she didn’t sit and chat over tea and biscuits.
She wondered if she could pretend to be out, perhaps duck down under the kitchen table and wait until the coast was clear, but then dismissed the idea because half the village would know that her parents were at the village fund-raiser and would also know that she had skipped it because she had felt ill that morning. That was just life around here, and she was going to have to make the best of it for the foreseeable future.
She dumped her handful of random ingredients on the kitchen counter and raced to the front door to intercept another bang.
In her head, she played over the possibilities of who it could be. Several of her old school friends, ones who had never left the little village in which they had grown up, who had settled down at ridiculously young ages to marry and have families, had looked her up. She had been grateful for their support and had tried very hard not to feel hemmed in and claustrophobic. She missed Shania and Melanie, who had both returned to their respective lives in Dublin after a two week family break over Christmas. Perhaps it was old Mrs Kelly a few houses along, who had become a frequent visitor and was prone to extended visits.
Bethany stifled a groan of near despair as she pulled open the front door and then stared at her visitor in frozen, nauseating disbelief.
She blinked, thinking that she must be hallucinating, but when she opened her eyes he was still there and this was no crazy illusion.
‘You!’ she squeaked in a high-pitched voice which she hardly recognised as her own. ‘What are you doing here?’ She clutched her mouth and swayed.
‘No way are you going to faint on me,’ Cristiano said through gritted teeth. He insinuated his foot over the threshold and pushed the door open wide, letting himself in while she was still gasping in shock and as pliable as a rag doll. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and she looked as though she was on the verge of collapse. Good.
Bethany heard the slam of the front door as he closed it and it resonated with the sound of the executioner’s blade. She was busy trying to get her thoughts together but the sight of him, all six foot two of cold aggression towering in the hallway, had slowed her thought processes down to an unhelpful standstill.
‘Cristiano,’ she finally threaded unevenly. ‘What a surprise.’ Only the wall, against which she had pressed herself, was keeping her from sinking to the ground in an unlovely heap.
‘Life is full of them. As I’ve discovered for myself, firsthand.’
‘What are you doing here?’ she stammered, choosing not to pursue that particular avenue of conversation.
‘Oh, I was just driving by and I thought I’d take time out to pass the time of day with you…Amelia. But it’s not Amelia, is it, Bethany?’
‘I feel faint. I honestly do.’ She put her hand to her head and took a few deep breaths. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
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