In the end, Theresa got her dream birthday party, complete with singing, a huge cake and dozens of floating balloons. The evening couldn’t have been more perfect. After making sure his family was loaded into a taxi that would take them to their hotel, he called their driver to come and pick them up. Lily had been put to bed in a quiet room equipped with a professional nanny that the staff had provided for her and Rhys. She stirred restlessly when her parents collected her and they both tensed, knowing that was close to her regular feeding time.
“I’m knackered,” Theresa yawned once they were all snugly ensconced in the back seat of the car. He had his arm draped around her slender shoulders and she had her head tucked against his chest. Lily was contentedly suckling at her breast and both of them were in danger of falling asleep on Sandro.
“I had a wonderful evening Sandro,” she muttered sleepily.
“I’m happy to hear it, cara,” he whispered into her hair.
“All those balloons,” her voice faded and the last thing she heard before dozing off was the sound of his indulgent chuckling.
Theresa woke up some time during the early hours of the morning when she felt Sandro leave the bed. She blinked in confusion, not sure how she’d gotten to bed. She was stark naked and she didn’t remember getting undressed, or even coming upstairs for that matter. She could hear Lily fretting through the baby monitor and was about to get out of bed when she heard Sandro’s gentle voice crooning to the baby. Lily calmed down a little and Theresa smiled as she listened to him sing to the baby, his sleep-roughened voice slightly off-key. His voice faded and she sat up, switching on the bedside lamp and adjusting the pillows behind her back when she realised that Sandro was probably bringing Lily into the bedroom for her feed. He appeared moments later, looking completely rumpled and wearing nothing but white boxer shorts. He smiled when he saw her sitting up in bed.
“Your daughter’s hungry,” he nodded down at the fussing baby and Theresa reached up for her and he transferred the wriggling bundle gently, before rounding the bed to climb in next to Theresa. He watched raptly as Theresa fed the baby.
“I don’t remember getting home,” Theresa whispered after a few minutes.
“Yeah, you were wiped out. I brought Lily upstairs and then went back down for you.”
“You carried me? Sandro, I weigh a ton…”
“Hardly,” he scoffed.
“Well, that explains why I’m totally naked.”
“I felt I deserved a reward after all that hard work,” he grinned wickedly and she rolled her eyes.
“Sandro, I’m moving back into our bedroom tomorrow,” she told him quietly. He said nothing at first and instead reached over to toy with one of Lily’s closed fists. It was something she’d been thinking about since Lily’s birth. He spent every night in the spare bedroom with her anyway, so insisting on separate bedrooms was a bit of a moot point. The master bedroom was a lot more comfortable and close to the nursery.
“That’s good,” he finally said, keeping his eyes on the suckling baby. “I’m happy to hear that, Theresa.”
An awkward silence descended and Theresa wasn’t sure what had caused it. His response to her news had been lukewarm at best.
“You do want me to move back, right?” She asked after another long silence and was surprised by the flash of fury she saw in his eyes when he looked up at her.
“Of course I want you to move back, Theresa. I also want you to trust me, to forgive me… to love me,” he seethed, sitting up abruptly and leaving the bed to pace the room like a menacing cat, all feral grace and power. Theresa watched him in helpless fascination.
“I don’t know what to say or do anymore, Theresa,” he said quietly, running agitated hands through his hair. “Then again it doesn’t seem to matter what I say or do… you’re determined to keep an emotional distance between us. Do you think I haven’t noticed? How much longer are you going to punish me for my stupidity?”
“I’m not trying to punish you,” she was appalled that he would think that. “I’m really not. I just…” she didn’t know what to say, because now that she thought about it, she wondered if she hadn’t been subconsciously punishing him after all.
“I have something for you,” he finally muttered grimly. “It’s your birthday present. I was going to give it to you in the morning but since you’re up…” he left the room abruptly and returned a couple of minutes later with a thick envelope in his hand. He reached over to take the sleeping baby from her and dropped the envelope into her lap. She stared at it uncertainly for a long time, while Sandro continued to pace with Lily cradled in his arms. Finally, hesitantly, she reached for it and turned it over in her hands. But the plain brown exterior of the A4 sized envelope gave no clue as to its contents. She glanced up at Sandro but he was now standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows, presumably staring out at the stormy predawn sky.
“It won’t bite you,” his deep voice startled her and she realised that, because of the glow from the lamp, he could see her reflection in the window. She ran a finger under the flap of the envelope to open it and reached inside to extract a thick sheaf of legal looking papers. Her stomach plummeted at first when she saw their names printed on the top sheet and for a brief awful moment, she thought he was serving her divorce papers. Then she looked closer and frowned.
“Sandro… what did you do?” She whispered in shock. “You can’t do this.”