‘Tell me about it,’ she said drily. ‘He costs a fortune to feed.’ She stretched her back, which had gone stiff after hours hunched over the laptop. ‘Other than being worn out, how did you get on?’
‘I think he had a nice time.’
‘Sorry for coercing you into it,’ she said, without an ounce of penitence in her tone.
Theseus brushed a stray lock of hair from his eyes. ‘I’m glad you did. I admit I was a little nervous. All I know of children is what I remember from my own childhood, and that was hardly normal.’
‘No, I suppose it wasn’t,’ she said softly, wondering how anyone could have a normal childhood after losing both parents at the age of nine as well as being something akin to a deity in his own country. ‘I know being an instant father is going to be hard, but this is what you wanted. All you can do is try your hardest and make the best of it.’
‘Is that what you’re doing?’ he asked, a strange expression on his face.
‘That’s all I’ve done since I found out I was pregnant. I will try my hardest to make our marriage work but only because it’s best for Toby, and not because you’ve blackmailed me into it.’
He winced, then nodded sharply. ‘That’s all I can ask from you.’
‘But first we need to get this biography finished. Right now I can’t think of anything else.’ Well, she could. She just didn’t want to...
The words she’d spouted about parenthood had come from the same store of pragmatism that had driven her to move out of her family home when Toby had been three months old and she’d realised that her mother’s indifference to her only daughter had extended to her only grandson.
It had been a particularly chilly day, and the manor had been even more draughty than usual. She’d put the heating on. Her mother had promptly turned it off, overriding Jo’s protests with a sharp, ‘If the child’s cold, put another blanket on him.’
In the snap of two fingers Jo had known she had to leave. She’d gone straight into action, borrowing money from her brother to rent a tiny flat from a sympathetic landlady.
She’d refused to dwell on it. Whatever the future held for them, she’d reasoned at the time, it would be better for Toby than living with her parents.
She didn’t want her son running up to his grandmother and being met with cold indifference, or thinking that drinking a bottle of whisky a day was normal.
Jo had spent her childhood devouring her mother’s cakes, getting fatter and fatter in the process, all in the vain hope of gaining attention—even if only a reprimand for eating too much. She hadn’t been worth even that...not even when the school nurse had sent a letter home warning that Jo was dangerously overweight. Her mother had carried on letting her eat as much as she liked. She simply hadn’t cared.
Jo would rather have put her head in a vice than put Toby through that.
Much like the time she’d left home, to think of her future now was to feel a weight sink in her stomach and drag her to the floor. Finishing the biography had turned into a godsend. If she kept her mind active and distracted she would survive.
‘How have you done today?’
‘I’m nearly there. I emailed you an hour ago with the latest chapters.’
‘I’ll read them after dinner,’ he promised. ‘We’ll be eating at six—does that suit you?’
‘That’s early for you.’
‘I didn’t think Toby would last much longer than that. He’s been saying he’s starving since half an hour after lunch.’
She smiled, unable to believe how deeply that touched her. ‘I’ll stop now and do some more tonight. If I fuel myself with caffeine there’s a good chance I’ll get it finished before the sun comes up.’
‘Don’t kill yourself.’
‘It’s what I signed up for.’
He inclined his head, his chest rising. ‘I’m going to catch up on some work. I’ll see you at dinner.’
* * *
Dinner itself was a relaxed affair. Toby happily wolfed down the spaghetti bolognaise the chef had made especially for him, but with the threat that tomorrow he would have to learn to eat ‘proper’ Agon fare.
‘Are chicken nuggets from Agon?’ he’d asked with total solemnity, to many smothered smiles.
All things considered, however, his son’s first day on the island had gone much better than Theseus could have hoped. He’d enjoyed being with him, which he hadn’t expected.