Pressing his forehead against the cool glass, Rafael felt the cruel fingers of doubt squeeze at his heart. If it was negative not only would he have lost his only chance of having a child, he would also have lost Lottie.
Turning away, he picked up a couple of files from the desk and, tucking them under his arm, headed for the door. There was no doubt that if there was no baby then Lottie would disappear from his life for ever.
Cursing himself for even caring, Rafael slammed the door behind him.
CHAPTER NINE
LOTTIE FOUND THE NOTE when she came downstairs, propped up against the coffee machine.
Urgent business in Milan. Back tomorrow. Contactable by mobile, any time.
Holding the piece of paper in her hands, she stared at the familiar handwriting. She could almost feel the chill coming off the page, the frostbite in the words. So he had gone, then. They only had two nights left in the villa but he hadn’t been able to stay, to put up with being around her any longer. She didn’t believe for one moment that it was business, urgent or not, that had taken him away. It was her he wanted to get away from. Everything about his behaviour over the past few days had made that perfectly clear.
Cold didn’t begin to describe it. A polar vortex was more like it—a chill factor of minus thirty whenever they came across one another...something that had happened less and less as the days had gone on. Rafael would be working in his study or punishing himself down in the gym while Lottie spent her time upstairs painting, all the time listening for the sound of Rafael’s footsteps to make sure she wouldn’t have to meet him on the stairs, or share the kitchen with him when they both hurried in to make some hastily prepared food before disappearing again to eat alone.
Lottie felt bad enough about what they had done—the Big Mistake. She was furious with herself for the way she had behaved, for inviting Rafael into the pool with her, for making it so obvious just how much she wanted him. The image of them on that mat simply refused to go away: the raw animal sex, the way she had clung to him like a half-starved waif, clawing at him, urging him on, desperate to bring him to orgasm with her, to share that ultimate sexual intensity. She had gone over it in her head a thousand times but she was still no closer to understanding how it had happened.
But it had, and now her fury wasn’t just limited to herself. It had spread, like a bush fire, to encompass Rafael as well. Okay, so maybe she had started it, but she wasn’t going to take responsibility for the whole debacle. If Rafael found her so distasteful—as his behaviour over the past few days clearly showed he did—why the hell had he succumbed to her, made love to her? No—correction—why had he had sex with her in that fiercely passionate way? Had the thought of sex just been too tempting? Even sex with someone as offensive as her? Because if that was the case that was his problem. It certainly didn’t give him the right to treat her the way he had these past few days.
Filling the kettle, Lottie sat on a barstool, watching the water starting to bubble through the plastic panel.
Beneath the anger lurked another emotion: sadness. Sadness that she and Rafael couldn’t even spend two weeks in each other’s company without it descending into this. No matter what silly hopes she might have harboured that they would be able to get on, be normal together—be friends, even—that was exactly what those hopes had been: silly. Or, to put it another way, downright ridiculously stupid. And as for them being parents...
Dropping a teabag into her mug, she doused it with water. She couldn’t begin to face that problem yet. She might never have to, of course. And that, in itself, would bring an anguish all of its own that she refused to think about now. Squeezing the life out of the teabag, she dropped it into the metal bin with a clang.
For now she would concentrate on the positive. She had twenty-four hours to herself—twenty-four hours when she could breathe normally, without the constant shadow of Rafael being around to torment her. She decided she would make the most of the time—starting with a solid day’s painting. Channelling her pent-up energies into something creative seemed like the best idea.