Soon the husband would travel again, and peace would prevail, but it was like watching dark clouds gather whenever he came home.
Aurora thought perhaps she had heartburn. Certainly the doctor had suggested that she did, but the burning high in her stomach seemed to coincide with the husband’s arrival home and amplified when she saw bruises on Louanna’s fragile arms.
‘What happened?’ Aurora asked.
‘I bumped into the door.’
‘And the door was shaped like fingers?’ Aurora checked, in her usual forthright fashion. ‘Louanna, you have to leave him.’
‘Where will I go?’ Louanna begged. ‘Where will you go, Aurora? Your baby is due in two weeks.’
‘Don’t stay for me,’ Aurora said.
Yet her heart was twisting in fear at the thought of being out on the streets so close to her due date.
‘He is a good man…’ Louanna was defensive. ‘He just has a lot of stress at work.’
Nico had a lot of stress at work, Aurora thought, and he would never have carried on like that. She had never hidden her smile or her sass from him.
Call Nico, her mind said.
But then she caught sight of her reflection, her ripe body and troubled eyes, and she knew she did not want to land on him like this.
Not like this.
But soon the tornado had left again, and with the husband away on business the last few days of her pregnancy were among the nicest she had known.
She went to church with Louanna and the children, to watch the nativity play that Nadia was in, and it brought tears to Aurora’s eyes. Louanna took the kindest care of her, and Aurora felt so spoiled when she woke to breakfast in bed one morning.
But the storm clouds were gathering again, for tomorrow Louanna’s husband would be home.
That night Louanna made the supper. The children were sweet, and seemed to understand that Aurora was tired, and asked over and over again about her baby.
‘I hope it’s a girl,’ Nadia said as Aurora lay on the sofa, scrolling through baby names on Louanna’s laptop.
‘I hope it’s a boy,’ said Antonio.
‘What do you want, Aurora?’ Louanna asked.
‘I want this baby out of me,’ she admitted. ‘I’ll take what comes, but I am ready for my baby to be born.’
‘Have you chosen a name yet?’
‘No,’ Aurora admitted. ‘I still have no clue. Maybe Nico…’ She wasn’t going to call her baby that, but it was such a relief to say his name out loud. ‘Nicole, if it’s a girl, but I love the name Nico.’
Nico.
Nico.
Nico.
She would say it at the end of every breath if she could.
Oh, when would these feelings end? she asked of herself, and foolishly looked him up on the computer.
Nico’s world had clearly carried on very nicely without her. The woman with him just last month was blonde and pretty and petite. Then there was a beautiful redhead, who seemed to be getting him through the Christmas festivities.
Nico.
Louanna put the children to bed, and when she came down she gave Aurora a gentle talking-to.
‘Do you know who the father is?’
She had asked before and Aurora had been evasive.
‘Yes.’ She was too tired to lie, but she would not name him. ‘And I believe he would support me and would insist that we marry.’ She looked over to Louanna. ‘But I would rather be alone than live in an unhappy marriage.’
Louanna started to cry.
They spoke for a long while, and then Aurora headed down to her little summerhouse.
Deep in the night she lay restless and unable to sleep. She tossed and turned, and then got up and paced when it dawned on her that the ache in her back was not perhaps just from being heavily pregnant.
Aurora headed into the main house and made a drink. She looked out at the cold, pink morning sky and admitted to herself the very real reason she had not contacted Nico.
He might marry her, but he would never love her.
She would be his Silibri wife.
His mountain wife.
Living in the hills and tucked away.
Made love to when he returned to survey his grand hotel and then put on hold when he returned to Rome.
Or Florence.
Or England or France.
She wasn’t sophisticated enough to hold his arm and smile serenely as he conversed. Neither was she calm enough to stand holding the baby and wave him off with a smile. Nor was she discreet enough to turn a blind eye to his philandering ways.
And there would be philandering ways, Aurora was quite sure of that.
She had no experience, save for Nico. No tricks to keep him amused. Just her.
And being almost nine months pregnant, and already rejected as his bride, wasn’t a brilliant combination to inspire confidence.
Aurora would not be able to stand being a small part of his life—to live in the background. She was pure Sicilian and lava ran in her veins. She burnt at the thought of Nico with someone else—and, no, she would not stand back in dignified silence.
She moaned in horror at the thought of it.
‘Aurora?’ Louanna stood at the kitchen door. ‘Are you okay?’
‘No…’
She was scared and she was pregnant and she loved Nico so much that it hurt.
It hurt.
‘I can’t do this,’ she admitted.
‘You are doing this, Aurora,’ Louanna said. ‘Your baby is on its way.’
Aurora had changed her mind. ‘I’m not ready.’
But the baby was.
She was in labour—without the man she had loved all her life by her side.
That was the hard truth, wrung from her soul as she bore down and gritted her teeth and knew she would rather be alone that accept his crumbs.
No matter if those crumbs might be solid gold and would provide for her baby and keep her in style.
‘I hate him!’ she shouted as she gripped her thighs in the delivery suite and bore down.
‘Stop shouting and push,’ the doctor said.
But Aurora ignored medical advice and carried on with her rant. ‘He wants his freedom—he can have it!’ she declared loudly. ‘I’ll survive better without him.’
Aurora did not pick up on the midwife’s smile, but she got her support.
‘Yes, you will! Come on, Aurora—use that anger to push!’
She was furious, and it felt so good to be angry as she pushed her baby out. ‘I’ve got this,’ she declared.
‘You have, Aurora,’ the midwife said. ‘Come on—another big push.’
She was raging, and fury