Pitch Imperfect(57)
“Come home with me,” Rob said thickly.
His voice seemed to break the spell. Anjuli’s body became rigid. With an anguished cry, she thrust him away and adjusted her dress, her hands shaking. Rob reached for her and she jumped back, stumbling in her haste to avoid his touch.
“Don’t touch me.”
Bloody hell, was she afraid of him? What the fuck had that bastard of a husband done to her? Impotent rage fisted his hands as he imagined the rock star abusing her. By all accounts B. R. Kavon was a violent man, regardless of what Anjuli had told him. Rob made his voice calm and quiet.
“I’ll drive you home. We can talk, get to know each other again and take all the time we need. God knows I want you, lass, but I’ll wait until you’re ready.”
Anjuli made a garbled sound. “Can you wait forever? Because I’m not free to love you and I never will be, don’t you understand? I can’t. I just...can’t.”
“Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll—”
“You can’t fix it! Nobody can. That’s the reason—”
“Anjuli!”
Viking came crashing out of the trees like a wild boar, heading straight for Anjuli. Worry made his Polish accent thicker.
“Ambulance take Ash to hospital.”
“I’ll get my handbag,” she said, pivoting so quickly her heel caught in the grass. She toppled away from Rob and he reached for her, but Viking was quicker. He threw her over his massive shoulders as if she were a dishtowel.
“We go now.”
Anjuli squeaked, pulling her dress down over her bottom as Viking raced back through the trees. A small crowd had gathered in front of the Town Hall, and they watched as Viking ran across the village green with a bouncing Anjuli over his shoulders.
“That’s what I should have done,” Rob muttered.
* * *
“I never thought Viking would be the one to get your knickers in a twist, Babes.”
Anjuli looked at Ash’s hospital room doorway, where Viking stood, sentry-like. “The entire village now knows I wear thongs,” she whispered. “He’s ruined my mystique.”
Ash’s wan smile filled her with overwhelming relief. She checked the monitor next to the bed and tucked the sheet around her frame. No longer showing only a bump, her sister was in the third-trimester growth spurt. “Don’t you dare start fussing over me,” Ash warned. “I’ve already got an overprotective watchdog sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“Doesn’t it?” Anjuli asked, lifting her brows. On the way to the hospital Viking had been polite but stern, laying out the guidelines for her behaviour once they arrived: no frantic questions or panicked overreacting. As if she would! Well, maybe a little. But Viking was right, she had to hold it together and rein in her fears. And, she’d added silently, she had to remember that Ash wasn’t Chloe. She studied Viking’s tense back.
“He’s got it bad,” she said.
Ash followed her gaze and pursed her lips. “Well, he can take it back to Krakow and feed it borscht, because I’m not giving him what he wants.”
“Are you sure you can’t fancy him?”
“Hello? Is your brain frozen as well as your voice? I’m pregnant with another man’s child.”
“I don’t think it matters to Viking. What’s his real name, anyway?”
“Andrzej Weicwn...domsky...kowsky, or something. It ends in ‘sky,’ and won’t double-barrel with Ashton Pelham Carver.”
“I think he’d like it to.”
“Not after what I did with Craig.”
Anjuli glanced at the blood pressure monitor again. “You should tell Craig you’ve got pre-eclampsia. He may want to be at the birth in case—” she forced herself to continue, “—anything happens.”
“I don’t give a rat’s arse what Craig wants. He’s never expressed an interest and I don’t want him to. If anything happens to me you said you’d be there for the baby.”
“But—”
Ash clutched her arm. “You promised! Don’t you dare renege, because I’ll haunt you from the grave.”
“I won’t,” Anjuli assured her, pushing down her panic. She had to act like the older sister she was and not the frightened, fragile woman she usually felt like. The thought of being responsible for another child filled her with dread but that was for her to know and Ash to stay tranquilly unaware of.
Ash’s hand was cold, and she warmed it between her palms. “I love you,” she said softly. “You’ve always been there for me, and now I’m here for you. No matter what.”