A Shameful Consequence - By Carol Marinelli Page 0,32

it. ‘You have my word. For now all you have to do is deal with the basics.’

‘The basics?’

‘Be a mother,’ Nico said. ‘And when you’re not being a mother, you rest.’

How sweet those words were, how tempting, how blissful it sounded. She wanted to close her eyes right now, to just sink into them, not think of problems, the hows, the whys, the hell that surely would follow.

She wanted what he offered.

‘Rest,’ Nico said. ‘We’ll leave in the morning. For now you should sleep.’ But Connie shook her head.

‘I have to do the laundry.’ He watched as she heaved a basket across the kitchen and he saw her jaw tighten as, instead of offering to help, he sat down, and just once as she loaded filthy sheets into the machine did she glance up, but said nothing.

And still she said nothing as she turned the machine on, and then opened the dryer, pulling more of the same out and folding the old man’s bedding, but he could feel her tension at his lack of assistance as he picked up the remote and flicked the television to the news.

‘I don’t do laundry,’ he said.

‘Clearly,’ Connie said as she dragged out the ironing board.

‘You want to be a martyr …’ He shrugged. ‘Go ahead.’

And she didn’t want to be a martyr so, for the first time, rather than ironing them, she put away the board and she just folded them instead.

‘Rebel,’ Nico said, glancing up, and she felt something she hadn’t in a very long time—a move on the edge of her lips that was almost a smile as she left the wretched laundry and sat on the only seat left in the kitchen, the one on the sofa beside him. It was horribly awkward, staring ahead at the news when she wanted to turn and stare at him, wanted to talk, but scared what might come out if she did.

‘Why don’t you go to bed?’ Nico suggested. ‘While he sleeps, shouldn’t you rest?’

‘I shall go to bed as soon as you’ve gone.’

‘Oh, I’m going nowhere,’ Nico said. ‘I’m not giving you a chance to come up with a million reasons why you can’t leave in the morning. I’m staying right here.’

‘What about your hotel room? What about—?’

But Nico wasn’t going to argue. ‘Go to bed.’

And she sat there.

‘Go on,’ he said, and her face burnt, and she bit back tears. Neither victim nor martyr did she want to be, but dignity was sometimes hard to come by.

‘You’re sitting on it.’

And to his credit he said nothing, did not act appalled, just headed over to the kitchen and prepared the second cup of instant coffee he had ever had in his life, then perched himself on the barstool.

‘There is a bedroom.’ She felt the need to explain. ‘It’s just Henry moans if …’ she hesitated a moment ‘ … the baby starts crying. He can’t hear so much if we are down here.’

And there was the longest pause so he was determined not ask, but more than that, he wanted to know. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Leo,’ Connie said, and swallowed, because by tradition he should be Vasos after Nico’s father, and though she had ached to name him Nico, it would have been too much of a constant reminder, so instead she had named him Leo, for it was in August that he had been made.

‘Sleep,’ he ordered, and she unravelled a blanket.

And she tried to sleep.

Turned her back on him and faced the faded pattern of the sofa, tried not to think about the man in the room and that tomorrow she would leave here with him.

Tried not to fathom her scary future.

Because, even with Nico’s offer, the future was scary. Scarier, in fact, than going it alone, because the truth would out—deep down she knew that.

She was just in no position to run from it.

CHAPTER NINE

SURPRISINGLY, she slept.

Despite his presence, despite her anxiety about the next day, with Nico in the room, a strong, quiet presence, somehow her exhausted mind stilled. Somehow she fell asleep to the whir of the tumble dryer and washing machine and did not think about what the next day would bring.

Even in the night, when her baby awoke, Constantine hardly did. Nico watched in silence as, surely more asleep than awake, she dragged herself from the sofa at Leo’s first murmur, crossed the dark room and changed her child then went back to the sofa with him. She curled on her side, hardly a word spoken,