Chapter Ten #2
Alannah stormed upstairs to splash cold water onto her face and to try to stem the hot tears from springing to her eyes, and yet all she could feel was a growing sense of frustration.
She didn’t want to be like this. She couldn’t blame him for what he’d said, just because it didn’t fit in with her fantasies.
He was only being straight with her. So maybe this was a wake-up call to start protecting herself. To start facing up to facts.
Their fairy-tale Christmas was over.
She went back downstairs and turned on the TV, giving an exaggerated sigh of relief when she heard the weatherman announce that a warm weather front was pushing up from Spain, and the snow was expected to have thawed by late morning.
‘Great news,’ she said. ‘London here we come.’
Niccolò watched as she stomped out of her chair to throw away the untouched mince pies and chocolates and every attempt he made to start a conversation was met with a monosyllabic response. He realised that he’d never been given such cool treatment by a woman before.
But that didn’t stop them having sex that night.
Very good sex, as it happened. Their angry words momentarily forgotten, he reached for her in the darkness with a passion which she more than matched.
In a room washed silver by the full moon, he watched as she arched beneath him and called out his name.
He awoke to the sound of dripping outside the window to find the weatherman’s predictions had been accurate and that the snow was melting. Leaving Alannah sleeping, he packed everything up, made a pot of coffee, then went along the lane to find his car.
By the time he drove back to the cottage, she was up and dressed, standing in the middle of the sitting room, clutching a mug—her face pale and her mouth set. He noticed she’d turned the tree lights off and that the room now looked dull and lacklustre.
‘Christmas is over,’ she said brightly, as if he were a stranger. As if she hadn’t been going down on him just a few sweet hours before.
‘What about the tree?’
‘The woman I hired the cottage from supplied it. She said she’ll take it away.’
‘Alannah—’
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t want any protracted stuff, or silly goodbyes. I just want to get back to London and finish up the job you’ve employed me to do.’
Niccolò felt a flicker of irritation at her suddenly stubborn and uncompromising attitude, but there didn’t seem to be a damned thing he could do about it.
She was almost completely silent on the journey back as the car slushed its way through the unnaturally quiet streets and, for some reason, the passionate opera he usually favoured while driving now seemed completely inappropriate.
He drove her to Acton and parked up outside her home, where most of the small nearby houses seemed to be decked with the most garish tinsel imaginable. Someone had even put an inflatable Santa in their cramped front yard.
‘Thanks for the lift,’ she said, as she reached for the door handle.
‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’
She gave him a steady stare. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘Maybe because we’ve been sleeping together and I might like to see where you live?’
Alannah hesitated and hated herself for that hesitation. She wondered if secretly she was ashamed of her little home and fearful of how judgemental he might be. Or was it simply an instinctive reaction, because she was unwilling to expose any more of herself to him?
‘Okay, come in, then,’ she said grudgingly.
‘Grazie,’ came his sardonic reply.
It was shiveringly cold as she unlocked the door.
She’d turned the heating down low before the taxi had arrived to take her to the cottage and now the place felt like an ice-box.
Niccolò stood in the centre of her small sitting room as she adjusted the thermostat, looking around him like a man who had just found himself in a foreign country and wasn’t quite sure what to do.
She wondered how he managed to make her furniture look as if it would be better suited to a doll’s house.
‘Would you like a guided tour?’ she said.
‘Why not?’
The cramped dimensions meant she needed to be vigilant about tidiness and Alannah was glad there were no discarded pieces of clothing strewn around her bedroom and that the tiny bathroom was neat.
But it still felt excruciating as she led him through an apartment in which she’d tried to maximise all available light in order to give an illusion of space.
She’d made all the drapes herself from sari material she’d picked up at the local market, and the artwork which hung on the walls was her own.
A friend from college had feng-shuied every room, there were pots of herbs lined up on the window sill in the kitchen, and she found the place both restful and creative.
But she wondered how it must seem through Niccolò’s eyes, when you could practically fit the entire place into his downstairs cloakroom back in Mayfair.
They walked back into the sitting room and, rather awkwardly, she stood in front of him.
He really did seem like a stranger now, she thought—and a terrible sense of sadness washed over her.
How weird to think that just a few hours ago he was deep inside her body—making her feel as if she was closer to him than she’d ever been to anyone.
‘I would offer you coffee,’ she said. ‘But I really do want to get on. If Alekto is going to have the apartment ready for his New Year’s Eve party, then I need to get cracking.’
‘You’re planning to work today?’
‘Of course. What did you think I’d be doing?’ she questioned. ‘Sobbing into my hankie because our cosy Christmas is over? I enjoyed it, Niccolò. It was an…interesting experience. And you’re a great cook as well as a great lover. But you probably know that.’
She made a polite gesture in the direction of the door but he suddenly caught hold of her wrist, and all pretence of civility had gone.
‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ he iced out, his eyes glittering with unfeigned hostility.
She snatched her hand away, swallowing as she met his gaze. ‘No, I haven’t. It’s not the kind of thing you can easily forget, is it? Don’t worry, Niccolò. I’ll let you know whether I’m pregnant or not.’