CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
L IBBY WAS ON the second highest step of the ladder when she heard the door opening and she almost fell sideways, came disastrously close to knocking a half-full pot of paint onto the drop sheet below.
Her insides jolted alarmingly.
Five nights. Raul had been away the whole week and had not contacted her once.
But why would he have? she thought with self-directed anger. He didn’t owe Libby anything, and he’d made it abundantly clear he couldn’t wait to get away from her after that night.
Anger fired in her veins, a white-hot rage that might have been irrational, that might have been unfair, and yet it fairly exploded through her body. She ground her teeth together, dipped the brush into the tin and returned to the job at hand, carefully painting around the stencils she’d laboriously stuck in place. If he thought she was going to go out and acknowledge his return, he had another think coming.
Her fingers shook a little though as she continued with her work, one ear trained on the apartment, waiting for any indication that Raul was coming towards her. Minutes later, she heard it: the clicking open of the door to this room, a sharp invective in his native language immediately following as he burst towards her like a hurricane.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
Libby spun so fast she almost fell—again—but she steadied herself quickly, shooting Raul an angry glare, as though her clumsiness was his fault.
‘What does it look like?’ she muttered, hating how good he looked, hating how her body immediately responded, and so turning away again quickly, focusing back on the wall of the baby’s nursery.
‘It looks ,’ he said, with something very near derision in his voice, ‘like you have a death wish. Then again, I should have known that from the first time we met and you insisted on storming a boat.’
Libby jabbed the paintbrush angrily at the wall, though it had done nothing to deserve such brutality. ‘In case you’d forgotten, we’re going to have a baby in a few months. We need somewhere for that baby to sleep.’
‘How could I forget, Libby? It’s the reason we’re married, isn’t it?’
Libby’s heart popped painfully. She jabbed the wall again.
‘Besides which,’ he continued, voice deep and gruff and closer than before, and when she happened to glance down she saw he was standing at the base of the ladder, one hand on the metallic rungs, ‘we have many places for the baby to sleep. Should you even be breathing that stuff in?’ he demanded.
His question hurt . As though he couldn’t trust her to keep their baby safe.
‘It’s non-toxic,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not an idiot. And I don’t have a death wish. I’m perfectly safe up here,’ she said, ignoring the couple of times she’d almost fallen in the last ten minutes. That had only been because of Raul’s unexpected return. ‘And your apartment might have many, many bedrooms but none of them is ready for a baby.’
Silence prickled between them, and Libby’s anger was dangerously close to morphing into something else, something more like bitter sadness, so she ground her teeth and clung to her annoyance with Raul because it was so much safer than feeling sorry for herself.
‘So hire a goddamned decorator,’ he snapped.
‘Why? I like doing it,’ she said, mentally adding that she thought she’d done a good job, but to say as much to Raul might seem as though she was looking for his praise and she definitely wasn’t.
‘Because you can afford a decorator. Because they can do everything you want, without you risking a broken neck...’
‘Far better for them to risk theirs,’ she muttered, rolling her eyes. ‘It’s just a ladder.’
‘Then let me do this,’ he snapped.
‘No.’ She was being stubborn and churlish and she didn’t care. Emotions were exploding through her, none of them good.
‘You really are acting like a child,’ he said, but stayed right where he was, one hand firmly gripping the base of the ladder, the other, she suspected, ready to swing into action and catch Libby if she should fall.
She ignored his jibe, continuing instead to paint the sunbeams on the wall, taking her time, refusing to show how unsettling his proximity was. Finally, she was at the end of her reach, and needed to shift the ladder.
‘I’m coming down,’ she said curtly, expecting him to move. And he did, but only slightly, just enough to make a little more room for Libby. Holding the tin of paint, she gingerly climbed down the treads of the ladder until her feet were on the ground, and then shifted sideways, as far away from Raul as a single step would take her. But here, at ground level, the flecks of anger in his eyes were so much more obvious, and they sparked an answering feeling in her bloodstream. Fire threatened to ravage her internal organs.
She looked away, mutinous.
‘Are you finished?’
She pulled a face. ‘Does it look finished?’
Raul’s nostrils flared as he expelled a loud breath. ‘What else?’
‘Well, the sun has to go to that corner,’ she snapped. ‘If you want to help, go out of the room so I have more space to work.’ It was a large bedroom and Raul was just a man, but he was a big man, and his presence was at least treble his size.
‘Not on your life,’ he responded coldly. ‘Tell me what you want done, and I will do it.’
She gaped. ‘I’m enjoying myself.’
‘At great risk to our baby,’ he responded pointedly and Libby’s insides churned. He didn’t care about her; this was all about the baby. And, worse, he thought she didn’t care enough. He thought she was being reckless. Fear of being like her own mother flooded her; worry that she might be genetically incapable of doing this well gnawed at her. Tears filled Libby’s eyes but she desperately didn’t want him to see.
‘Fine,’ she said, bending down to replace the paint tin on the ground rather than handing it to Raul and risking touching him. ‘The sunbeams have to hit that corner. I’m going to make a tea,’ she said, hands shaking as she ducked her head and left the room, her heart turning into something sharp and blade-like, slashing against the fibres of her chest wall.
‘It’s done.’ His voice was without emotion ten minutes later when he strode into the lounge room. Libby was calmer now, the space from Raul and a cup of steaming hot tea were exactly what she’d needed to soothe her frazzled nerves. The reprieve was temporary. The moment he entered the spacious lounge, tension prickled along her spine.
She nodded curtly, didn’t quite meet his eyes.
‘Is there anything else?’
Her lips pulled to one side. ‘Obviously.’
‘Such as?’
Except Libby wasn’t sure she wanted to confide in Raul. She’d chosen the nursery as her project the day after he’d left, when she’d known how important it was to stay busy and focus on something positive. The nursery had become her salvation—something she was tinkering with each day, thinking of their baby, the life inside of her, imagining a future with a little person who simply adored her.
‘Nothing you need to worry about.’
He was quiet for so long that Libby felt her eyes pulling towards him, dragged there by the weight of his silence. His expression gave nothing away.
‘Do you promise you will not go up the ladder again when I am not home?’
Libby’s brows knit together. ‘Um, no.’
‘No, you will not go back up the ladder?’
‘No, I don’t promise any such thing,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not a moron, Raul, and, believe it or not, I care about our baby just as much as you do, or I wouldn’t have agreed to go along with all this, would I?’ she said, glad to be able to hurl that in his face, though she had no expectation of the sentiment proving as hurtful to Raul as it had been to her, particularly as it had come right after they’d just slept together.
‘Then prove it. Don’t do anything dangerous when you are alone in the apartment.’
‘Going up a ladder is hardly—’
He held a hand up in the air, an instantly recognisable gesture of silence. Libby gawked at him. ‘What if you had fallen?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You could have.’
‘Then I would have called for help.’
‘Who would you have called? In case you hadn’t realised, this penthouse is somewhat isolated.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘I have my phone in my back pocket.’
‘And if you passed out?’
‘You’re talking in what-ifs. I could just as easily have slipped when I got out of the shower this morning, or rolled my ankle whilst making the bed...’
His eyes flashed to hers and his jaw tightened. ‘You’re right.’ He crossed his arms over his chest. ‘You should not be left alone.’
Libby’s lips parted in surprise and her heart began to race. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘But it’s clear,’ Raul contradicted. ‘Until the baby is born, I’ll work from home.’
Libby’s face went whiter than a ghost’s. ‘N...no,’ she stammered, rejecting the idea on some soul-deep level, even when she acknowledged there was a part of her that wanted his company and companionship. ‘You’re being ridiculous.’
‘As ridiculous as a woman who thinks she has to carry a paperweight to protect someone like me from teenage tearaways?’
At the reminder of how they’d first met, Libby’s pulse quickened. ‘I’m not here all the time, Raul. I go out—a lot. Are you going to shadow me on the footpath too? Stop me from being hit by a bus or mugged in an alley?’
He ground his teeth. ‘If that’s necessary.’
Appalled, she glared at him. ‘I was being sarcastic.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘But—’
‘You are my wife .’ He enunciated each word clearly. ‘And the mother of my baby. Your safety is important to me.’
Libby spun away from him, hating herself for the way those words pulled at her, weakened her. ‘Our baby’s safety is important to me too,’ she whispered, repeating something she’d already said, needing him to understand that she wasn’t being reckless or careless. ‘I am not taking stupid risks. I walk in busy areas in broad daylight. I never feel unsafe.’
‘Nonetheless,’ he said with his trademark authority, ‘either I will come with you in the future or I’ll arrange an escort.’
She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. ‘Like I’m some kind of heroine in a Jane Austen novel?’ she asked, scandalised. ‘I’m a twenty-six-year-old woman,’ she reminded him, ‘and I’ve been looking after myself for longer than I can remember. Looking after everyone else too. If you think you can crash into my life like some kind of giant, arrogant wrecking ball and start taking over all of my...autonomy...and independence, then bloody think again.’
His features showed irritation. ‘I have no interest in curtailing your autonomy, only in ensuring your safety.’
‘They sound kind of the same, the way you describe them.’
‘Then you’re wilfully misunderstanding me.’
‘I am not!’ she responded with a disbelieving shake of her head. ‘You are insufferable.’
‘What a shame then that you have a lifetime to suffer me for.’
Libby dug her fingernails into her palms. A lifetime. It wouldn’t be a lifetime and they both knew it, but it felt like it in that moment.
‘Having regrets?’ she asked, bracing her other hand against the kitchen bench.
‘Regrets? I’m full of them,’ he said, almost to himself, thrusting his hands on his hips with no idea how much his admission cut Libby to the very centre of her soul. ‘But nothing changes our position now, does it? We’re married, with a baby coming in a matter of months, and I am asking you, for the rest of your pregnancy, to remember you are making decisions for three people, not just one.’
Libby floundered. Her heart hurt. ‘You don’t need to remind me, Raul, I’m well aware of my pregnancy at every minute of every day. You’re the one who’s carrying on as though nothing has changed, whereas my entire life has been turned on its head from the moment you learned of this pregnancy...’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re right.’ His agreement momentarily took the wind out of her sails. ‘So I am telling you: my life is about to change too. From now on, I’ll be here, with you. If you need a wall painted, I will do it. If you need furniture moved, ask me. You are not to do another job that involves even a hint of risk.’
‘Everything involves risk,’ she said on a frustrated laugh.
‘Don’t be argumentative for the sake of it,’ he replied. ‘You know some things carry greater risk, and scaling to virtually the top step of a ladder is one of them.’
She opened her mouth to say something, to dispute that, but slammed it shut again a moment later. Raul was right. There was an inherent risk in climbing up a ladder whilst alone in the apartment, and she’d known that. She’d been careful precisely for that reason.
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at a point beyond his shoulder. ‘Fine,’ she said crisply. ‘It’s your life. Do whatever you want. But don’t for one second think I need you here with me, Raul. I’m perfectly capable of getting through this pregnancy without your help and, news flash, I always was.’ And with that she left the room.
A week later Libby felt as though she might burst.
Having Raul constantly around was like some kind of torture. He was everywhere. Working in the apartment from early in the morning until late at night, but frequently stepping into the lounge to check on her. If Libby wanted to go for a walk he came too, though he often worked then as well, using the time to make conference calls, so they were like two people on parallel paths, together yet apart. She had taken to walking two steps in front of him and doing her best to forget he was even there, or trying to at least, but Raul’s presence was oppressive and overwhelming. Even several paces behind her, she felt him, and wished on a thousand stars she didn’t.
But on their eighth day in this strange new form of hell, Libby came into the lounge room in the middle of the morning to find another woman standing just inside the apartment, a black leather briefcase clutched at her side, Raul in the process of greeting her.
Libby froze, frowning, wondering at the inclusion of someone else in their odd little arrangement.
‘Libby.’ Raul forced a smile, but there was a warning in his eyes. ‘This is Matilda Roletti—a designer I’ve called to consult on the nursery. If you tell her what you’d like, she’ll arrange it. And the installation.’
Libby’s heart tightened and she frowned, because this was the last thing she wanted.
‘Oh.’ She glanced from Raul to Matilda, then back to Raul.
‘I’ve brought some catalogues for us to look at, but perhaps you’d like to show me the space first?’ Matilda spoke with a polished accent. In fact, everything about her was polished and professional and instantly intimidating to Libby, who felt under-dressed and dowdy in comparison. Having not been expecting company, she was dressed in just about the only clothes she owned that still fit—a pair of stretchy yoga pants and a loose T-shirt. She wore no make-up and her hair was long and fluffy around her face—Libby had given up on blow-drying it weeks ago.
‘It’s just over there.’ She gestured to the nursery door—the bedroom beside her own. ‘Why don’t you go and have a look? I need a quick word with...my husband.’
Matilda nodded once then strode through the apartment with the same sense of belonging as the designer furniture. It was so obvious that Libby sucked in a sharp breath, the sting in the middle of her chest almost felling her. This was the kind of woman who belonged in Raul’s home. This was the kind of woman who would have been comfortable and content amongst Raul’s priceless collection of furniture in his incredibly extravagant penthouse. Not Libby Langham, a cleaner from Sydney. She swallowed past the constricting feeling in her throat.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She rounded on him, hissing the question in a whisper, but her anger reverberated around the room as though she’d shouted. ‘I don’t need a designer.’
‘You said you wanted the nursery to be done.’
‘No, I said I wanted to do it,’ she responded.
‘So you can. Choose what you want with Matilda...’
‘That’s not what I meant.’ Libby groaned. ‘God, Raul, you are unbelievable.’
‘What have I done wrong?’ he disputed with disbelief. ‘I’m trying to help.’
‘No, you’re trying to take over and do things your way, which I’m starting to realise means with an abundance of money and no actual time or feeling.’
The words slammed into the space between them, heavy with accusation and accuracy. She saw him rock back on his heels as though it was the last thing he’d expected her to recognise or say, but Libby didn’t apologise nor take the words back. It was true.
‘I just hope that when our baby is born you realise they’re going to want to spend time with you, not just live in your sky palace and benefit from your fabulous wealth.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ Raul responded, suddenly pale beneath his tan. ‘You think I didn’t realise that the moment you told me about the pregnancy? If I wanted to spend money and be done with this, I would have set up a trust fund for the baby and walked away.’
Libby angled her face away from Raul’s.
‘I am going to be in this baby’s life,’ he said, the words low and deep but carefully muted of emotion.
It’s why I married you.
Raul didn’t need to say it again: the refrain was etched in Libby’s mind.
‘And haven’t I been spending time with you?’
It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
‘You’ve been shadowing me! That’s not spending time together.’
He thrust his hands on his hips. ‘I don’t know what you want from me, Libby. I really don’t.’
She turned away, angry and frustrated. She didn’t know either. That was part of the problem. But, deep down, Libby felt like this was all wrong. Everything Raul did seemed to make it worse.
She clung to belligerence, not wanting to back down. Her unreliable pregnancy emotions were zipping all over the place; she felt robbed of her usual optimism and self-control. ‘I don’t want a decorator.’
There was silence for a moment and when Raul spoke his voice was level, but that didn’t matter. Libby heard his frustration, heard his impatience. ‘You don’t even want to meet with her, to hear her ideas?’
‘I have my own ideas,’ Libby said quietly. ‘I’ve had plenty of time to think about what I want our baby’s room to be like, and it’s nothing, nothing , like this icescape.’ She waved her hand around the lounge room, the impersonal, cold furniture anathema to Libby’s sense of warmth and family. ‘ You go and hear her thoughts,’ Libby snapped. ‘I’m sure you’ll be a match made in heaven.’
It took him five minutes to dismiss Matilda and he did so without embarrassment, mainly because Raul didn’t feel those emotions in the normal course of his life, and for the moment his mind was singularly engaged in decoding and understanding Libby, so he had very little run time to feel something as pedestrian as embarrassment. Besides, he would no doubt get an invoice for the designer’s time, even when the visit had been totally unproductive.
Alone once more in the apartment with Libby, he knew the right thing—the wise thing—to do was give her space, and so he returned to his own work, fuming over how unreasonable she’d been, staring at his screen with the sense of a spring being wound tighter and tighter in his belly.
But no matter how frustrated he was with Libby, he still found it impossible to stop thinking about her, and to ignore the feeling that they’d got halfway through an argument they needed to finish properly. Yes, that was it, he thought on a wave of relief. They had unfinished business and for this reason, and this reason alone, he wanted to go to her, to pick up where they’d left off. Until they’d resolved this dispute, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to concentrate anyway, so there was no sense in just staring at a blank screen.
He found her in the nursery, one shoulder propped against the wall, eyes trained on the view beyond the window. He stood just inside the door, arms crossed, watching her, suddenly at a loss for words. Her blonde hair again reminded him of an angel’s halo, her eyes were sparkling like gems.
‘I’m sorry.’
Raul was still searching for what to say, so Libby’s softly voiced apology caught him off-guard.
She turned to face him slowly. ‘I overreacted.’
He frowned, taking a step deeper into the room and then another, until he was just a short distance from her.
Libby’s gaze probed his, as if looking for something important, then she sighed. ‘When I was growing up, my room was just a mattress on the floor in a space no bigger than a wardrobe.’ Her lips pulled to the side in that way she had; Raul knew it meant she was lost in thought. ‘I know neither of us planned for this,’ she said, rubbing her stomach distractedly. ‘But, at the same time, I’ve planned for it all my life. As a young girl, I used to imagine what my house would be like, my bedroom, if only I could have it my way. As a teenager, I imagined my future, my family, and from the moment I found out I was pregnant, I’ve thought about how to make this baby’s life everything mine wasn’t. It’s not about possessions,’ she clarified quickly. ‘It’s about warmth. Security. Love.’
Something tightened in Raul’s chest.
He would give their baby the world, but love was the one thing he knew he couldn’t offer. Not to the baby, not to Libby, not to anyone. He’d lost that ability a long time ago, and it was something he never wanted to regain.
Fortunately, Raul had no doubt Libby would love their child enough for the both of them, and he would provide everything else that was needed in spades.
‘I was trying to help,’ he said gruffly, rather than admitting the truth to Libby about the deadened state of his heart.
‘I know that, and I appreciate it. But this is what I want to do for our baby. It’s important to me, and I enjoy it.’
His gaze moved from Libby to the walls of the room, seeing it with renewed interest. On one side she’d painted a circus theme—a big, bright tent with a waving flag on top, an elephant and a happy clown with a rainbow bursting out of the palm of his hand across another wall, then, on the other, it was a sky theme, with clouds and a gloriously bright sun. Not only was it cheery and warm, it was well executed, so Raul’s eyes shone with approval when they met Libby’s.
‘You’re very talented.’
She laughed softly. ‘You sound surprised.’
He lifted one hand in the air in apology, and found his lips lifting in an unexpected grin. ‘I shouldn’t be. You’re clearly a woman of many talents.’
She scrutinised the artwork on one wall. ‘I drew the outline with pencil first, until I was happy.’
He tried not to think about how many times she’d been up and down the ladder in the week he’d been away.
‘I know what I want to do in here, Raul. I was just waiting until you got back in case...’
Her voice trailed off into nothing and his gut tightened in anticipation of what she was going to say. ‘I thought you might want to be involved in selecting the furniture,’ she said with a shrug. ‘But you don’t have to. I can do it myself.’
Good. That was the wise choice. She should do it herself.
Raul had to forcibly remind himself of the importance of keeping those lines clear, their boundaries delineated. The less time they spent doing happy family-type activities, the better.
He nodded once. ‘I look forward to seeing what you pick out. I presume you can order the necessary items online?’
He ignored the look of hurt in her eyes with difficulty.
She bit into her lip as she nodded. ‘I’ll get it delivered next week.’