a deep ferocity that came from some ancient well, as deep and dark and endless as the universe.
AndNathalie.
Who he also loved. Newer and brighter, like a star being born but bursting its light across the galaxy and shining for all eternity.
Idiota!
He’d beenso blind. So busy punishing himself for past mistakes he hadn’t been paying attention to what was happening in the here and now. When Nat had mentioned theLword he’d run a mile because he’d still been looking back. But looking at his son and the woman in his bed – the best thing that had ever happened to him – he knew they were the way forward.
They were his future. If it wasn’t too late.
At least he had some time while she was bed-bound. To think. To strategise. He had his work cut out for him for sure. Nat had been betrayed by two men in her past over another woman so it didn’t take a genius to figure out that, this time round, she wouldn’t be so forgiving. He knew she wouldn’t take any platitudes or settle for any slick proclamations.
He was going to have to tell her the truth. The whole truth. Something he’d never told anyone. What was that old saying? The truth will set you free. Maybe it would. He hoped so. Maybe it was time to get it all out in the open instead of keeping it inside, eating away at him, using it to continually beat himself with.
Maybe he deserved love too?
He certainly couldn’t let her walk out of his life without trying. Hiding in the past hadn’t done either of them any good. Maybe it was time for him – for them – to start looking forward, to start living for the future?
19
