As she passed the door of Gianfranco’s study she heard some very unfinancial-sounding laughter before she shouted her intention of retiring.
‘I’ll be up in a moment!’ Gianfranco called out.
It turned out his grasp of time was just as sketchy as Carla’s. It was actually midnight when Gianfranco finally did join her in their bedroom. Hearing his footsteps in the corridor outside, Dervla leapt into bed, picking up a magazine from the table on her way.
‘What did she want?’
Conscious that this was one of those situations where it would be very easy to sound like a jealous wife, Dervla was careful that nothing in her manner suggested her interest in Gianfranco’s response to her question was anything but tepid.
Actually she had spent the past hour pacing up and down, her eyes drawn continually to the hands on the clock. It wasn’t that she was jealous as such of Carla, and she was sure that Gianfranco did not think of the older woman in that way, but they had a history, a history she was excluded from, memories she did not share.
Carla had been a close friend of Alberto’s mother, Sara. Had the conversation in the library turned to Sara?
While every snippet of information she’d gleaned from Carla had only confirmed her suspicion that Sara had been the love of Gianfranco’s life, some hitherto unsuspected streak of masochism in her made Dervla hungry for the details even though she was tortured by every new proof of how special their love had been.
Gianfranco gave a disgruntled snort. ‘Some stuff about shares, hardly urgent.’
The same could not be said of his desire to join his wife in their bed. The light from the bedside lamp picked out the gold in her burnished hair and made the nightgown she wore almost transparent. His body hardened as he looked at her; her slim, supple curves never failed to arouse him.
‘Finally,’ he said, walking towards the bed where she sat hugging her knees, ‘I have you all to myself.’
She tilted her head and reminded him, ‘This weekend was your idea.’
‘It was a bad idea.’ Slipping the buttons on his shirt, he sat down beside her on the bed. He reached for the magazine in his way and Dervla, catching a glimpse of the cover, tried to snatch it away.
‘What are you reading that you don’t want me to see?’
‘Nothing, nothing, let me have it, Gianfranco.’
The anxiety in her voice made him frown. He leaned back, the magazine in his hand, and turned it over. His teasing smile faded. It was a medical journal.
Dervla sighed. ‘Oh, all right, I didn’t want to tell you this way, but the doctor suggested I read this article …’
‘Article?’ He glanced down. The front cover announced the contents included the latest research on a new drug for breast cancer.
It took his mind a microsecond to make the next sickening leap. He felt as if someone had just reached inside his chest and placed an icy hand around his heart.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, telling himself that his feelings were not important, this was about Dervla and he had to be strong and stay positive for her.
Her eyes slid from his, her lashes brushing her smooth cheeks as she turned her head. ‘Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.’
He cupped her chin in his hand, drawing her face up to him as he moved closer to her on the bed.
‘You are a terrible liar.’ Please, God, let this not be happening. ‘Look, whatever it is we can face it together … It is never hopeless—they are coming up with new cures for …’ He stopped and took a deep breath. He had to stay positive for her sake. ‘Cancer is just a word.’
She gave a small cry of denial, her eyes widening in horrified comprehension. ‘No … no, it’s nothing like that. I promise you, Gianfranco, I’m not ill.’
‘You’re not?’
When she shook her head positively he released a long sigh, his shoulders slumping as the most intense relief he had ever felt in his life washed over him.
There was, he realised, a degree of truth in the old adage that said you didn’t know how much you cared for something until you were faced with the prospect of losing it—or her!
‘You’re sure?’
She caught hold of both his hands and, drawing herself up to her knees, rubbed her nose against his. ‘Totally.’
He jerked her hard towards him and kissed her fiercely on her soft, parted lips. ‘If you ever do that to me again,’ he promised when he finally released her, ‘I will throttle you.’ His eyes went to the slim pale length of her throat. Desire thickened his voice as he added, ‘Do you understand?’
Dervla sank back onto her heels, looking flushed and deliciously tousled but not unduly concerned by the growled threat, and nodded.
‘I understand.’
‘So as we have established you are not dying on me—’ despite the flippancy in his voice he was forced to shove his hands in his pockets to hide the fact they were still shaking ‘—just what are you doing reading that?’
Dervla looked at him through her lashes, her green eyes sparkling with suppressed excitement. ‘You read it,’ she suggested, opening the magazine and stabbing the page with her finger before handing it to him.
It didn’t take him long to skim the relevant article. When he’d finished he closed the magazine and put it on the bed. The article discussed the success rate of a brand-new fertility treatment that would, it suggested, offer hope to women who previously had none.
‘Well?’ she asked excitedly. ‘What do you think? They’re looking for suitable women for the next clinical trial. I know there’s no guarantee, but—’
He cut across her. ‘This is what you have worked yourself into such a state about?’ Shaking his head, he reached for her and she came willingly warm and soft into his arms. He held her close, his fingers meshed in her shiny, sweet-smelling hair, her head pressed to his heart as he reminded her, ‘I told you, Dervla, before we married that I don’t want children.’
‘I know what you said and it was kind—’
‘It was not kind; it was true.’
She pulled away and tilted her face up to his, her smooth brow furrowed and her expression shocked as she impatiently blotted a solitary tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.
Far from swaying or softening his attitude, previously women’s tears had evoked irritation in Gianfranco, but Dervla had never used her tears as a weapon to manipulate him.
She felt things more deeply than anyone he had ever met. Her emotions were incredibly close to the surface, her face as easy for him to read as a neon sign. But despite her almost unnerving transparency she did her crying in private.
‘You really don’t want children.’ She shook her head, a frown pulling her arched brows into a bemused straight line as she added as if speaking to herself, ‘No,
