Now, suddenly, he identified weakness in himself. And he hated admitting he’d allowed himself to become vulnerable to the one woman he couldn’t love.
Twelve
Holly stepped back from the curtain she’d just straightened—her heart swelling with pride. She’d painstakingly learned to sew and she’d made them herself, just like she’d made the comforter for the crib and the layette for the bassinette right down to the miniature sheets. She reached forward and gave the drapes a tiny flick, smoothing an imaginary hitch in the fall of the fabric.
Seven months ago she’d never have imagined she could turn into such a homebody let alone furnish an entire nursery. Once Connor’s contractors had finished wallpapering and painting the room, she’d had carte blanche to use whichever interior designer she wanted to create the baby’s room. Yet, for some reason, it had become more important than she’d ever imagined to leave an indelible print behind her. To leave a piece of her heart.
She reached for the framed picture of the baby’s first sonogram that Connor had placed on the tallboy, trailing her finger across the tiny form captured in black and white. She could still see the wonder that had spread across his face when he’d caught his first glimpse of his child, still see the unsettling and uncharacteristic shine of tears in his eyes. Up until then, she’d hardly had the nerve to look at the radiographer’s screen, yet the love that shone from him as he viewed his baby had forced her to turn away from him and look for herself. It was easier to look at the object of his love than to admit that love could never be shared with her.
Holly took a final look around. While she’d been oddly loath to finish the room, taking her time on small details no one but herself would notice, Connor’s reluctant yet urgent departure for the States a week ago had been the catalyst that drove her to complete it.
This would be the last time she would come in here. Her end of the deal was all but finished. As if to acknowledge her hard work a tiny foot pressed against her rib cage. Absently she massaged her swollen belly.
With the baby’s due date only three weeks away, the days now stretched emptily before her. Holly turned and walked out. A ragged sigh dragged past the sudden tightness in her chest as she closed the door behind her. The day she’d have to leave the island, leave Connor, permanently drew closer with every cross on the calendar.
He’d miss her checkup tomorrow she realised with a pang. He’d made all her doctor’s visits thus far, hovering like a worried shadow at every stage of the pregnancy. The baby was everything to him. She’d given up hoping he’d forget for just one moment that she was carrying his baby and see her as a woman with needs and desires again. Sleeping with him every night was fraught with hopes of what might have been, but still he made no attempt to touch her, unless it was to feel the baby’s vigorous reminders of its existence. Now, more than ever before, Holly felt incredibly and desolately alone.
She missed him. Even as remote as he’d been, he’d imbued a sense of security—made her feel protected. Now she felt vulnerable. Afraid. She shook her head and sighed. Must be hormones, she reasoned. Either that or she was going completely nuts, as she’d been to think she could ignore the life burgeoning within her.
Tears pricked at her eyelids as Holly hung her head. She was a useless overemotional wreck. Her feet were swollen, her figure nonexistent, even her moods swung as wildly as the New Zealand flag atop of the Auckland Harbour Bridge. She was about as attractive as an overblown blimp. No wonder Connor didn’t want her. Although why he still insisted on sleeping with her she couldn’t understand. Maybe she’d move her things into the nanny’s bedroom while he was away, she thought, then cast the idea out of hand. She no more wanted to sleep without Connor’s solid presence behind her in the bed than she suspected he’d let her indulge in her fit of pique.
The constant ring of the telephone downstairs interrupted her miserable soliloquy. She waited for Thompson to answer it but obviously he was busy elsewhere in the house. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now. But what if it was Connor? She reached out again and lifted the receiver, at the same time hearing a breathless Thompson pick up from downstairs. She knew she should hang up, but when she heard the caller identify himself as the private investigator she’d engaged, she stayed on the line waiting for him to ask for her.
A flash of hope lit inside her at the sound of his voice. Finally he had some information. The investigation had remained at a frustrating stalemate for far too long, with little more information available other than what she’d grown up knowing. How someone could give birth and raise a child for three years then disappear should have been impossible in a country the size of New Zealand, but somehow, her mother had managed it.