He looked at her broodingly and she met his gaze and then glanced away.
This happened a lot less than she had feared...this flipping over of her heart when their eyes met and held for a fraction too long...when she happened to see something in his gaze that spoke of other stuff...not just the normal, casual, comfortable stuff that passed between them from day to day.
It was like looking down into a clear stream and glimpsing the swirl of dangerous currents moving so fast and so deep that they didn’t ruffle the calm surface except very occasionally, when they glittered and seduced and held her temporarily captive.
Dry-mouthed, she dragged her eyes away from him, half wishing that he wouldn’t stand there, stretching, so that his shirt tugged free from the waistband of his trousers, exposing a sliver of bronzed flat belly that tempted her fingers.
‘I know...’ Her breath hitched in her throat. ‘Every time I feel anything I think I’m about to go into labour—even though the midwife’s told me a hundred times that it’s only labour if I can time the contractions. Getting something that feels like a contraction every other day doesn’t count.’
‘You’d be forgiven for getting panicky—especially in light of that scare...not to mention the fact that the baby’s due any day now.’
‘I know. It’s come round so quickly since...since...’
‘Since you sprang it on me?’
His voice was low and serious, and for some reason she felt a little thread of alarm race through her because this was as serious as he had been since... Well, since he had moved in.
The intimacy of their shared situation settled like a weight on her. It was pitch-black outside. Dinner had been eaten, dishes stacked in the dishwasher, and she was a handful of minutes away from heading upstairs for the night, leaving Sergio in the sitting room. He would resume work and then would retire to bed at some point during the night or the early hours of the morning.
Winter was all around them. The homely warmth of the house kept it at bay, but as he continued to look at her she was aware of the fact that, yes, there really were only the two of them in this place. Ex-lovers who had created a baby between them... Herself and the man she was compelled to look at, driven to want...
She licked her lips and set aside the little sketch pad on which she had been drawing.
‘I...er...’ She cleared her throat and looked at him. ‘I’ve never thanked you for being so decent about the whole thing. Your whole life’s been turned on its head.’ She laughed. ‘Can you believe that this is the first time we’re really talking about this?’
‘There seemed little point in stressing you out with long-winded discussions...’ Eyes still pinned to her face, Sergio strolled to one of the chairs facing the sofa and sat down, hunching forward so that his forearms were resting on his thighs.
But now the time had come to talk. He wasn’t sure how long this had been building inside him, how long he had known that the comfortable arrangement they had fallen into would have to be broken. He just knew that the baby would be born any day now and that once that baby arrived the situation between them would change dramatically.
Opportunities would be lost for ever.
Suddenly opportunities and having access to them seemed like the most important thing in the world. So this was it. Naturally they had to talk. They couldn’t walk blindly into parenthood without first sorting out all the little details that would crash into them the second this baby was born. They had to be prepared. She had to be prepared. And this so-called conversation was going to stress her out.
‘I know you think I’ve needed watching over ever since the scare at the hospital, but I don’t,’ Susie said flatly.
Restlessness washed into her. She wondered whether she should mention that her stress levels were building—and then decided that her stress levels would rocket whenever they had this conversation, be it here and now, or next week, or when she was lying in a hospital bed with their baby in a crib next to them.
There was never going to be a right time to hear what had to be said, because she had become so accustomed to having him around.
‘You can’t blame a guy for being concerned. You are, after all, carrying my child.’