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she could sleep.
Her head was racing at a million miles an hour as she lay in the strange bed, listening as Elijah showered. Familiar sounds in an unfamiliar place, and for the first time since she’d put the key in the front door this afternoon she was able to draw breath.
To actually think about what she should do with her own situation.
If she pleaded her case Gemma had made it clear that without warning or hesitation she would call the police, and Ainslie knew that no one would employ a childcare worker who was being investigated. Even if she could prove her innocence, the slur alone would be enough to ruin her time in England. Elijah had offered her a position, but for how long? A day? A week? How long would it be till he went back to Italy?
Ainslie blinked into the darkness. He was trusting her to help him—what would he say if he knew that she had been accused of theft?
As the shrill screams of Guido pierced the night Elijah sat up, gulping in air as he awoke from a nightmare…
His sister had been dead—no, she’d been dying—her body horribly disfigured, her voice a strained, hoarse whisper as she’d tried to speak through her swollen and damaged windpipe, imploring him to listen, warning him of the Castellas descending, claiming her baby, taking what they considered theirs. He’d gone to hold her hand, to tell her it was all okay, that he would take care of things. Only her hand… He could feel bile rising in his throat as he replayed the image.
It was just a dream, Elijah assured himself, sheathed in sweat, and trying to pull himself out of it. A nightmare. The horrible panic, the utter dread with which he’d awoken should be abating now, should be dimming as reality filtered in. Instead, Elijah could feel his heart quicken as he took in his surrounds. Another shot of adrenaline propelled him out of bed in panic. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his hips, dashing to his nephew as he realised he hadn’t awoken from a nightmare—he was living one.
‘He’s okay!’
It was like falling off a cliff into soft outstretched arms. Ainslie was leaning over Guido’s cot, pressing her finger to her lips to tell him to be quiet, dressed in vast, shapeless pyjamas that were covered in some pattern he couldn’t make out. Guido’s little night light caught the gold in her blonde hair as briefly she looked up from the child she soothed, her voice soft and calming—not just to Guido, but to himself.
Only Ainslie herself wasn’t soothed. Clemmie and Jack had both regularly woken in the night and, used to sleeping light, she’d woken when Guido had first whimpered. She had been stumbling down the hall by the time his screaming had started, and had been able to quickly soothe him—deliberately not turning on the light, so her strange presence wouldn’t alarm him. Instead she’d replaced his blanket, as Elijah had mentioned, and patting his back had gently hushed him. And then Elijah had come to the door, breathless, as if he’d been running.
‘He’s nearly back to sleep,’ she whispered as he came over quietly. Ainslie lowered her head back into the crib.
Suddenly she was glad for the dim lighting in the room, because her face was one burning blush at the sight of Elijah wearing nothing more than a towel, and she was absolutely aware of his presence as he stood beside her till she was happy that Guido was asleep.
Of course he’d be wearing nothing, Ainslie scolded herself as they crept out of the bedroom. He hadn’t exactly had time to pack, and she couldn’t somehow see a man like Elijah rummaging through his dead brother-in-law’s clothes to find something to wear.
But that wasn’t the problem and she knew it—hell, she’d caught Angus, her old employer, on the landing in nothing more than a pair of boxers loads of times, and it had done nothing for her, nothing at all, had barely merited a thought. But walking along the landing behind Elijah, seeing the taut definition of his muscled back, the silky olive skin, inhaling the soapy masculine scent of him, well, it merited more than just a thought.
‘Goodnight.’ He turned to face her, his hair all rumpled from falling asleep with it wet, still unshaven, his incredibly beautiful eyes dark wells of anguish as he hesitated to go. ‘Do you think he knows? Do you think he knows that they are gone?’
‘On some level, perhaps.’ She was helpless to comfort him—had been wondering the same thing herself as she’d soothed the little boy back to sleep. ‘He’ll know things are different, he’ll be unsettled and he’ll want his parents. But so long as his little world is safe he’ll be okay.’
‘Will he remember them?’ He delivered a slightly mocking laugh to himself. ‘Of course he won’t.’
‘I don’t agree,’ Ainslie said gently, because it was up to Elijah now to turn the fragile images Guido held and somehow merge them into his life. ‘I mean, there will be pictures, DVDs with them on it that he can watch over and over. I don’t know much about child grief, but I think…’
‘I can hardly remember,’ Elijah said, explaining the mocking laugh. ‘I can hardly remember my mother at all—and she died when I was five. Guido is not even two. He’s only fifteen months old.’
‘Did your father talk to you about her?’ Ainslie pushed, but she already knew the answer. ‘You can make it different for Guido.’
‘Can I?’
Her hand instinctively reached out for his arm, touching him as she would anyone in so much pain. Only the contact, the feeling of his skin beneath her fingers, the hairs on his arm, the satin of his skin against her palm, the touch that had been offered as comfort, shifted to something else entirely as her eyes jerked to his.
At any point she could have reclaimed her hand. At any point she could have said goodnight and gone back to her room. Only she didn’t—couldn’t. The air thrummed with the thick scent of arousal—grief and shock a strange propellant, one that forced a million emotions into the air in one very direct hit, accelerating feelings and blurring boundaries. The day that had left them both reeling, forced them to go through the motions, to run on sheer adrenaline, was at an end now, and now they paused—paused long enough to draw breath before the impossible race started again. A race neither wanted to resume.
Just easier, far easier, to ignore the pain for a moment, to stand and instead of facing the future face each other.
Elijah stared into her eyes as he tried to picture the last few hours without her in it. Always he had a solution—another plan to initiate if things didn’t go his way. There was nothing that truly daunted him. But walking out of that hospital, holding his nephew in his arms, he had felt the weight of responsibility overwhelm him. Gripped with fear, not for himself but for Guido, he had had no glimmer of a plan, no thought process to follow, had just clung on to his nephew as he’d clung to him. And then she had come along—an angel descending when he’d needed it most. And he needed her now.
‘Why did you stop?’ His voice was low, his question important.
‘Why wouldn’t I stop?’ Ainslie blinked. ‘You needed help.’
‘But no one else did.’
Hundreds had passed him that day—had jammed against him on the underground, hadn’t made room as he’d lifted the stroller, had squashed into Guido as if they didn’t even notice he was there. At the platform before he’d met her many had seen him struggle, and out of all of them she was the only one who had tried to help. He didn’t want to picture how this night would have been without her kind concern. Didn’t want to envisage stepping into this house alone with Guido. Didn’t want to think about any of it for even a second longer…
His breath was getting faster now, the nightmare coming back, and he struggled to surface from it, to drag in air and escape. He needed her now just as much, if not more, than then. He drew comfort in the only way he knew how. He lowered his mouth and claimed hers, the bliss of contact fulfilling a craving, a need for escape—such a balmy escape—the medicine so sweet, the feel of her in his arms like a haven.
For a second she resisted, fought the urge to kiss him back. The speed of it all,