November Harlequin Presents 2(221)
Staring up at the sky, watching the silver speck of a jet plane winging its way to a destination unknown, the smile faded from her lips, a shiver of fear running through her.
Hunter couldn’t go on like this and it was starting to show. The endless, merciless schedule, the constant sex. It was like watching a beautiful tapestry being slowly but surely unpicked—black moods that seemed to come from nowhere, the sheer exhaustion that at times literally seeped from him.
She and the baby would be OK. Lily knew she could deal with it, that she wasn’t the first or last woman to deal with an unplanned pregnancy, that she had enough love within her to share.
No, it wasn’t the baby or herself that she was scared for—it was Hunter.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘YOU look fabulous!’ Smiling up at her in the doorway, Emma would normally have been the most welcome of visitors. Normally Lily would have been thrilled to have Emma drop by.
Only there was nothing normal about this evening—not that she told Emma that!
‘I’m not breaking anything up, I hope?’ Emma checked, her eyes anxiously darting to the beautifully laid table, sniffing the lamb that was roasting in the oven. ‘Stupid me—you two haven’t seen each other in days! I’ll go…’
‘Don’t be daft.’ Lily smiled. ‘And, no, you’re not breaking up anything. Hunter’s still not back. He rang and said he was having trouble at customs.’
‘But he cleared customs hours ago. I rang him and he…’ Her voice trailed off, perhaps registering Lily’s bemused expression, and quickly reassured her. ‘I must have misheard him he must have been just about to go through!’
‘Probably.’ Lily shrugged, trying to inject some lightness into her voice as Emma pushed her chair along the polished floorboards. ‘Or he might just have stopped off at the office on his way home and forgotten the time.’
‘Well, he’s an idiot, then,’ Emma said stoutly. ‘Because you look stunning!’
Lily had actually felt fabulous and stunning a few hours ago. Not so guiltily she’d purchased the softest, blackest, most divine cashmere dress, which sat just above the knee and clung to her body like a second skin, perhaps a rather warm second skin for a hot summer night, but that was the beauty of Hunter’s apartment—the temperature could be controlled with flick of a switch.
Unlike Hunter, Lily thought darkly.
Where the hell was he?
It had been five days and four extremely long nights since he’d left for Singapore, since he’d promised they’d actually talk. Over and over Lily had wondered what he’d have to say, while attempting to fathom how to tell him her own huge news!
‘I just wanted to check that he was OK.’ Emma pulled herself out of the wheelchair and sank into the suede sofa, smiling gratefully as Lily put it away out of sight. It had become if not a routine then an unspoken ritual that had evolved whenever Emma came around to visit, as if somehow with the beastly chair out of sight, Emma could forget its existence for a moment, sit on the sofa in her brother’s apartment and gossip with his new wife, forget for a moment the restraints. And in its own way the absence of the chair helped Lily, too—allowed her perhaps to forget one of the real reasons she was there. Parking the chair, Lily made her way back to join Emma on the sofa as she resumed the conversation. ‘I wasn’t sure how he’d be, what with today being our parents’ anniversary and everything. Especially with him being in Singapore.’ Thankfully, Lily was just about to sit. Her back was to Emma’s so she didn’t see the shock on her face as the importance of the day was revealed—a detail that surely a real wife would know.
‘It must be hard for him, being away from everyone…’ Lily took a sip of water, her mouth impossibly dry as she swallowed down the latest update on what was happening in her husband’s life. ‘But apart from a quick call from the airport before he took off, I haven’t really spoken to him. I really don’t know how he’s doing.’
‘I’ve been looking at my watch all day. You know the sort of thing—thinking that this time last year I was walking. In fact, at this very moment I was in Singapore, too, chatting to Mum, Dad and Hunter, putting on my make-up and waiting to go on stage.’
‘In Singapore?’ Emma was too wrapped up in her own grief to hear the confusion in Lily’s voice, shards of information stabbing her, glimpses of realisation starting to hit.
‘The stupid thing is, had it been any other night I’d have caught a taxi with a few friends and we’d have gone somewhere cheap and cheerful to eat.’ Emma closed her eyes in bitter regret, taking a moment to regroup before continuing. ‘You know, no matter how many times I go over that night, I know it’s only a fraction of the amount Hunter must do it. He blames himself.’ Lily felt her heart still in her chest as Emma spoke, felt fingers of fear clutch at her heart at the certainty in Emma’s voice as she spoke on. ‘This ball we’re going to tomorrow…’