She knew that they weren’t like other traditional honeymooners, and yet as he closed the apartment door behind them Ellie was filled with something which felt awfully like hope. She thought: We’re in a city where nobody knows us. Two strangers blending with all the other strangers. Mightn’t there be a chance that here the man she had married would let his mask slip for once, when there was only her to see?
They made love, unpacked and showered and then Alek took her out to dinner in a garden shimmering with candlelight where they ate the local delicacy of tortelli lucchese—a bright yellow stuffed pasta, topped with a rich ragu sauce. Afterwards, they sat beneath the star-spangled sky and drank their coffee—their fingers linking together on the table, and for once it felt real. As if they really were genuine honeymooners and not just a pair of actors acting out the parts. When he took her home, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately and he picked her up and carried her to the bedroom with a look on his face which made her tremble.
The following morning Ellie awoke alone. For a minute she lay there as sensual memories of the previous night filtered into her mind, then she pulled on a robe, splashed cold water over her sleepy face and went off to find Alek. He was sitting on their balcony with breakfast laid out on the small table and the aroma of coffee vying with the powerful scent of jasmine.
‘Where did all this come from?’ she questioned as she looked at the crisp bread, the buttery pastries and the rich red jam.
‘I got up early and you looked much too peaceful to wake. I went for a walk around the city walls and called in at the panificio on the way back.’ He poured out two cups of coffee and pushed one across the table and smiled. ‘So what would you like to do today?’
And suddenly—she had no idea what caused it—the perfect scene before her began to disintegrate. It was like tugging at a tiny nick on a delicate piece of fabric which suddenly ripped open. It all seemed so false. There was Alek—looking ruggedly handsome in an open-necked white shirt and dark trousers, his blue eyes gleaming like jewels. Yet his polite distance made her feel as if she were just another item to be ticked off on his agenda. His smile seemed more automatic than genuine and she found herself resenting his control and his inbuilt detachment. This has nothing to do with reality, she thought, as a feeling of rebellion began to bubble up inside her.
She sat down and looked at him. ‘Actually, I’d like to talk about the baby.’
He stilled. ‘The baby?’
‘That’s right. Our baby. You know. The one we never talk about.’ She paused and laid her hand over her stomach. ‘Because although it’s growing inside me, we never discuss it, do we? We always seem to skirt around the subject. I mean, I go to the doctor and report back with a clean bill of health—and you manage to look pleased. And once or twice you’ve even come with me and you nod your head in all the right places, but you still act like nothing’s happening, or as if it’s happening to someone else. As if none of this is real.’
A shuttered look came over his face and he shrugged. ‘I suppose we could sit around having hypothetical discussions about what we’re going to do and how we’re going to react when the baby arrives, but why bother when it’s impossible to predict?’
‘So you just want to ignore it until it happens?’
His eyes became hooded and suddenly he didn’t look quite so detached. ‘Isn’t that what I’ve just said?’
And Ellie heard the distortion in his words—the crack of bitterness he couldn’t quite hide. She saw the way his body had grown hard and tense and wondered what had caused it. And she wondered why she didn’t have the guts to come right out and ask him, and keep on asking him until he finally gave her an answer. What was she so afraid of? Scared that if she unlocked his secrets, she’d discover something to kill off the dormant hope which lingered so foolishly in her heart? Surely it was better to know and to face up to the truth, no matter how grim it was... Better that than building dreams which were never going to materialise.
‘You know, through all the time we’ve been together, you’ve never spoken about your childhood,’ she said. ‘Apart from a throwaway comment about never having used public transport because your father owned an island.’
‘And why do you think that is?’ he questioned. ‘If somebody doesn’t want to talk about something, there’s usually a reason why.’
‘You’ve never told me anything about your family,’ she continued stubbornly. ‘Not a single thing. I don’t even know if you’ve got any brothers or sisters—’
‘I don’t.’
‘And you’ve never mentioned your parents.’
Unsmilingly, he looked into her eyes. ‘Maybe that’s because I don’t want to.’
‘Alek.’ She leant forward. ‘You need to tell me.’
‘Why?’ he snapped.
‘Because this baby is going to share your parents’ genes. Your father—’
‘Is dead,’ he said flatly. ‘And believe me, you’d better hope that our baby doesn’t share many of his genes.’
A shiver ran down her spine. ‘And what about your mother?’
For a moment there was silence. ‘What about her?’
Ellie was unprepared for the savage note in his voice or the bunching of his powerful shoulders. Everything about his reaction told her she was entering dangerous territory—but she knew she couldn’t let up. Not this time. If she backtracked now she might win his temporary approval, but then what? She would simply be signing up to a life of half-truths. Bringing up a baby in a world of ignorance, where nothing was what it really seemed. Because knowledge was power. And wasn’t the balance of power in this relationship already hopelessly unequal?
‘Is she still alive?’
‘I don’t know,’ he snapped, his voice as cold as ice. ‘I don’t know a damned thing about her. Do you want me to spell it out for you in words of one syllable, Ellie? She walked out on me when I was a baby. And while I’m known for my amazing sense of recall—not even I can remember that. Are you satisfied now?’
Ellie’s head was spinning. His mother had walked out on him. Wasn’t that the worst thing that could happen to someone? Hadn’t she read somewhere that it was better to be abused than abandoned, and wondered at the time if that was true? She supposed you could always challenge your abuser—but if you were deserted, wouldn’t that leave you with no choice except to feel empty and bewildered? She imagined a tiny baby waking up one morning crying for his mother—only that mother never came. How would that feel, to miss the comfort of a maternal embrace and never know it again? Even if the bond wasn’t strong, a cuddle would still feel like safety to a helpless infant. On some primitive and subliminal level—would that make it impossible for you to put your trust in a woman afterwards? Would that explain his coldness and his lack of real intimacy, no matter how many times they had sex?
‘What...what happened?’
‘I just told you.’
‘But you didn’t.’ She met his gaze, determined not to be cowed by the fury sparking from those cold blue depths. ‘You only gave me the bare facts.’
‘And didn’t it occur to you that maybe that’s all I wanted to give you?’ Pushing back his chair, he got up from the table and began to pace around the veranda like a man in a cell. ‘Why don’t you learn when enough is enough?’
She’d never seen him so angry and a few weeks ago Ellie might have backed down, but not any more. She wasn’t someone who was trying to win his affection or keep the peace, no matter what. She was a mother-to-be and she wanted to be the best mother she possibly