Mrs Bretton beamed her agreement. 'Lovely, dear.'
Victoria never was quite sure how the accident happened One minute she was standing on the stepladder in the back room as she reached for an oasis—the stock in the front of the shop having run out—and the next she was lying on the floor in a tangled heap of plant pots, flowers, earth and water, with the stepladder rocking precariously above her before it mercifully steadied and became still.
The impact of the fall had knocked all the breath out of her body and for a moment she just lay there, watching the stepladder and praying that it wouldn't crash down on her. And then, as everything became still again, she felt panic as she had never felt it before. What had she done? What had she done?
She hurt Everywhere she hurt, but the pain in her back, which was shooting through to her stomach, petrified her. She'd hurt the baby. Oh, God, please, please, God, no. Please don't let anything have happened to my baby, she prayed desperately. Please, please, please. I'll do anything You want, anything, but don't let the baby be hurt. How could she have been so stupid?
She continued to lie without moving, praying the sort of unkeepable promises that people prayed at moments of dire need, and then, as she heard the shop bell tinkle and the sound of footsteps and a child's voice, she called, 'Is anyone there? Could you help me, please? Come through to the back of the shop.'
The young mother and toddler were like angels from above. Whilst his mother phoned Zac on the number Victoria gave her, the little boy squatted gravely at Victoria's side, holding her hand and talking to her as if he were thirty instead of three, showing her the grazes on his chubby knees and telling her she would be all right in a little while, just like him.
Victoria had managed to sit up but that was all—every time she tried to rise to her feet the knifing pain in her back made her gasp and sink back again—but the child's chatter helped, pulling her out of the frantic spiral of fear and panic her concern for the baby had taken her into as she talked back to him.
How Zac got from his office to the shop in ten minutes flat Victoria didn't like to consider, but when she heard the Jaguar screech to a halt outside she wouldn't have been at all surprised if the siren of a police car had followed.
Within seconds he was kneeling down by her side, his face as white as hers and his voice gentle as he said, 'Where does it hurt exactly, Tory? Don't try to move, just tell me.'
She was eternally grateful that he didn't say 'I told you so' at any point during the hours that followed, and also that the consultant obstetrician at the hospital Zac took her to—who just happened to be a good friend of her husband's and was at her bedside in Casualty before she could blink—was both tactful and kind. Beyond one sharp glance of surprise when Zac explained the circumstances of the fall, Ross Goodwin didn't indicate that he found it puzzling that the heavily pregnant wife of his millionaire friend was working in a tiny flower shop in the heart of Richmond, instead of taking it easy at home.
'Several pulled muscles, along with a good deal of bruising that will make you feel as though you've been kicked by a mule by tomorrow morning,' he said cheerfully, after he had finished his examination of Victoria, and called Zac into the room. 'I'd suggest complete bed rest for a few days, and then taking it easy for a week or two. Those muscles are going to need time to heal.'
'And the baby is all right?' Victoria asked in a very small voice. 'There's no chance this could start anything off?'
'The baby's fine.' Ross Goodwin was the antithesis of Zac, being small and plump and balding, but his smile was sweet and his brown eyes gentle as he added, 'They're tougher than you think, you know, and quite ruthless in taking everything they need to make their stay in there a comfortable one.' He indicated Victoria's rounded belly as he spoke, and then said, 'But no more acrobatics, eh? You're not as agile as you used to be.'
She nodded quickly, smiling with reaction. 'Thank you, Doctor.'
'Don't worry, Ross, I'll take care of her.' Zac's voice was grim and unusually gruff, and as Victoria glanced at his face guilt and remorse were added as further coals of fire on her head. This was his baby too, she reminded herself silently, and she could tell he had been as worded as her.
Zac insisted on taking her to the car in a wheelchair despite her protestations that she could walk, opening the passenger door and lifting her inside as though she were Meissen porcelain instead of a two-ton tessie, but in spite of his gentleness it hurt.
'You'll pull a muscle in your back,' she said nervously, in an effort to lighten the atmosphere, as he pulled the white blanket he had borrowed from the hospital more snugly round her legs. And then, as he continued to lean over her, looking deep into her blue eyes, she said, 'I'm sorry, Zac. I…I wouldn't do anything to harm this baby for the world.' Her mouth trembled.
'You think I don't know that?' he said roughly. 'You need protecting from yourself, that's the thing, and I've failed miserably in that regard, haven't I? But no more, Tory.'
'This wasn't your fault, Zac,' she said quickly, her voice high with surprise. 'It was me; I should have been more careful.' And then, as she went to reach out to him, she gasped with pain and subsided back into the seat, her face draining of colour.
'I'm taking you home.'
There was an inflexion in his voice that made Victoria think he didn't mean her little flat in Richmond, and she stared at him as he strai
ghtened up out of the car before saying carefully, 'Thank you. At least with the flat all being on one level—'
'I said I'm taking you home, Tory.' His voice was crisp and matter-of-fact and very, very firm. 'And I mean home. Our home.'
'The flat is my home now,' she protested quickly.
'The hell it is.' He didn't raise his voice but the tone became even more staccato as he repeated, 'The hell it is,' before he shut her door, quietly but with great emphasis.
Oh, wonderful. Wonderful. What was she going to do?
She couldn't exactly leap out of the car and run off, Victoria thought desperately as she watched him walk round the bonnet. And if she opened the window and yelled rape, or whatever else women shouted in situations like this, who on earth would believe her after one look at her great belly? They'd give him a medal if anything, she thought with bitter black humour. But she couldn't go with him.
When Zac slid into the car Victoria turned her head to him—the only part of her anatomy she could still move without thinking she was being stabbed by a hundred red-hot pokers—but before she could even open her mouth he took the wind completely out of her sails by saying, his voice soft, 'Tory, in this one thing, please don't fight me. I'm aware you don't trust me and that you're scared to death to make any sort of commitment, but I'm just asking you to come and stay at the house until the baby is born, that's all. You can't possibly fend for yourself over the next few days, you can barely move as it is, and you're putting the baby at risk if you go back to the flat. What if you fall again and you can't get to the phone? Or you start to feel ill?'
'Surprisingly I don't intend to make a habit of it,' Victoria said stiffly, the tightness in her voice hiding the pain in her heart as she warned herself this concern was for the baby, not her—not really. 'And there is another two months before the baby is due; I can't possibly stay with you until then.'
'Apparently it's not an unheard-of practice for the wife to live with her husband before the birth of their child,' Zac said expressionlessly. 'I hear it's even considered normal in some quarters.' He glanced at her, his face implacable.