Chapter Three #2
He’d pulled his boxers back on and strolled out of the room without looking back at her.
She hadn’t uttered a single word of protest. She’d been incapable.
Marnie had learned at a very young age that in times of conflict, silent invisibility was the safest course of action.
More often than not, it hadn’t been necessary to make herself invisible because that’s what she’d already been to her parents, but lessons learned in childhood were the ones that stuck in your psyche the deepest.
Until their wedding night, Marnie had never felt invisible to Domenico.
Looking back, it wasn’t conflict that she’d been frightened of with him that night—he wasn’t the kind of man to raise a hand to a woman, he just wasn’t—but that to question him would lead to answers she wasn’t ready to hear.
The fairy tale she’d built her dreams on was tumbling around her, and one wrong word would see it crumble into dust.
Nausea grabbed her, the water she’d drunk determined to expel itself out of her. She was leaning with her head out of the bed, vomiting clear fluid into the bucket when Domenico came into the room.
Without saying a word, he sat beside her and gently gathered her hair away from her face.
When the retches had subsided and she’d wiped her mouth with one of the tissues and pulled her aching head back onto the pillow, she didn’t have the strength to protest when he stretched out beside her and tenderly spooned her to him, careful not to put any pressure on her stomach.
She didn’t have the strength, either, to lie to herself that his silent support wasn’t comforting. That being here with him and being taken care of like this wasn’t comforting.
‘I think it’s time we called a doctor out, don’t you?’ he said quietly. His breath was warm against the back of her head.
A tear rolled down her cheek, and suddenly she was terrified. The severity of her morning sickness wasn’t normal, and it was a sickness that was accelerating.
‘Marnie?’
Squeezing her eyes shut as if it could drive away her terror that their baby was in danger, she nodded.
He kissed her hair, then moved away and climbed off the bed to make the calls that would no doubt have one of London’s top obstetricians there within the hour.
Domenico breathed deeply before opening the door.
To his huge relief, Marnie was sitting up in her hospital bed. The IV to replenish all her lost fluids that she’d been hooked back onto when he’d left the hospital for the night had been removed. She’d even regained a little colour in her cheeks.
She gave a fleeting smile at his appearance.
He moved the guest chair closer to the bed. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked as he sat.
Another fleeting smile. ‘Better.’
‘The anti-sickness is working now?’
‘So far. They gave me the new one when I woke up, and the toast I ate has stayed down.’
Hyperemesis gravidarum. It sounded like a spell in a book about witches and wizards, but no, it was the technical name for severe morning sickness. Marnie hadn’t wanted to take the anti-sickness drugs, had only submitted when the doctor assured her it wouldn’t harm the baby.
That had been the moment Domenico realised she already loved their baby. Whether her denial about the pregnancy had been deliberate or not, the baby was already a part of her.
‘That’s great news.’ She’d vomited up the first anti-sickness drug while the second one, administered by injection, had had little effect, so it was another huge relief to know the third one they’d tried was working.
There had been talk about tube feeding her to bypass her stomach, just to get some nutrients into her.
The consultant came into the room and greeted them with his usual professional smile. ‘I hear you’re finally on the mend,’ he said to Marnie.
She looked at the consultant as if he were a deity come to life. ‘It doesn’t feel like I’m dying now.’
‘We do our best,’ he said wryly. ‘I’ve looked at your charts and want to keep an eye on you for a while longer, but if your blood pressure remains stable and you keep holding food down, then there is no reason we can’t discharge you later this afternoon…with caveats, of course.’
Her blond eyebrows drew together in question.
He perched himself on the bottom of her bed. ‘Don’t let yourself be fooled into believing this is over for you. Even with the antiemetics, you’re still going to feel nauseous and need plenty of rest.’
‘How long will I feel like this?’
‘At the least until you’re through the first trimester, but it’s different for all women. We’re going to be keeping a very close eye on you and the baby for the rest of the pregnancy, so however long it lasts for you, we will be on hand to help manage it.’
‘Thank you.’ Her smile was softer than any smile she’d given Domenico. ‘That’s reassuring to hear.’
‘Before we discharge you, I’ll get one of the team to speak to you about how best to manage your symptoms at home.’ He turned to Domenico. ‘You’ll need to be there for that talk—I’m entrusting your wife into your care.’
‘Ex-wife,’ Marnie interjected before Domenico could agree. ‘We’re divorced.’
The consultant made an owl-like blink. ‘My apologies. I wasn’t aware. Your file hasn’t been updated.’
‘The divorce was only finalised four days ago.’
‘Right…’ He was clearly flummoxed at the news, which was understandable seeing as Marnie had been an inpatient for three days and Domenico had been a constant by her side and was footing all the bills.
‘I’m the baby’s father,’ Domenico felt compelled to confirm, and ignored the bitterness this confirmation provoked.
If Marnie hadn’t been so desperate to divorce him, she’d have taken the pregnancy test much sooner.
He’d have found a way to stop the divorce from being finalised, and there would be no question about his paternity.
‘And I’m more than willing to have Marnie discharged into my care. ’
‘Good, good.’ The consultant nodded vigorously, acting like it was an everyday occurrence to have a patient pregnant by her ex-husband, then cleared his throat and looked at Marnie. ‘Are you happy to be discharged into your ex-husband’s care?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I want to go home. To my home.’
‘You have someone there who can take care of you?’
A slower shake of her head.
‘Do you have a parent or sibling you can stay with until you’re well enough to take care of yourself? A close friend? I can make the call for you.’
Eyes clouding, her chin wobbled, but her voice was strong. ‘I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.’
The consultant’s pager beeped. He read its message and rose. ‘I’m needed with another patient.’ He fixed his stare back on Marnie. ‘Think about what you want to do. I’m sure we can come up with a solution, but I do not feel at all comfortable discharging you to an empty home.’
If Domenico wasn’t watching her so carefully, he’d have missed the wary glance Marnie shot at him.
For three days, she’d been too ill to display any animosity to Domenico.
In fact, he’d had the distinct impression she was grateful; glad even, that he’d spent his days in the hospital with her, his vigil continuing even after they’d been assured the baby wasn’t in any danger.
At the very least, she hadn’t told him to leave.
Now she was feeling better, he sensed the stubbornness that had been her trademark these last six months reassert itself.
‘I’m not letting you go back to that flat,’ he told her firmly as soon as the consultant had closed the door.
Her stare was tired but baleful. ‘You don’t get a say in it.’
‘I do. That’s my baby you’re carrying.’
‘Yes, but I’m the one responsible for bringing it safely into the world.’
‘And I’m responsible for keeping you well enough to bring it safely into the world.’
‘You’re not my husband. You have no responsibility for me.’
‘I might not be your husband anymore, but we are equally responsible for the pregnancy, and I am not having the mother of my child living alone in that shithole when she’s ill and in need of care.’
She shot him a look of pure venom. ‘My home is not a shithole.’
‘How are you going to manage if you go back there?’ he demanded, ignoring her refutation. ‘Who are you going to turn to when you need help? The drug dealers in the apartment next door?’
‘They’re not drug dealers.’
‘No, I’m sure they’re upstanding citizens who just happen to be cultivating their own cannabis farm.
They don’t even try to disguise the smell.
And have your landlords bothered to fix the elevators or are you going to drag your depleted body up eight flights of stairs to reach your apartment?
’ Her jaw clenched, proving he’d hit the mark with that one, and he continued pressing his point.
‘And what about food? How are you going to nourish yourself the times you can’t get out of bed, and let’s consider, too, the nursing staff tasked with home visits to you—how do you think they’ll feel making visits to a neighbourhood where they’ll be lucky not to have the tyres of their cars stolen? ’
Anger slashed her cheeks. ‘What gives you the right to be so judgmental?’ she said tremulously. ‘That’s my home you’re talking about.’
‘Stating facts is not making judgments. Your condition is serious, Marnie, and you’re approaching the point where it’s going to get worse before it gets better.’
Marnie turned her face away and closed her eyes.
There was no point asking if he’d researched her condition.
Domenico researched everything. When he took on a new client, he would research them to the nth degree along with every aspect of their case from every angle and permutation.
Everything he researched, he retained in the file he kept in his brain.
No other lawyer was better prepared, able to pluck seemingly fatuous knowledge from nowhere and able to think more quickly on his feet.
It was one of the reasons he was so wildly successful in his chosen career that governments begged him to represent them, and this thirst for knowledge wasn’t restricted to the law.
Domenico was curious about everything, and she had no doubt he was now as knowledgeable as the consultant about her condition.
If he said it was going to get worse before it got better, then she believed him.
‘If you come home with me, you’ll be looked after twenty-four-seven,’ he said into the silence. ‘You know this.’
She did know it. Dom’s household staff were good people. She’d known most of them for years, from her time as his PA when she’d been on the same staff divide as them.
She knew his suggestion made perfect sense.
She knew she would struggle to take care of herself the way she currently felt.
On a list of pros and cons, there would be a good fifty pros for moving back in with Domenico for a while and only one con.
But that one con was a massive con. It meant being back under Domenico’s roof.
And then he uttered the killer line that made her accept defeat. ‘You know this is the best thing all round, for you and for the baby.’
Swallowing hard, she turned her face back to him. ‘If I come home with you, it’s on the strict proviso that it’s only until I feel better.’
She caught the flash of triumph in his eyes. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘It is.’
‘But I have a proviso of my own, which is that you reserve the right to change your mind whenever you please and stay forever.’
‘That’s my second proviso.’
He leaned his face a little closer. ‘That you’ll stay forever?’
‘No, that you accept it’s only a temporary situation and that I’m not coming back to you. I want you to promise you won’t even mention making it permanent or us remarrying.’
‘I can agree to that.’
‘Promise me. No talk of any kind of a future where you and I get back together. Promise it or I go back to my flat.’
He sighed and shook his head with the air of a man making an indulgent concession. ‘I promise.’