leaned closer to hear her. Was it intentional that the movement pushed the door closed behind him? ‘What did you mean?’
‘That we put Lucy back together. I...I think she’s going to get a good result.’ Sudden, unwelcome tears stung the back of her eyes. Abbie turned them towards the shower so that Rafael wouldn’t see. There was steam billowing out over the top of the curtain now. At least she’d be able to have a good cry when she was under that stream of water. She needed Rafe to go away. Now.
But he didn’t. ‘We certainly did,’ he said. ‘And what’s more, you probably saved her hand, Abbie. Well done, you.’
The praise was sweet. So sweet that Abbie couldn’t hold back the tears now. She had to swipe at them with her hand.
‘Oh...Abbie...cara...’
Rafe was turning her to face him. Tilting her face up with gentle pressure under her chin. The warmth of the steam around them had nothing on what was sparking between them and had it dampened the oxygen level as well? Abbie’s lips parted as she tried to find a new breath.
The caring tone of the endearment Rafael had used still hung between them and it made the flicker of desire in his eyes totally irresistible. Abbie couldn’t look away. Her fatigue was forgotten as her body strained towards his, her mind willing him to touch her. To kiss her.
She had no idea who moved first, and what did it matter?
This was no gentle reunion kind of kiss. It was how Abbie had dreamed it might be. An incandescent moment that would burn everything else into oblivion. A leap straight back into the fierce passion they had discovered the first time they’d touched each other. A passion that had only grown more powerful the more they’d learned about each other’s bodies.
He knew exactly what took her over the edge. The slide of his tongue against the inside of her lip and the way it tangled with the very tip of hers. The slide of his hands inside her clothing and the way those strong hands cupped her buttocks and pulled her against that hardness she knew so well. Wanted so badly...
But somehow it didn’t feel right. Maybe it was becoming aware of the splash of water beside them and remembering where they were and how inappropriate this was.
Or...maybe it was something much bigger than that.
In the same way that she had seen the massage as being nothing more than a physical action, a part of Abbie’s brain could see that this was only sex.
Passionate, exciting, mind-blowing sex certainly. The kind that had sealed their initial relationship and had led to Ella’s conception and had had them rushing headlong into marriage and a lifetime commitment, in fact. A kind that had been enough to keep them sane during the terrible times they’d been through in the course of Ella’s illness but, at the end of the day, it was just that. Sex.
And perhaps that wasn’t enough any more and that was what didn’t feel right.
It was Abbie whose hands stopped moving and touching. Whose lips stilled. Who wriggled free of the intimate contact of their lower bodies.
‘We can’t do this,’ she gasped.
Rafael’s gaze slid towards the shower and he sighed. ‘Come home with me, then.’
‘No.’ Abbie shook her head. ‘I don’t just mean we can’t do it here.’
There was bewilderment in his gaze now. He had no idea why Abbie had pulled away.
‘Can’t you see? It’s not going to solve anything, Rafe.’
He still didn’t understand. And he didn’t believe her. He thought he was being rejected and at the flicker of pain—anger, even—Abbie’s heart sank. She was doing it again, wasn’t she? Attacking his pride. The surest route to strengthening the barrier between them instead of starting to dismantle it.
But she could also see the internal struggle going on. The effort he was making.
His voice was raw. ‘Then what is going to solve it, Abbie? Tell me.’
There was nothing Abbie wanted more than to tell him.
If only she knew.
Rafael waited for a heartbeat. And then another. And then, muttering something in Italian that was probably a curse, he turned and left.
A second later, Abbie heard the bang of a locker door. And then the thump of the changing-room doors being pushed open. Rafael was going somewhere else to shower and who could blame him?
What had she done?
Blown the best chance she could have had to reconnect with the man she loved?
The fatigue came back in a wave that made it unbelievably hard to get on with what she had to do. The feel of her own hands on her skin as she pulled off the scrubs only reminded Abbie of the touch of Rafael’s hands and made her feel worse.
What had she been thinking?
* * *
There was very little traffic around at this time of day, which was just as well because Rafael wasn’t paying much attention as he gunned his car in the direction of the only safe place he could think of. His home.
Abbie didn’t want him.
Her body did, that much had been obvious, but her heart didn’t and that was what mattered.
How the hell could he let her know how much he still loved her if he wasn’t allowed to touch her? To let his body say the things that were too hard to put into words?
She was being unfair. Shutting them both out of the one area of their relationship they’d never had any problems with. Making sure the spotlight was shining onto the battleground that the rest of their relationship had become.
Why?
The slap of his open hand on the steering-wheel was hard enough to be painful but it didn’t shut up the annoying voice in the back of his head. Beneath the burning frustration and the simmering anger it was still there—the faint but insistent message that suggested Abbie was right. That reconnecting sexually would only push the destructive differences under a carpet. That it wouldn’t solve anything.
But she couldn’t even tell him what would.
The way he slammed the car door shut probably woke up several neighbours but Rafael didn’t care.
Maybe neither of them knew.
Because the solution didn’t exist.
‘MUM-MUM-MUM...’
Ella was standing in her cot and she flung her arms into the air when her mother entered the room.
‘Hey, baby girl...’ Abbie reached into the cot and gathered Ella into her arms, careful as always not to tangle the IV line. ‘How are you? I’ve hardly seen you all day
