Sometimes, though, panic gripped her so hard she had to stop and breathe. She fought it. She would get through this somehow.
It didn’t help that Tante Josephine kept asking Sidonie, ‘But where is your boyfriend? The one you told me about? Won’t he want to take care of you? I thought he was going to make everything okay?’
Sidonie would take her aunt’s face in her hands and say firmly, but lovingly, ‘We don’t need him, Jojo, we have each other. We’re a team and we’re invincible. I won’t let anything happen to us, okay?’
Her aunt would sigh and then quickly get distracted by something—usually talk of the baby. She’d already decided that if it was a boy it would be called Sebastian and if it was a girl Belle, after a favourite cartoon character.
As Sidonie lay in the bath now, after a punishing day of work, she felt helpless tears spring into her eyes. Immediately she cut off the emotion ruthlessly, as she’d been doing for four months. Anger rose and she welcomed it. She cultivated it. It was the only thing that kept her sane, kept her going. And now the baby.
She would never contact him and she had to stop thinking about him. For a man who had accused her of being a gold-digger on the basis of conducting an investigation into her private life and overhearing an admittedly unfortunate conversation, news of a baby would consign her to the hell of his condemnation for good—and she would not give him the satisfaction.
Her anger rose, swift and bright, washing away those dangerous tender feelings that hovered on the periphery and had no place after what he’d done to her.
* * *
Alexio returned to the villa feeling more disgruntled than ever. After sleeping for almost eight hours on a lounger on the terrace he’d gone to the club.
Elettra, encouraged by the fact that he was alone, had twined herself around him like a clinging vine, making him feel nothing but claustrophobia.
In a fit of darkness he’d taken the same booth as last time and had been bombarded with images and memories: Sidonie’s dress, the way the silk had clung and moved with her body. How it had felt to dance close to her, sliding his hand under her dress to touch her naked back. The insistent throb of the music, with the same beat as the desire rushing through his blood. The way she’d looked at him, hungry and innocent.
Innocent.
Except she’d never been innocent. She’d been scheming the whole time, just reeling him in, waiting for an opportunity to secure her future, debt-free.
Bile had risen up inside Alexio after all these months, just as it had that awful day. Immediately he’d had to get out of there.
And now here he was, looking over the inky blackness of the sea. Thoroughly disgusted with himself, Alexio felt the lure of work—even though he meant to be avoiding it. But he knew he wouldn’t sleep, and especially not in that bed. It had been a terrible idea to come here. He should have gone to the farthest corner of the world and he vowed to do so the next day. He’d wanted to check out the potential of setting up in South East Asia anyway...
When he went into the office and sat down heavily on the chair he saw an unexpected white envelope sitting squarely on the blotter. Saw the writing in a feminine scrawl.
It was never about the money.
Feeling something in his belly swoop and his skin prickle, Alexio picked up the envelope. As he did so something fluttered out. The torn pieces of the cheque he’d left for Sidonie in a fit of tumultuous anger and disgust. If she wanted the money so badly then he’d give her some. But now he felt dizzy. Disorientated. He opened the envelope and more and more pieces fell out. Nothing else.