chapter NINE
SURPRISINGLY, she slept.
Despite his presence, despite her anxiety about the next day, with Nico in the room, a strong, quiet presence, somehow her exhausted mind stilled. Somehow she fell asleep to the whir of the tumble dryer and washing machine and did not think about what the next day would bring.
Even in the night, when her baby awoke, Constantine hardly did. Nico watched in silence as, surely more asleep than awake, she dragged herself from the sofa at Leo’s first murmur, crossed the dark room and changed her child then went back to the sofa with him. She curled on her side, hardly a word spoken, just a hush to her baby and then the sound of him feeding, and after a while, when the room was silent, he watched her sleepwalk her baby back to his crib. It happened again early in the morning, but this time the feed was interrupted by the incessant demands of the old man.
‘I could go up for you?’ Nico offered, the third time she dashed to the stairs.
‘And scare the life out of him.’
He was more tempted than she could know, but he held onto his temper. Nico even sat quietly while Constantine rang the employment agency, watching her fingers rake through her long hair as she explained that today she would be leaving.
‘Next week?’ Connie said, and Nico’s jaw tightened and she knew, just knew, he was about to take the phone from her, but she was determined to handle this. ‘I want someone here today.’ But the agency knew Connie was a responsible woman who would not leave the old man alone, and took full advantage of that fact. For, really, they could find someone at their leisure without her walking out. Defeated, she handed him the phone.
‘Nico Eliades speaking.’ His voice was one she had heard before, that morning she had rung him from her father’s study.
For mal.
Brutal.
‘You have one hour to send someone or, failing that, to get here yourself.’ And he said a little more than that, as Connie sat cringing, that he was considering reporting them. First he would check with his lawyers about minimum wage and work hours, and most certainly he would do that at ten a.m., ‘if no one is here’.
The owner was there within half an hour.
She told Henry, who must have been used to staff leaving, because he didn’t seem remotely bothered. He knew full well there would be plenty of others who were desperate to take her place.
Connie packed her things into her suitcase, which bulged a little more now that it had to hold Leo’s things.
‘What about the crib?’
‘It was already here.’
‘Then let’s go.’
He took the case she had been struggling with and held it as easily as if it were an empty carrier bag and then handed it to a driver who was coming to the door.
‘Are we going back to the hotel?’ she asked as she climbed into the car. He had thought of everything, Connie realised, because there was even a baby seat. Or rather he had informed his driver, because Connie really couldn’t imagine him fitting it, and certainly he offered no help as for the first time she wrestled with straps and the buckle and fitted Leo into the seat.
‘I don’t know how it goes.’ She was embarrassed after a couple of attempts and he sat in the seat beside her, clearly wanting to get going and unused to this type of delay.
‘Don’t look at me,’ Nico said, and drummed his fingers on the car door as he sat impatiently waiting for the click that told them Leo was safely secured.
It was only as they drove off, as her life changed forever again, that Connie realised not once had he so much as looked at their baby.