Chapter 9 #2
On Friday, Nat was sitting on the quiet mat at crèche with Julian and another boy, Henry. She was trying to encourage a friendship between them. Henry was a nice kid who had been trying to engage Julian for a little while now with not much success.
It wasn’t that Julian didn’t like Henry – she could tell he did. But he still shied away from other kids, preferring to keep to himself or follow her around. Julian was more than happy to play and talk with Henry as long as she was there as well.
Henry had brought in some photos of his family holiday to New Zealand that someone had printed for him on paper and they were going through them.
There was a beautiful shot of Henry and his mother.
He was sitting in her lap, facing the camera.
She had her arms crossed across his front, pulling his back in tight to her chest. She was looking down at him and Henry was looking up and laughing.
A massive mountain gave the background some perspective.
Julian took the photo reverently. ‘Is that your mummy?’
He didn’t take his eyes off the photo and the look on his face was heartbreaking. It suddenly struck Nat that there were no photos of Julian’s mother anywhere. She’d been so distracted by the starkness of the never-ending white, so snow blind, she hadn’t even thought about that.
Goodness, her mother had practically set up a shrine to her father after he’d gone. Despite the fact that he’d deserted them. But she’d been determined to maintain contact, to keep his memory fresh for Nat’s sake.
Pity her father hadn’t tried as hard.
But there wasn’t even a framed picture for Julian to put on his bedside table. No family portraits hung on the wall. Come to think of it, not even Alessandro had pictures of the wife he so obviously mourned. Not in his office or his bedroom. It was almost as if she’d never existed.
Was it too painful for him to look at her? And why did the thought depress her so much?
She made up her mind to ask Alessandro about it tonight after Julian went to bed.
It seemed to have become her role to ask the hard questions.
To be the bad guy. It certainly hadn’t taken her long to realise that as much as Alessandro wanted to reach his son, he was still floundering and relied heavily on her to facilitate.
They both did. She was the referee and her ruling was final.
Alessandro seemed more than happy for her to take up where his wife had left off.
Be some kind of substitute mother to Julian.
And she knew that was about his grief more than shirking his duties, that he’d been knocked sideways and was groping in the dark.
But she wasn’t living with them so Alessandro could hide from his son, to maintain his emotional distance.
She was there until her unit was built and, in the meantime, she was in Julian’s corner. He was a four-year-old child and, God knew, he needed someone in his corner.
Surely there were pictures somewhere? Even one?
Alessandro might find it too painful to contemplate, but watching Julian now it was obvious he yearned for that connection.
If he was to ever recover from his tragic loss, he needed to be able to openly grieve and he needed his mother’s life, her existence, to be acknowledged.
‘And next Grandma Poss and Hush went to—’
‘Hobart!’
Alessandro chuckled. ‘For?’ he prompted as he turned the page.
‘Lamingtons!’
Julian just couldn’t seem to get enough of this damn book – it was their second time through tonight.
He seemed to forget everything as the story unfolded.
About Camilla. And being dragged halfway across the world.
And the stiltedness of their father–son relationship.
Because, right now, Alessandro was propped against the head of his son’s bed, his legs stretched out in front and Julian was cuddled into his side and it felt so good.
Nat had been right instituting this nightly ritual. It was a special time of the day.
But as happy as he was, it was moments like this that the vile sting of regret was at its most potent. He’d been so busy in London, so involved with his career, that he’d let Camilla drive a wedge between him and Julian.
His guilt at entering into the marriage for all the wrong reasons had convinced him his strained relationship with Julian had been his due.
Some kind of cosmic payback. But, then, he’d never imagined his son would be motherless and he would have the sole care of his child who, in so many ways, had become a stranger.
And that was on him as much as his mother.
‘Nat bought me a lamington yesterday.’
Alessandro absently rubbed his chin against Julian’s soft curls, savouring the texture and this time together.
Soon the book would end and Julian would become awkward with him again.
Three nights ago, Nat had insisted that bedtime stories were a father’s role and firmly shoved the book at his chest. Julian had pouted and begged her to read it but she’d just smiled and kissed Julian goodnight and left them to it.
And now here they were, both enjoying this time together. Enjoying going to another world far away from their own and all its baggage.
‘Did she, now?’ he said good-humouredly. ‘Did it make you invisible?’
Julian giggled. ‘No. But it tasted dee-licious.’
Alessandro smiled to himself at his usage of a Nat word then grimaced as an image of delicious Nat with Napolitano sauce oozing a tempting streak down the swell of her breast rose in his mind. Not what his son had meant but he couldn’t think of a better description.
Had a woman ever tasted so sweet?
Not that it mattered. It wouldn’t matter if she tasted like fairy floss, cinnamon doughnuts and dark chocolate gelato all rolled in one. He was paying penance and Nat, who’d no doubt been sent by the devil to tempt him, was definitely off limits.
A couple of hours later, with Julian tucked up in bed asleep, Alessandro was in his office, ostensibly immersing himself in work but mostly trying to ignore the temptation of Nat when a knock sounded. His pulse gave an extra beat knowing it was her.
He took a deep steadying breath, girding his loins before saying, ‘Entra.’
The door swung open tentatively as he turned in his black leather, Italian-designed swivel chair to face his visitor.
She smiled as she stood in his doorway, her gaze averting quickly to his desk, to his computer open at his email, to a couple of empty coffee mugs he’d yet to take back to the kitchen, to several open textbooks and piles of medical journals, some open at articles.
Her eyes wandered to the walls next which were bare and white and stood in stark contrast to the cluttered desk area. She didn’t exactly wince but he figured she was putting his office on her mental next-in-line list to turn this house into a home.
Finally, her eyes fell on him and there was nothing disapproving there as her gaze licked all over him.
He was still in his work clothes but he’d taken off his tie and undone the top two buttons of his duck-egg-blue shirt and her eyes become all heat and steam as they lingered on his bare throat.
Alessandro suddenly felt like he was sitting in a sauna or a hot spring, his pulse a thick, warm surge in his veins.
Keeping his gaze trained on hers despite the compelling urge to let it wander over the enticing cleavage of her T-shirt and the long bare stretch of legs not covered by her shorts, Alessandro raised an eyebrow. ‘You wanted something?’
He watched as her throat bobbed and, God help him, he wanted her. He wanted her right here right now, straddling him on his big old chair.
Inferno! This… pull between them was crazy.
Alessandro flattened his bare feet in the carpet so he wouldn’t reach across the space between them and drag her down to his lap. ‘Nat?’ he prodded, needing her to say something.
Anything to pull him back from the edge.
‘Yes…’ she said, finally, as if she knew the stakes here too. ‘I wanted to talk to you about…’ She swallowed. ‘Something.’
Alessandro’s gaze took in her mouth, zeroed in on her nervous throat bob.
The urge to cuff her throat with his open hand, stroke a finger down the ridge of her windpipe, to follow it with his tongue, rose like a fever in his blood and he curled his fingers around the arm of the chair, anchoring himself. ‘So, talk.’
Because he needed something to distract him from the images in his head.
Clearing her throat, she complied. ‘I was wondering if…’ She faltered for a beat but forged on. ‘You had any photos of your wife?’
Okay – yup. That’d do it.
Every muscle in Alessandro’s body cinched tight but for a very different reason. He should thank Nat, he supposed. With one sentence she’d yanked him right back from the brink, hacked right through the ominous sexual tension with all the finesse of a rusty machete.
He frowned. ‘What for?’
‘I thought it would be nice for Julian to have a picture of her on his bedside table. Maybe one of them together?’
Alessandro stiffened at the suggestion, an immediate denial rushing to his lips. They’d made real progress this week. He couldn’t bear to see Julian return to the practically mute little boy he’d been in those few days and weeks after Camilla’s death.
His son was moving on; he didn’t want to see him go backwards.
‘I think that would make him unbearably sad again.’
Her gaze became steely and unwavering. ‘His mother died. He’s allowed to be sad.’
That was easy for her to say. Nat hadn’t been there. She didn’t know how hard it had been. ‘It’s too awful to watch.’
‘You can’t protect him from that.’ Her voice brooked no argument. ‘It’s healthy to be sad, to cry, to grieve. You can’t fast-forward this bit by pretending she didn’t exist.’
Alessandro’s head snapped up. ‘I’m not doing that.’
‘There’s not a single photo of her anywhere, Alessandro.’ Her voice gentled but she persisted. ‘You loved her. She was the mother of your child. I know it’s hard for you to have reminders of her around —’
He snorted at the irony, interrupting her. ‘You have no idea.’
She seemed momentarily puzzled at the derision in his voice but ploughed on anyway.
‘He’s four, Alessandro. You know I’m right.
Put aside the father, the husband, for a moment and think like a doctor.
Like the good doctor you are. You know I’m right.
You know this is good grief resolution strategy. ’
Alessandro cursed her for insight. ‘And what if I can’t look at her?’ he demanded.
How long had it been since he’d looked at Camilla’s face? Conjured her up? He’d been trying so hard to banish the years of baggage that he’d steadfastly refused to imagine her at all.
Of course, he didn’t have to look too far for a reminder. But funnily enough, the physical similarities between Nat and Camilla didn’t strike him any more – hadn’t since that first meeting. They were two different women in so many ways.
Too different to be mistaken as the same one.
‘I’m not suggesting you commission a six-foot mural on one of these godawful walls. Just a photo for Julian’s bedside table. So he knows she existed and she loved him and she’s looking over him.’
Alessandro wished it was that easy. Could he look at that photo every time he entered his son’s room?
Could he look at it and not feel the knife twisting a little deeper?
He looked at Nat’s earnest face. Hadn’t she been right about everything else?
Hadn’t she helped him reach out to his son already?
Of course, he could do it, if it helped his son mourn.
‘There are framed photos.’ He sighed. ‘A few. In one of the boxes.’
It had been his intention to get around to putting them out. In their house in London, photos of her, of them, as a family had been everywhere. But they’d been so hard to look at afterwards. The hypocrisy had been torture. And frankly he’d been enjoying the emotional freedom.
‘Thank you.’ There was no triumph in her voice at his concession. Just relief. ‘This is the right thing to do, Alessandro.’
She stood in his doorway, haloed in certainty and he wished he had half her confidence.
God, he was a highly experienced emergency medicine specialist with degrees coming out of his ears and yet he felt so out of his depth.
Unlike this woman he’d known for such a short period of time, standing there all perfect and Zen and centred, telling him it was going to be all right.
He wished she’d come nearer. He was so damn tired all he wanted was to put his arms around her, bury his face in her T-shirt, absorb some of that Zen. Maybe feel her hand sifting through his hair.
‘I hope so,’ he murmured, his eyes roaming over her, wanting it to be true as much as he wanted to touch her right now.
Damn it. She needed to leave already before he betrayed this heinous desire. If he hadn’t already. ‘Thanks,’ he murmured as she opened her mouth to say something.
He didn’t want to hear it; he just needed her to go.
Adding a tight smile to lessen the dismissiveness of his tone, Alessandro swivelled the chair around to face his desktop monitor and waited, his pulse thick, every muscle on high alert, for her to leave.
She didn’t depart immediately; he could feel her presence, sense her gaze boring into his neck.
But she did eventually, the gradual uncinching of his muscles confirming her absence.
Which was a good thing, he knew, and at some point, he’d truly appreciate his level of resolve. Just not now with a long, lonely night stretched endlessly ahead.