His daughter’s word count was slowly increasing but her favourite word continued to be a defiant, ‘No.’ And last night she had used it time and time again, her chestnut curls bouncing about her face as she dramatically shook her head.
He had been so tempted to crawl into bed beside her, to hold her in his arms, sniff her sweet baby scent, listen to her soft breaths when she eventually fell asleep. But to do so would be to do Isabella a disservice. She needed to learn to go to sleep on her own, learn to be independent of him.
He rolled his eyes. ‘I bet she’s an outlier though; I bet she’s in the top one per cent for waking at night. My daughter doesn’t do anything by halves.’
She smiled at that. He felt a surprising pleasure that she got his attempt at humour. ‘Waking at night is normal. Children wake for a variety of reasons: shorter sleep cycles, hunger, being too hot or cold, their room being too bright, or the need for comfort and assurance. I find that unrealistic expectations cause parents the most stress. How does Isabella’s mother feel about her sleeping?’
Max cursed under his breath at a car that swerved into his lane on the Hammersmith flyover without indicating. The tight fist of guilt that was his constant companion these days squeezed even fiercer. Would talking about Marta ever get easier? Would the guilt of her death—how they had fought in the hours before—ever grow less horrific? ‘Isabella’s mother, Marta, died in a car crash when Isabella was three months old.’
‘I thought…’ She glanced in his direction, confusion clouding her eyes. ‘I saw you from my office window earlier…’
Now he understood her confusion. ‘My wife’s friend Vittoria agreed to take Isabella this afternoon so that I could meet with you.’
He waited in the silence that followed for her response to hearing of Marta’s death. Most people responded with panic, a keen urge to change the subject or preferably, if circumstances allowed it, to find an excuse to get away.
‘I’m very sorry to hear about your wife. It must have been a very difficult time for you.’
Her softly spoken words sounded heartfelt. He glanced in her direction and swiftly away again, not able to handle the compassion in her eyes.
‘Do you have other children?’
‘No, just Isabella.’
‘Have you family or friends nearby, who support you?’
‘I have some friends, like Vittoria…but they have their own families to look after.’ Max paused, pride and guilt causing him to add more fiercely, ‘Anyway, we don’t need support.’
‘It can’t be easy coping on your own since Marta died.’
He didn’t answer for a while, focusing his attention on merging with the traffic on the Westway, but also thrown by all her questions, what she was saying…how easily she said Marta’s name. Most people skirted around ever having to mention Marta’s name, as though it was taboo to say it out loud. He swallowed against a tightening in his throat, suddenly feeling bone tired. At work he deliberately kept a professional distance from those who worked for him. The few friends he had in London, friends that in truth had been Marta’s friends and had probably stayed in his life out of duty and respect to Marta, had stopped asking him about how he was managing a long time ago. In the early months after Marta had died, he had made it clear it wasn’t up for discussion.
He saw a gap in the traffic open up in front of him and he pressed on the accelerator. He needed to get back to the office and he was keen to get this conversation over and done with. He wanted Carly Knight to show him how to get Isabella to sleep, not ask all these questions. ‘I grew up in a one-parent household, my mother raised me single-handedly. It’s a fact of life for a lot of people.’
‘Yes, but it’s not the future you had envisioned, and losing that must be very hard.’
He wanted to thump the steering wheel hard with the palm of his hand. Carly’s words were resonating deep inside him. He didn’t just miss Marta, he missed the future they had mapped out together, he missed the support of co-parenting, he missed having someone to talk to. All selfish things that only added to his guilt that Marta had died so young, that she would never see Isabella grow up. Marta would despair over just how out of sync he and Isabella were—their relationship was more often than not a battle of wills, and at the moment Isabella was winning. Of course he adored his daughter but he worried deeply about how dependent she was on him, which only seemed to be worsening in recent months, given her tendency to cling to him and her refusal to be cared for by others. How would she cope if anything ever happened to him?
‘Isabella’s nanny walked out yesterday. Dr Segal referred me to you this morning when I took Isabella to see her. She said you have helped some of her other patients.’
‘Your nanny walked out on you because of Isabella’s sleeping?’
‘Yes.’ He glanced over and saw that she had an eyebrow raised, not buying it. He shifted in his seat, gripped the steering wheel tighter. ‘The fact that I’m away a lot of the time is probably a factor too.’
‘How often are you away?’
‘Two…sometimes three nights a week. When she was younger I took Isabella with me but the travel was too much for her.’
‘She’s probably missing you a lot—and the fact that you are coming and going means she has no consistency, which will have an impact on her ability to sleep.’
Her voice was calm, matter-of-fact, which annoyed him as much as what she had to say. ‘It’s the nature of my work… I don’t have a choice.’
‘I’ve never come across a situation that doesn’t have alternative choices, or solutions. What is it that you do?’
Maybe she should try living his life some time. In architecture, you were only as good as your last design and winning bids was a never-ending cycle of late nights and client meetings. ‘I’m an architect and property developer—my main office is here in London with other offices in Milan and Shanghai. My clients are worldwide, as are my properties.’
‘My guess is Isabella needs more stability and routine to sleep better at night.’
Reluctantly he nodded. She was right. And he needed Carly’s help in establishing that routine. It was time he started broaching his plans with her. ‘I have to leave for my second home on Lake Como later this week. My in-laws live there, and my father-in-law is celebrating his sixtieth birthday on Friday evening, and on Sunday my brother-in-law, Tomaso, is marrying. I have no choice but to go—Isabella is a flower girl at the wedding. I’ve no idea how she will behave. I need her to sleep in the nights before—that way hopefully she might not throw a tantrum, which she’s prone to do at the moment.’
Along Harrow Road they came to a stop while the driver of a concrete mixer ahead in the road tried to manoeuvre into a narrow construction site entrance. He turned to her and asked, ‘Will you work for me for the rest of this week, come to Lake Como this weekend, to help me in getting Isabella to sleep? I’ll pay you generously.’
Carly looked at him and then turned to stare at a nearby billboard advertising happiness via a deodorant, trying to contain her irritation. He was a client, clearly in need. But seriously! She turned back to him, cursing once again that he was so distractingly handsome, and tried to keep her voice calm. ‘I’m a sleep consultant, Mr Lovato, not a nanny.’
‘I know that.’
She forced herself to hold his gaze, even though his misty green eyes did something peculiar to her heartbeat. ‘Do you?’ She waited a pause before adding dryly, ‘I’m busy with other clients all of this week and have my own plans for the weekend.’
‘Nina told me earlier