Page 19 of The Housekeeper's One-Night Baby
‘What have you got?’
‘A bichon frise! Called Blanche.’
‘Oh! Lucky you. I love that breed. Could you get a few photos of her to me? And maybe a favourite toy. Doesn’t matter if it’s all chewed up, or has a bit missing. Just something particular to her, so that of all the bichon frises in the world, it could only be Blanche.’
‘Sure,’ said Lois. ‘I’ll bring something in and give it to Nic to pass on to you.’
The dog-friendly conversation continued in this vein for a couple more minutes, until finally Lizzie hung up, delighted to have got her first commission. And Lois had been very sweet, there was no denying that. She hadn’t asked her any intrusive questions, had she? Perhaps this experience wasn’t going to be the ordeal she’d anticipated. She just needed to get real. To accept Niccolò for the man he was, not the dream lover she wanted him to be.
But a couple of hours spent in the high-rise suite were enough to have her pacing the rooms restlessly. Didn’t seem to matter how spacious the suite was—bottom line was that she was stuck at the very top of a steel and concrete box and she felt trapped. It seemed her fears of being stuck in a gilded tower weren’t far off the mark. She tried watching TV, but, despite the biggest screen she had ever seen, she couldn’t find anything she wanted to watch, and flicking through the channels made her even more restless.
She was used to being outside in her down time, and although the sky beyond the tall buildings was the colour of dark steel, Lizzie felt a sudden desire to be out in the fresh air, away from the carefully controlled temperature of the hotel suite. This might not be arealholiday, but this was the first time she hadn’t worked in years, so why not make the most of it? She keyed in the Wi-Fi code on her phone, studied the map to see that Central Park was conveniently close and consulted the temperature. Cold. Very cold. She added a cardigan before putting on her coat, though the extra layer meant there was an even bigger gap at the front. Then she wound a scarf around her neck and set off for a walk, running into Kaylie in the entrance hall, who was arranging a burst of amber roses in a tall vase.
The maid’s expression was one of unfeigned alarm as she took in Lizzie’s state of dress.
‘You’re planning on going out somewhere?’
‘Only for a walk,’ said Lizzie, with a smile. ‘It’s such a beautiful day.’ This was patently untrue, but didn’t they always say beauty was in the eye of the beholder?
‘But you don’t know the city,’ objected Kaylie.
‘I soon will!’
Kaylie frowned. ‘You don’t want me to call one of Mr Macario’s assistants?’
‘No, honestly. I’ll be fine. I wonder, is there a key I could take?’
The penthouse elevator was empty as Lizzie rode downstairs, but the foyer was full of the kind of people who looked as though they’d wandered straight out of Central Casting, all sharing the same common denominator of extreme wealth. Two towering men with the physique of basketball stars. Several beautifully dressed children who looked bored out of their skulls as they waited for their mother outside the hotel boutique. Hard-faced middle-aged men with their impossibly beautiful trophy wives. It was hard to feel comfortable as she walked across the lobby.
Was she imagining the glances being slanted in her direction, and the unmistakable sense of surprise which followed? No, of course she wasn’t. Places like this were all about pecking order and it was obvious to anyone that she was right at the bottom of the pile. But Lizzie brushed off her insecurities as she stepped out onto the busy sidewalk, the cold air hitting her like a blade and so bitter that she almost turned back and might have done, if it didn’t involve walking back through the foyer and risking looking like a fool. Besides, the thought of kicking her heels in that sterile suite didn’t exactly appeal.
The car-crammed streets were busy, the air filled with the sound of a cacophony of horns—but seeing the yellow taxis gave her an almost childlike thrill of pleasure. The pavements were busy, too, and everyone looked so purposeful and confident. Everyone in a hurry.
With the aid of her phone she found Central Park without too much trouble and soon was walking the paths and hugging her coat around her as she looked around. It was a place which was so familiar from various films that she felt as if she knew it well. Such a beautiful space to have within the heart of the bustling metropolis, she thought as she glimpsed the distant shimmer of water. The trees were bare and, although they had their own kind of beauty, she thought how stunning the place would look in springtime and that thought stabbed at her heart. By spring, she would have a baby—and who knew what state her relationship with Niccolò would be in by then? Not that you could call it a relationship in any conventional sense of the word, which meant that normal rules didn’t apply. What if they’d stopped speaking by springtime, if he’d cut her and the baby out of his life?
This gloomy progression of thoughts had preoccupied her so much that she hadn’t been paying attention to where she was going. At some point she must have left the main path to go off at a tangent and she quickly realised she didn’t have a clue where she was. Retracing her steps only made it worse and her instinct was to stop a passer-by and to ask for directions—but she wasn’t sure if it was her wild eyes or slightly scruffy appearance which made all the people she asked shake their heads and walk on. Maybe they were tourists themselves, she thought forgivingly, or maybe they didn’t speak English.
She mustn’t panic but shewaspanicking, especially as the odd flake of snow had started fluttering down from the pewter clouds, and she wondered what the chances were of getting totally stranded. What if the city was blanketed in a whiteout—did that kind of thing happen in New York, as well as in ski resorts?
If only she were the kind of person who could read a compass—but what good would that do her when she didn’t have one and wasn’t sure which direction the hotel was in? Her heart had started racing and, inside her thin gloves, her fingers were beginning to feel like sticks of ice. Should she ring Niccolò? But how could she describe where she was when she didn’t even know herself?
Her footsteps speeded up as she looked around, but she wasn’t sure if she’d been in this bit before. That big bush looked familiar, but she couldn’t be certain. She thought she heard a sound behind her and tried to reassure herself that no, ofcourseshe wasn’t being followed—but that she shouldn’t look round, just in case she was. And then, like her worst nightmare, she felt a hand on her shoulder and she sucked in a shudder of air. The hand spun her round, and she was about to scream when she found herself looking into a pair of familiar black eyes.
A pair of very angry black eyes.
His mouth was set in a furious line and a muscle was working furiously at his temple.
‘Niccolò!’ she gasped, instinctively reaching out to clutch his broad shoulders and she didn’t think she’d ever been more pleased to see anyone in her life. He felt so warm and strong and safe that for a moment she just clung to him, like the proverbial limpet on the rock. He didn’t say a single word for at least thirty seconds, but when he did his words sliced through the air like daggers.
‘What...the...hell...’ he snapped ‘...do you think you’re up to, Lizzie?’
‘What d-does it look like I’m up to? Is it such a terrible crime?’ she demanded, her voice rising with slight hysteria. ‘Can’t I take a walk in the park when it suits me, or does my pregnancy somehow preclude me doingthat, too?’
She saw him flinch at the P-word, but the anger still hadn’t left his eyes.
His fingers dug into her upper arms. ‘I thought—’
He swallowed the next word as if it had been poison.
