The woman was serving someone at the head of a line but still she looked up, as if some sixth sense had alerted her. Looked again when she saw what was approaching in his dark trousers and fitted cotton knit top.
Instantly her face lit up, and she shoved a bag in the direction of the customers she’d just put through the register so they could pack their purchases themselves. He didn’t need to jump the queue. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, all bright-eyed and breathless in her eagerness to please.
‘I need your help,’ Dominic said in that ultra-deep voice, and the woman’s eyes told them he could have whatever he wanted. ‘You see, I’m having this baby and I don’t have the first clue what I need. And all this…’ he swept his arm in an arc around the showroom ‘… I have no time for this. Do you have some kind of consultancy service who can assist?’
Angie almost felt sorry for her. The woman was almost hyperventilating as he explained. He’s not that special, she thought, and then she looked around at all the people in the store. There were a fair share of those who looked kind of normal, a few more who looked even better, and then, she had to concede, there was Dominic.
He was in a class of his own here. No wonder the woman was falling all over him.
‘I can help,’ she said, calling an assistant to take over her register. She stood to one side and smiled wanly at the next person waiting in line to check out their purchases, feeling guilty when she realised just how long the queue was.
Apparently they would all remain waiting until Dominic Pirelli’s every need was satisfied. Strangely it was only the men who looked resentful. The women just looked hungry and, when they glanced her way, openly envious.
They’d look even more envious if they had any idea what they’d just been doing in the car. Angie trembled at the memories, remembering the way he had cradled her, comforting her, remembering how comfort had so quickly turned to something else. His lips had been surprisingly gentle, his taste had been addictive and there had been no way she’d been going to stop him.
What a fool. He’d kissed her because he felt sorry for her and she’d stupidly kissed him back as if he really meant it.
God, she was a fool!
She knew what he thought of her. She was the lowest of the low, from the back blocks of western Sydney, while he was a billionaire with a mansion on the sea. She’d seen his lip curl when they’d first met. She remembered the look on his face when he’d stepped inside her home, as if he was slumming it. She did not belong in his world and there was only one reason why she was here and it was not to be kissed by him or to kiss him, or to imagine this was some kind of fairy tale where they might all end up happily ever after.
Damn. She’d be every kind of fool if she thought that!
The consultant led the way, a clipboard on her arm with a list at least twice as long as Angie’s. ‘Your first baby?’ she asked, and Angie had no doubt the woman didn’t really care, she just wanted him to keep talking and enjoy the sensation of Dominic’s deep voice rumbling through her bones again.
‘It is,’ was all he offered.
She sighed wistfully as she looked over her shoulder. ‘I dare say it’ll be a beautiful baby then, if it takes after you two.’
Dominic scowled and Angie squirmed. The woman was right, the baby would be beautiful, but it had nothing to do with her.
Thankfully, they arrived at the nursery decor section and the consultant got distracted. For the next hour they got lost in displays and colour schemes. Angie forced herself to think of it as a job, as Dominic had insisted it was. It had nothing to do with her. Not really. She was merely an onlooker here. She had to think of what this baby needed functionality wise—and not think of it as the baby growing inside her at all. The baby she wouldn’t ever know…
She clamped down on the pointless pang of regret. She couldn’t afford to think that way. She’d done the right thing, hadn’t she? She’d reunited this child with its rightful father. She couldn’t afford to have regrets.
Though it was getting harder and harder not to.
She looked around this massive baby warehouse, looked at all the people shopping for their child, for their baby. Envied them. For she’d never realised it would be this hard. She’d imagined handing the baby over would be easy. She’d never realised this stranger growing inside her would be so interesting or demand so much of her attention. She’d never realised it would make her feel as if it was truly part of her.