The Valtieri Baby

‘Much better. Have you got that coffee on yet?’

‘I thought you didn’t like my coffee?’

‘I don’t, but I need caffeine, and it has to be better than the stuff in the hospital.’

She gave him a look, but got two mugs out and found some biscuits in a tin.

‘Here. Eat these while you wait. We’ll be having dinner in a while. I bought something ready-made so we can have it whenever you’re ready.’

‘Good. I’m starving.’

She laughed. ‘I’ve never known you when you weren’t starving. It’s a miracle you’re not fat.’

‘It’s my enormous brain. It takes a lot of energy.’

She snorted, but he could see a smile teasing the corners of her mouth, and he turned away so she wouldn’t see him laughing in response. Then his smile faded, and he closed his eyes and sighed quietly.

If it wasn’t for this intense physical tug between them which had appeared suddenly when they were fourteen and never faded, life would have been so, so much easier. They could have just been friends, just as they had all their lives until that point. They’d been inseparable, getting into all manner of scrapes together, but then their hormones had made things awkward between them and she’d started spending more time with the girls, and he with the boys.

But despite the occasional awkwardness, they’d stayed friends, and they still were, twenty years later. She was the first person he called if he had something interesting or sad or exciting to share, but since that time five years ago when they’d somehow lost their restraint and ended up in bed for a few giddy and delirious weeks, things hadn’t been the same.

He hadn’t called her as much, hadn’t leant on her in the same way, and if she’d leant on him, he’d given only what he’d had to and no more.

He’d been easing away from her, trying to distance himself because it was just too darned hard to be so close when he could never give her what she wanted—until last June, when he’d nearly lost the plot. He’d hardly seen anything of her since then, and he’d missed her more than he would ever admit.

She heard a quiet sigh, and looked over to where he was sitting.

He looked thoughtful, sombre, and she wondered what he was thinking about. The silly woman who’d got him in this mess with her unprovoked attack?

Or the last time he’d sat on that sofa, when they’d so nearly—

‘Here, your coffee,’ she said, dumping it down on the table beside him. She went back for her own coffee and the biscuits, and handed them to him.

‘No chocolate ones?’

‘Do you know, you’re like a demanding child,’ she grumbled, going back to the cupboard and rummaging around until she found a packet of chocolate coated wafers. ‘Here. I was saving them for a special occasion, but since you can’t cope without them…’

He arched a brow, but she ignored it and tore the Cellophane and put the packet down on the cushions between them, reaching for one at the same time as him. Their fingers clashed, and she withdrew her hand.

‘After you,’ she said, ‘since you’re clearly going to die if you don’t eat soon,’ and his mouth curved into a slight, fleeting smile and he picked one up deliberately and bit it in half.

She looked away. He was teasing her, tormenting her, but her fingers were still tingling from the brush of his hand.

How could she feel like this still? Always, all the time, year after year without anything but hope to feed it?

Except he’d given her hope. They’d had an affair, and last year, they’d so nearly started it up again. So very, very nearly—

‘Good biscuits.’

‘They are. That’s why I was saving them. Don’t eat them all, you won’t want your dinner.’

‘Unlikely.’

She snorted, and put the rest away in the tin and put the lid on, and he just leant back and stretched out his long, rangy body and sighed.

He looked so good there, as if the sofa was made for him, as if it was his body that had moulded it to the saggy, comfortable shape it now was—except he’d only ever been on it once before, and she really, really didn’t want to think about that time.

‘How’s the coffee?’ she asked to distract herself, and he glanced down into the mug and shrugged.

‘It’s coffee. It’s not great. Why don’t we go and buy a coffee maker?’

‘Now?’

He chuckled wearily. ‘No, not now. Tomorrow? I don’t know if I can cope for two weeks without proper coffee.’

‘This is proper coffee. You’re just a coffee snob.’

‘No, I just know what I like.’

‘And you couldn’t possibly compromise to spare my feelings?’

He turned his head and gave her a mocking smile. ‘Now, you know that’s ridiculous.’

Oh, goodness, she couldn’t do this! That smile cut right through her defences and left her so vulnerable to him, but there was no way he was going to know that. So she laughed and hit him lightly with a cushion, then hugged it to her chest and pulled her knees up, propping her feet on the edge of the sofa and changing the subject back to the safer one of his attacker.

‘I wonder when they’ll find her. She makes me nervous.’

His lips kinked in that lopsided smile that was so familiar to her and made her heart lurch once again. ‘It’s not a Bond movie, Anita. She’s just an angry woman who’s probably now very scared.’

She nodded. ‘Probably. What on earth did she want from you?’

He shrugged. ‘Money? They were in business, she cheated him for years, he found out and told her to go quietly and broke up the partnership, and then she decided to go after what she thought was her half. So he produced all the evidence to show she’d cheated him and she gave in, but instead of gaining money, she’s ended up with a legal bill, and she blames me.’

Anita laughed in astonishment. ‘Why? She didn’t seriously expect to win?’

‘Apparently.’

‘She’s deluded, then. Either that or she hasn’t heard of your reputation. She should have just gone quietly.’

‘Of course, but she was distraught. Much more so than I would have expected, and she was so insistent on talking to me. It wasn’t normal behaviour. Maybe if I’d listened I wouldn’t be in this mess now.’

He looked slightly bemused, as if he was still trying to work it out, and she reached out a hand and rested it on his shoulder. Silly of her to touch him, so risky and not really necessary, but she needed to feel his warmth, just to reassure herself that he was still alive, that this woman’s actions hadn’t actually caused his death after all.

But then he turned his head and their eyes locked. His pupils flared, darkening his already dark eyes to midnight, and it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Heat scorched through her, a heat born of want and need and a deep and unbearable longing to just lean over and rest her head on his shoulder and hold him close.

For an age they said nothing, and then she pulled her hand away and got up.

‘I’ll get the food in from the car and cook the dinner,’ she said, her voice jerky and tight, and pulling her boots back on, she went out to the car and stood for a moment sucking in the cool air and getting herself back under control.