LITMIR.BIZ

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his hands held up in a gesture of surrender, although he had also moved to one side of his desk so that he was effectively blocking her exit. ‘I’m not handling this very well, am I? Lizzie and I are worried about you, that’s all. The Christmas party was the last in a long list of Kate no-shows, and it just seems like you’ve been frozen in the same place for too long.’

      Kate really didn’t want to ask, but couldn’t see that she had much choice. ‘What place?’

      Dominic met her eyes steadily, giving her the distinct impression that he was preparing himself to say something he’d been planning for a while. ‘You’re still waiting for a man you don’t really believe is ever going to show up, and yet you can’t quite bear to stop hoping.’

      She turned her head away sharply, so that he wouldn’t see the pain on her face as Cristiano’s words came back to her.

      This isn’t over, you know. Last night was just the beginning. Wait for me.

      ‘Ah, well,’ she said with quiet bitterness, ‘that’s where you’re wrong. It’s my New Year’s resolution to do exactly that.’

      ‘And how well did you do with that one last year?’ Dominic joked and then, sensing her anguish, softened his tone. ‘The problem is, you’re not going to be able to do it while everything is so unresolved. You need closure. You need to know once and for all that things are over between you, and I don’t think that’ll happen until you’ve told him that he has a son.’

      Kate had stayed standing in the hope that she could wind this conversation up quickly and be on her way, but suddenly she wasn’t sure that was going to be possible. Or that it was turning out to be the kind of conversation that she could have without sitting down.

      ‘Not this again, Dominic. I tried that, remember?’ She sank back onto the chair and looked down at her hands. ‘Twice.’

      ‘I know you did, lovey, but you don’t actually know that the message got through. You wrote to him. But letters go astray—fall into the wrong hands. I think that for Alexander’s sake you have to try again. In a way that leaves no room for doubt.’

      In her lap Kate’s fingers were twisted together, the bones showing white beneath the roughened, winter-dry skin. ‘I’m not interested in trapping him,’ she said, very quietly. ‘I really don’t want to force him into acknowledging me, or Alexander.’

      ‘But it’s his responsibility.’

      There was a hint of exasperation in Dominic’s tone now, though he was doing his best to hide it. Oddly, it strengthened Kate’s resolve.

      ‘I don’t care,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t need Cristiano’s help—Alexander and I are fine on our own. Finding out I was pregnant was such a massive shock at the beginning, especially coming on top of the accident and everything, but I’m so glad it happened now. I love Alexander more than I could ever have thought possible.’ She hesitated for a second, swallowing the lump of emotion that had suddenly formed in her throat. ‘I know it would be better if he had a father—for him and for me—but only if he wanted to be there.’

      Dominic turned and chucked the remainder of his herbal tea into the pot of a sickly-looking yukka behind his desk. ‘You don’t know for sure that he doesn’t.’

      ‘Oh, I think I do.’ Kate gave a dry, humourless laugh, turning her empty mug between her hands as if trying to absorb some of its fading warmth. ‘He did actually tell me that he didn’t want children when I interviewed him, so it was hardly a surprise when he didn’t answer my letters. But I did try to see him as well, don’t forget. I stood for two days outside the hospital, with the hardcore press pack and a group of slightly scary fans, trying not to throw up every five minutes.’

      She laughed, but tears stung at the back of her eyes as she remembered the late July heat, the constant drag of morning sickness, the growing pain and humiliation of realising she was wasting her time.

      ‘He was in a bad way,’ Dominic remarked. ‘He was in a coma for ten days—those kind of injuries take some getting over.’

      She flinched. The image of Cristiano, unconscious in a hospital bed was one that had haunted her during those terrible weeks. ‘I know. But he’d been out of Intensive Care for a while then, and according to the papers he’s made a full recovery. If he wanted to get in touch with me, he would have by now.’

      ‘So where does that leave Alex?’ Dominic said gruffly. ‘One day he’s going to want to know who his father is. He’s only three years old at the moment, and already he’s obsessed with cars and speed. Sooner or later…’

      Kate sighed, letting go of the mug and staring down at its cheery picture of a beach and palm trees. I really would rather be in Tenerife, she thought wearily. ‘What do you want me to do, Dominic? I tried. I wrote to him; I went to see him and couldn’t get past Security. Short of a front-page kiss-and-tell exposé in a tabloid newspaper, what else can I do?’

      Wordlessly, Dominic opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a large silver envelope. He slid it across the desk towards her.

      ‘Go and see him again.’

      Kate glanced from the envelope to his face, and back down again. Her heart had started to thud uncomfortably in her chest.

      ‘What’s this?’

      ‘An invitation.’ He silently cursed himself for not sounding more casual. He took a deep breath. ‘To a party at the Casino in Monte Carlo to launch the new season’s Campano team…And celebrate Cristiano Maresca’s return to racing.’

      Kate’s cornflower-blue eyes widened, seeking out his and seeming to search them from a face that was suddenly the same colour as the pale grey sky beyond the window.

      ‘Are you going?’

      Dominic couldn’t decide whether it was hope or terror that made her voice crack.

      ‘No. I’m sending Lisa, and Ian from the Campano account. And you.’

      Kate leapt to her feet, shaking her head vehemently. ‘No. You can’t. I can’t. What about Alexander? I can’t leave—’

      Dominic had known perfectly well that this would be her main objection and was well prepared. ‘He can come and stay with us—you know that he and Ruby have been pestering us for a sleepover for ages.’

      Kate didn’t smile. ‘But I—I’ve never left him overnight before.’

      ‘He’ll be fine—just like Ruby was fine when she stayed with you when Lizzie and I went away for our anniversary. You’re doing it for him, Kate. This is your chance to get some answers.’

      ‘No—I can’t.’ She shook her head again, her hand flying to her throat, her eyes wide with fear.

      Dominic felt guilt flare inside him like acid indigestion.

      Losing her father in a car accident had taught six-year-old Kate Edwards that life was fragile, and that happiness and security were precarious—a lesson that had been brutally hammered home fifteen years later, when her seventeen-year-old brother had ploughed his car into a tree on the Hartley Bridge to Harrogate Road and been killed outright. Dominic had met Kate for the first time a few months after that, when he had interviewed her for a job as his assistant at Clearspring.

      She had come back to stay in Hartley Bridge and be near her mother after university, she’d explained. It had been obvious within five minutes that she was capable of doing the job with her eyes closed, but also that she was a girl who was holding herself together by the skin of her teeth. He’d given her the job, and over the next year had watched the anxiety begin to fade from her eyes as her confidence grew. She’d been the obvious person to go to Monaco in his place when Ruby had made her unexpectedly early appearance, and he’d hoped that the trip would do her good—show her that there was a whole world beyond Hartley Bridge, and that aeroplanes were convenient methods of transport rather than plot

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