Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
Juliet woke up as a small but forceful missile landed on her bed.
‘Mummy!’ the missile said, nimbly inserting herself under the covers and snuggling up. ‘You’re nice.’
Juliet put her arms round her darling girl and kissed the top of her head, with its tangle of dark curls. ‘You’re nice too, my little dumpling,’ she said, and as she spoke, a powerful wave of nausea rolled over her. She turned her head and dry-retched over the side of the bed.
‘What are you doing?’ said Cassady, sitting up and leaning over to see if there was anything interesting to look at.
‘Oh, I think I’ve got a bit of an upset tummy. I’ll be fine when I’ve had some breakfast.’
But even the thought of food brought the nausea back and she curled up on her side to ride it out, one arm holding onto her daughter.
She hadn’t even bothered to do a pregnancy test. She’d known she was knocked up the moment she realised her period was late. Her breasts were tender and bigger, she had a constant strange feeling of being at sea – and now, the morning sickness. All just like the first time.
She glanced at her watch. 7.25, Monday morning. Normally she would be up and dressed, spending precious time with her daughter, before leaving for the gym and then work. The nanny would arrive any minute.
Forcing herself to get out of bed, she handed Cassady a tablet tuned to a children’s TV app and went to shower and dress.
Then, remembering that a bath helped relieve the nausea, she weighed up the benefit against the extra time and ran a shallow one. Rubbing body wash over herself, she stopped when she got to her belly, looking down at it, the reality that a new life was growing in there properly sinking in.
She was thrilled because she dearly wanted Cassady to have a sibling, but now it was all so much more complicated. She closed her eyes and squeezed them tightly, desperate to stop the tears she could feel forming. She couldn’t cope with turning up at the studio with a puffy face on top of everything else.
And what was she crying for? She forced herself to switch her brain back into strict efficient functioning mode. She’d been doing that most of her life, shutting away the difficult things she didn’t want to distract her, and it had become such a natural setting for her she liked to think of it as her superpower.
It had certainly contributed to her business success, being able to push all the other intrusive and inconvenient things away.
You must really want to be born , she thought, gently stroking the skin over where the tiny cluster of cells inside her was multiplying into a human being. And just as with darling Cassady, it had taken just one impetuous fuck to make it happen – with this one on Christmas Day, of all days.
Although of course it was exactly because it had been that particular day that she’d had a moment of weakness and allowed him to come over.
Juliet put her mental brakes on, hard. No. She was not going there. Not then, not ever. That box was closed. Fastened with chains and padlocks and stored in a forgotten warehouse. Which might have burned down.
She put her palms over her eyes so she could marshal her thoughts into their permitted arrangements when there was a gentle tap on the door. It was the nanny, Ligaya, just letting her know she was there.
Juliet snapped to, forcing herself up and out of the bath. She had a jewellery empire to run.