Confetti Hearts (Confetti Hitched, #1)(71)

“You didn’t sound very close when I heard you on the phone to your mum that time.”

His brow furrows for a moment. “No, that was just a bad connection. It’s always irritating, because I like to talk to her.”

I breathe in and cough again as the cold air hits the back of my throat.

“Maybe you should go in,” he says, concern in his eyes.

I wave my hand. “It’s just a cough. Tell me how you ended up at boarding school.”

He hesitates, obviously torn over sending me inside. “It happens a lot with forces children and foreign office people. Lucy and I both ended up at boarding school when we started doing GCSE work.”

“And was that dreadful? Did that stir up resentment against your parents? Did you wait lonely on exeat days when all the other students went out with their parents?” He stares at me and I rack my brain for more inspiration and then remember a book I read at school. “Did they beat you with birch twigs?”

“Jesus Christ, you have a very strange idea of the private school sector.”

“Please don’t spoil my illusions.”

“I’m afraid I have to. I missed my family at first, but we’ve always been good communicators, and my parents would visit whenever they could, and we always went home to wherever they were at holidays.”

“I always wondered whether you’d been scarred by it and that was why you couldn’t commit to our marriage. Intimacy issues.”

He looks faintly revolted. “Not at all. I think I had control issues more than that.” I look at him enquiringly, my heart racing. I think this is the first time we’ve spoken like this. “You threatened my control in every way, and I reacted to that by digging my heels in and inventing increasingly desperate work absences.”

“I threatened your control.” I pause. “You invented work absences?”

“Didn’t you know?” He puts his hands on his hips. “How can you not know that I was out of control around you? I didn’t date until you, and then I was suddenly dancing in the rain to Frank Sinatra. I wasn’t monogamous until you, and then I couldn’t see anyone else. And then I got drunk and married you.”

“I thought that was just the whisky cocktails.”

He shakes his head. “God, no. They definitely helped, but I must have already been thinking about it.” He hesitates. “I felt you trying to pull away before we got married and I think it panicked me.”

“I was,” I say quietly. “I was worried by how powerfully I felt for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hello, you two.”

We turn, and Erica is standing there.

“Hello, Married Lady,” I say, standing up to hug her. “You look great.”

She does look well—rosy cheeked and happy.

She shrugs. “I can barely walk, but I suppose that’s what a honeymoon is for.”

Lachlan laughs and I wrinkle my nose. “At least it keeps you in your room away from the family.”

She laughs. “I saw you two out here and thought I’d come and say hello and thank you for what you’re doing.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I say.

She immediately shakes her head. “It’s a hell of a lot. My mother made it sound completely natural, as though it was expected that because you arranged our wedding it logically follows that you should clean her bathroom.”

“I’m a little worried about that,” I confess. “Will she expect me to go home with her?”

“Only until she’s fully exposed to your version of housework,” Lachlan observes.

I snort. “I’m a very clean person.”

“It’s easy to be clean when your carpets don’t get dirty because of the clothes littering the floor.”

“I love how you’re always laughing together,” Erica says, giving me a sweet smile.

I feel so guilty. We’re completely lying to her. If she knew the truth it would crush her soft, romantic heart.

She pats my arm. “I’ve been watching you two.”

I cough and then cough again. “Not creepy at all,” I get out, heaving for breath.

“You’re just very in tune. I’ve rarely seen a couple so together.” She pauses. “Are you okay, Joe?”

I gasp for breath, the cold making me cough again and again. I splutter, panicking when inhaling suddenly seems impossible.

“Joe?” Lachlan says urgently.

“I’m okay,” I manage. My eyes widen as the horribly familiar feel of an asthma attack closes in. I pat my pocket, but I’ve left the inhaler in the pocket of my other jeans. I look frantically at Lachlan.

“Erica, take my key and run up to room number ten,” he says calmly, although his eyes are worried. “Joe’s jeans are on the chair by the fire. He was wearing them the last time he used his inhaler. Grab it and run straight back.”

“Don’t run,” I gasp, thinking of the baby.

She looks anxiously at Lachlan. “Will he be okay?”

“He’ll be fine.” He grabs my flailing hand. “Now, please,” he orders.

I dimly register her hurried footsteps as I bend over, hands on my knees, trying to breathe through my tight chest and throat, trying not to panic.