A Shameful Consequence(22)

He had sworn he would never be a father.

He was overreacting, he told himself. So what if a woman he had slept with nearly year ago had had a baby? It didn’t mean it was his. Anyway, Nico gave a cynical sigh, if it were his baby, there was no doubt in his mind that he would have been contacted long, long ago.

But, still, he wanted an answer, wanted perhaps to see her, to make sure for himself that she was all right, given all she must have been through. After a moment he had telephoned Charlotte, and it hadn’t taken long. The ever-impressive Charlotte had drawn a blank at first, but when Nico had told her to say she was asking after Connie, rather than Constantine, phone numbers had led to more phone numbers, and then to a few employment agencies and now, a few hours and a plane trip later, he stood at dusk outside a large London home. The heavy iron gate dragged in the dirt and weeds as he pushed it open, sure, quite sure that the address must be the wrong one. The place looked uninhabited. Certainly he couldn’t imagine Constantine living here, but he rang the bell and waited, then rang again, unsure what he was doing there. What he would he say if she did answer the door?

‘Nico?’ Had she not said his name, he would not have thought it was her.

She looked nothing like the woman he had met that day, nothing like the woman he had held that night.

She had put on weight, a lot of weight, her face was puffy and swollen, those gorgeous blue eyes peered out from two slits and that lush, ripe body was bloated now. Her once wild tumble of dark curls hung tired and lank and even that delicious mouth was dry and cracked, but it was not that which made her so unrecognisable, it was more her stance, the defeat in her as she opened the door as if all the fire, all the energy, all the passion that made her her had been extinguished.

And Connie was painfully aware of that.

She could see the shock in his features, the same shock she felt sometimes when she stared dull eyed at her reflection in the mirror and tried to reconcile what she saw with the woman she once had been.

She wanted to close the door, to hide—for never, ever would she want him to see her like this.

‘You didn’t call.’ It was not the words he would have chosen to greet her with if he could do it again, but he had not rehearsed this. In fact, he had pondered all the way what he might say to her, and had decided he would see when he got there. ‘I said, if ever you needed anything …’ He looked her slowly up and down. ‘And clearly you do …’

It was a touch brutal and again he wished he could retract his words as he saw her chin rise in defence.

‘So sorry!’ Connie snapped. ‘Had you given me some warning, I’d have put on make-up, and answered the door in something a little more fetching …’

She missed the slight twitch of his lips as he realised not all of that energy in her had died. She missed it because an angry, sinewy voice came down the stairs and then several loud thumps as his stick hit the floor and Connie’s heart raced again, for she was not allowed visitors. ‘Connie,’ the voice demanded, ‘who is it?’

‘Just a delivery,’ Connie called, and then looked at Nico with urgent eyes. ‘You have to go. I’m not allowed to entertain.’

‘I’m not asking to be entertained,’ Nico said,’ just to talk.’

‘I’m not allowed guests,’ Connie said. ‘Please, Nico, just go.’

‘So what time are you off?’ He saw her eyes screw closed, saw her shake her head and go to close the door, but he blocked it with his shoulder. ‘When do you have a day off?’

‘Please,’ she begged. ‘I don’t get time off. I have to be on call …’ She saw him frown, saw incredulity flicker across his gorgeous features and she just wanted him gone, did not want to be seen like this, but Nico just stood there. ‘He’s bedridden,’ Connie explained. ‘He needs someone here at all times.’ Still Nico stood. And for a fleeting second she saw escape, that maybe Nico could help. Maybe she didn’t have to tell him about her father. It was so wonderful to see him. His beauty, his presence she had never even for a moment forgotten, but somehow, to be kind perhaps, her mind had dimmed it; somehow she had convinced herself that he was surely not quite as stunning as she remembered. Yet here he was and she didn’t want it to end. ‘I’m going to the shops in the morning …’ Connie attempted. ‘Maybe we could meet for a few minutes for coffee.’

‘A few minutes …’

He heard something else then, the wail of a baby, and clearly it irritated the old man, because the thumping on the ceiling became more insistent and he demanded that she shut up that noise.