time to spend with Ella. They had promised her and it was about time they made good on their word. Although Mrs Tobin was great and Ella loved her to bits, it wasn’t the same as having her parents around.
Robina made up her mind. The documentary would take three months, including the follow-up of patients in nine months’ time. The new season of her show wasn’t due to start for a couple of months. Her last book was selling well, and she had almost finished the proofs of her latest. She would put off starting a new one until after the summer. That way she’d have more time to spend with Ella. Robina sucked in her breath. She couldn’t blame Niall for everything that had gone wrong with their marriage. She had, as he had pointed out, been so immersed in her new career she hadn’t given her new marriage, or Niall, the time and attention it had needed. When things had started to go wrong, had she been too quick to lay the blame at Niall’s feet? One thing was for sure, she couldn’t keep going the way she was with a show and book tours and still have enough time for Ella, let alone her marriage. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered why she hadn’t seen it before.
‘Why don’t we ask Daddy whether we can do something next weekend? Just the three of us? We can do anything you like,’ she suggested to Ella.
‘Could we really?’ Ella said, looking up at her with achingly familiar blue eyes. ‘Daddy too?’
‘Yes, darling,’ Robina promised. ‘Daddy too.’
But Robina didn’t get the chance to discuss it with Niall that night. She waited up, reading a book on the sofa of her small sitting room. The room was still exactly the way Mairead had left it, all pale walls and deep rugs. Even the overfilled sofas were pale and there was a wood-burning stove for the cool evenings. The only item Robina had brought with her from her old life was an African stool. She stretched out a finger and felt the deep grooves of the intricate carving. Her father had given her the stool when she had graduated. It had belonged to his father, who had been a master wood cutter, and Robina cherished it. Every time she touched it, she thought of the village where her father had been raised in the old African traditions and could almost feel the heat of the sun and hear the undulating voices of the women as they called to each other. How she missed Africa and especially her mother and grandmother.
Sighing, she glanced around the room that had belonged to her predecessor. The walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. It seemed that along with a similar taste in men, she and Mairead shared the same literary taste. All her favourites were on the bookshelf, from the classics to the contemporary romances she liked to read before bed. Unfortunately, reading them only made her acutely aware of the lack of romance in her own life.
Despite her best intentions, she was unable to stop herself falling asleep and woke to find Niall covering her gently with a blanket. Still half dreaming, she smiled up at him and went straight back to sleep but not before she thought she felt his fingertips like a caress against her skin.
‘YOU’RE cutting it a little fine, aren’t you?’ Niall said the next evening, glancing at his watch.
Robina had almost forgotten about the charity dinner she had promised to attend. Although it was the last thing she felt like doing, she knew they were expected. She had been called in to work for an unexpected meeting and still hadn’t managed to speak to Niall about the promise she had made to Ella.
‘I can get ready in half an hour if need be. Ella will be in bed before then. Won’t you, darling?’
Niall scooped his daughter into his arms and tickled her until Ella was shrieking with laughter.
Robina watched them for a few moments with an ache in her heart. ‘I’ll start running the bath, shall I?’
As she switched on the taps in the bathroom that had once been Mairead’s, her thoughts turned, as they inevitably did, to her loveless marriage. At least loveless as far as Niall was concerned, she mused, but how did she feel? She had loved him once, loved him so much that she’d thought she’d burst with it. She’d been so happy, never suspecting for one minute how easily it would all come crashing down about her.
Hearing footsteps behind her and the deep growl of Niall’s voice as he teased his daughter, Robina blinked furiously lest he see the moisture in her eyes. She couldn’t bear him to know that she still cared. All she had left was her pride and she was damned if she would let him take that too.
Niall strode into the bathroom and deposited his giggling daughter gently on the bathroom floor.
‘I’ll leave you to it while I get changed,’ he said. Robina ached, knowing that he couldn’t bear to be in close proximity to her. ‘I suppose I have to come?’ he added. ‘Couldn’t you ask someone else to accompany you? I have something I’d really prefer to be doing this evening.’
‘Of course I can’t force you to come,’ Robina said between stiff lips. ‘But you know the press will have a field day if you don’t. They’d like nothing better than to sense trouble between the author of How to keep your man happy—in bed and out of it and her husband.’ How bloody ironic it all was.
It seemed as if the irony wasn’t lost on Niall either. His lips twitched in a half-smile as he looked at Robina, his eyes glinting. To her mortification, she felt her face burn. Was he remembering how good it had been? Her book had been written from memory, it was true, but only because every moment of their love-making was burnt into her brain. She could remember every touch of his lips, the feel of his hands on her skin, the way they couldn’t get enough of each other, and the memories tortured her. Her heart thumped as he held her gaze and something flickered in his eyes. If only he would tell her he still loved her, then sweep her into his arms and take her to his bed, perhaps they could find a way back to each other again. She knew he still wanted her as much as she wanted him. But what good was sexual attraction, however intense, without love? She shook her head slightly.
Niall gave her one last lingering look before he turned and walked away.
‘Dr Zondi and Dr Ferguson, could you look this way, please?’
Cameras flashed in a maelstrom of light and noise. Robina supposed she should be used to it by now. But the speed with which her career had taken off and the media interest had taken her by surprise. She had gone from being a GP to a best-selling author and presenter of Life In Focus all within a few months, and her head still reeled. Never in a million years would she have imagined the life she found herself living. But for all its glamour and wealth and adulation, Robina knew she would have traded it all in a heartbeat for the life she had envisaged when she had fallen in love with Niall.
She sneaked a sideways glance at her husband. Although he hated these functions, no one except her would be able to tell. He cut a devastatingly handsome figure in his tux. Tall, dark-haired and incredibly goodlooking, the media loved him. As a couple they were portrayed as Mr and Mrs Perfect. If only people knew the truth, Robina thought bitterly. They were as far away from perfect as was possible.
Niall took her elbow and steered her through the photographers and into the hall. As Robina had expected, it was filled with a veritable who’s who from the TV world. Instantly they were surrounded, and Robina felt a pang as Niall moved away, leaving her to talk with the presenter of one of TV’s most popular chat shows.
‘Ah, Dr Zondi,’ the presenter, a grey-haired distinguished-looking man in his early fifties, was saying. ‘I was hoping we’d get a chance to talk. I would love it if you would
