Rhodium

by Elise Noble

  Home? Where was home? Nowhere felt like home anymore.

  “Could you call me a cab?”

  “It’ll be waiting.”

  I shoved a few clothes out of the closet into my case, but more outfits had migrated there over the weeks and they wouldn’t all fit. I left the evening dresses behind. What use would I have for those now? And the fancy bath bubbles Oliver bought me, and the nice underwear? I no longer cared.

  Oliver appeared in the doorway, his eyes haunted. “If there’s anything you need—money, help with a job, anything—you only have to ask.”

  I wanted to scream at him: “You! I need you!” But my pride wouldn’t let me.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t want you to feel like you’re on your own.”

  “Well, you’re not doing a very good fucking job of it, are you?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I marched past him, dragging my case behind me, and the final insult came as I punched my birthday into the elevator. Asshole.

  I ignored the friendly goodbye from the concierge as I marched across the marble lobby to the doors and the black limo idling at the kerb beyond them. Oh, Oliver, at least you knew how to dump a girl in style.

  The elevator in my apartment building sported a big red Out of Order sign—again—so I hauled the case up the stairs—bump, bump, bump—and by the time I jabbed my key into the lock, I was a sweaty mess. I flung the door open, then immediately wished I hadn’t.

  “Uh, hi,” Imogen said from her position bent over the sofa. The guy pounding into her from behind froze mid-thrust. “I thought you weren’t back until Friday?”

  “My family threw me out, then Oliver dumped me. But you carry on. I’ll just tiptoe past to my room.”

  And die. I’d just lie on the bed and die. Of a broken heart, of embarrassment—take your pick.

  Five minutes later, Imogen appeared.

  “I’m so sorry—” I began, but she waved a hand.

  “Don’t worry about it. You actually got me out of a tight spot—I couldn’t remember that guy’s name, but when he fled out the door, it meant I didn’t have to.”

  Despite everything, I had to giggle.

  Imogen dropped down onto the bed beside me. “Now, what happened? Tell Auntie Imogen all about it.”

  CHAPTER 40

  AS I’D EXPECTED to be away for the whole week, I wasn’t rostered on at Java or Il Tramonto, which gave me a few days to hibernate. I never wanted to see daylight again. In fact, after I’d watched all the Twilight movies in their entirety, I was seriously considering a new career as a vampire.

  Imogen tried her best to cheer me up. On Tuesday, in between stuffing me full of chocolate and pouring me glasses of wine, she brought me a tiny voodoo doll with Oliver’s face stuck on it and a box of dressmaker’s pins.

  “I made the doll myself. Impressed?”

  “Very.”

  “You should stake him through the heart, right where it hurts.”

  But I couldn’t.

  “I think it hurt Oliver too, the split. But he didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Stop making excuses for him. He behaved like the world’s biggest asshole.”

  Yes, I knew that, but a tiny part of my heart would never be able to let him go.

  I considered handing in my notice at Il Tramonto, but I needed the money. In the end, I decided to come clean with Giovanni, who’d proven to be a friend as well as a boss.

  “I kind of had a thing with Oliver, and now it’s ended. I don’t know how that’ll affect me working with you.”

  Oliver wouldn’t have me fired, of that I was sure, but what if he came in to eat while I was there?

  “He ended it? Or you did?”

  “Him. I never would have.”

  “Then he is uno stronzo,” Giovanni declared. “We will spit in his dinner.”

  “No, you can’t do that.”

  “Oh yes, we can. And you will carry on working here. Oliver rarely eats in, and if he does try to book a table, I’ll tell him there are none available.”

  “But he owns the restaurant.”

  “You think I care about that? He can’t break your heart and expect there to be no consequences. I’ll see you on Friday.”

  So it looked as if I still had a job. And a friend, which was the most important thing.

  “You still look like garbage,” Imogen helpfully told me on Wednesday after she got back from Java. “You’re run down. We should go for a spa day or something.”

  “I’m okay. It’s just all the shocks in one week. And I don’t have the money for a spa day.”

  “How about I do your nails?”

  I tried to smile. “I won’t say no to that.”

  We settled on tiny flowers, and Imogen set to work. A white base to start with, then the leaves, and finally the petals and yellow centres. I’d just begun to regret drinking so much coffee, because I couldn’t pee until my nails dried, when the doorbell rang.

  Please, don’t let it be for me. I couldn’t face Oliver, and although Dan had tried to call me yesterday, I’d sent her to voicemail. And I hadn’t listened to that, either. I needed to heal, not deal with constant reminders of my past. In time, hopefully I’d feel up to speaking to Dan again, maybe even Emmy. But not this week.

  “It’s for you,” Imogen announced.

  Oh no.

  “Who?”

  “Not who. What.” She carried a box in and set it on the table. “A courier brought this.”

  “Can you open it?”

  There was no return address on the package and no indication of who sent it. All I could do was watch as Imogen tore it open to reveal a plastic box of chocolate éclairs and a selection of smoothies.

  “There’s a card too.” She passed it over. “It’s from Bridget.”

  I read her note.

  Stefanie,

  I hope you’re not feeling too terrible after what happened. Sometimes that boy has no sense whatsoever. If there’s anything I can do, please call me.

  Bridget.

  She’d noted her number at the bottom, and my eyes prickled reading it. We’d gotten off to a rocky start, but over the past couple of months, when Bridget saw I wasn’t turning out like Kelly, she’d been nothing but nice to me. And it seemed she didn’t approve of what Oliver had done either.

  “Aw, sweet,” Imogen said. “Can I have an éclair?”

  “Sure. If Bridget made them, they’ll taste amazing.”

  Except I wasn’t hungry today. My appetite had deserted me, which I supposed was a good thing seeing as I could do with losing two or three pounds. Okay, five or six pounds.

  Imogen picked one of the smoothies out of the box. “Whoops. Can’t drink that one.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” I recognised the bottle. “Those ones are delicious.”

  “You haven’t been drinking them, have you?”

  “Well, yes. Why?”

  “They’ve got maca in them. See, it says here on the label. That screws with your hormones and messes up your contraceptives.”

  We stared at each other for a few seconds, both having the same thought.

  My slightly thickened waistline. Breasts that had been more tender than normal. I’d put that down to extra attention from Oliver. But…

  “No, I can’t be. I’ve still been having periods.”

  Light ones, and not entirely at the times I’d expect them, when I thought about it, but I definitely hadn’t imagined the mess.

  “Sometimes that can happen. My friend Maria bled every month, then she thought she had gastroenteritis and a baby popped out.”

  “I haven’t felt sick or anything.”

  “Women don’t always. We should do a test, just to be on the safe side.” She grabbed her keys. “I’ll go to the drugstore.”

  While I waited for Imogen to come back, I paced the tiny lounge, trying not to touch my nails to the furniture. No, being pregnant was impossible. I couldn’t be. I mean, I didn’t fe
el pregnant. Surely I’d get, I don’t know, maternal or something?

  Imogen burst back in ten minutes later, waving a paper bag.

  “I got it. You need to go pee.”

  I gingerly tested my nails. Yup, they were dry enough now, thank goodness. Not that I wanted to pee anymore. I’d have held it forever if it meant avoiding the damn test.

  I must have hesitated too long, because Imogen gave me a shove. “Go, go. The sooner you do the test, the sooner you’ll know.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  I took a deep breath as I peed on the stupid stick. It had to be negative, right? This was just a precaution. I shoved it onto the counter face-down, washed my hands, and then walked out of the bathroom.

  “Well?” Imogen put her hands on her hips.

  “I can’t look.”

  She marched inside and picked up the stick of doom. “What is it? One stripe for no, two for yes?”

  “Apparently so.”

  She studied the test for a second. “Shit, honey. You’re having his baby.”

  I snatched it from her. “You’re joking.” And it wasn’t funny. “Tell me you’re joking?”

  Only she wasn’t. The two stripes were clear as the blue sky in summer. I sank down onto the closed toilet lid and screwed my eyes shut, hoping the tiny stripes would disappear if I wished hard enough.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do?”

  Shoot myself? Jump off a bridge? Run into the path of oncoming traffic? Perhaps not that last one, seeing as it was what had gotten me into this mess in the first place.

  Imogen, ever the practical one, crouched beside me and took my hands. “We need to get you a doctor’s appointment and go from there.”

  I listened, numb, as she called the hospital, thanking my lucky stars that Oliver was a good employer and I had health insurance through Il Tramonto. I knew nothing about children, apart from being one myself. How could I be a mother? I had no idea where to start.

  The only thing I knew was that I didn’t want to turn into Kelly.

  Imogen hung up. “Monday afternoon. It’s the soonest I could get.”

  “I drank beer on Friday. And Oliver gave me whisky on Sunday.” I collapsed on the sofa and buried my head in my hands. “I’m a terrible mother, and I haven’t even had the baby yet.”

  “You’ll keep the baby?”

  “I have to.”

  Termination for the sake of convenience didn’t sit well with my conscience. And it wasn’t just me now. There was a little piece of Oliver growing in my tummy, and I couldn’t get rid of it like an unwanted mistake.

  “Shouldn’t you discuss this with Oliver?”

  Well, obviously I had to tell him, but how? He’d go nuts. I’d tried so hard not to be like Kelly, only to fail in the most spectacular way. I hated the thought of putting him through unplanned fatherhood for a second time.

  “I need to think about what to say to him. Can I get used to the idea myself first? Get the hospital appointment over with?”

  “Of course. You’re the most important person in all this. You and the baby.” She lifted my feet up onto the sofa. “You need to relax. Take it easy.”

  “Are you kidding? How can I relax?”

  Right then, I bordered on hysterical.

  “Well, I can’t offer you a glass of wine. Uh, a movie?”

  A movie? Right. Because that would cure everything.

  CHAPTER 41

  CLARK GABLE AND Humphrey Bogart did help a little, and by Friday, I felt well enough for my shift at Il Tramonto.

  “You really think this is a good idea?” Imogen’s expression said she definitely didn’t.

  “I don’t want to let Giovanni down, and besides, I need the money. I can’t not work for the next… Hell, I don’t even know how pregnant I am.”

  “They’ll tell you that at the hospital on Monday.”

  Terrific. I couldn’t wait.

  “It’s okay, Oliver’s not here,” Giovanni told me the second I walked into Il Tramonto. “He hasn’t been home all week. The concierge has been watching.”

  Giovanni was a sweetheart to keep a lookout for me. But that meant Oliver was most likely working around the clock, and that couldn’t be good for him.

  “At least you can’t spit in his dinner.”

  My boss tapped his head. “I haven’t forgotten.”

  I tried to change the subject, desperate to focus on something other than Oliver. “You said we’d go over the new marketing plan today?”

  “Si, si. Let’s go through to my office.”

  Giovanni’s good humour and the rest of the staff treating me normally helped to calm my frayed nerves. Even better, a couple of big tippers dined in the evening, and I came home feeling vaguely positive for the first time all week. Maybe I could do this alone? Or mostly alone, because Imogen had already claimed the position of Fairy Godmother and started picking out baby names.

  But I still needed to tell Oliver about the baby. Every time I considered talking to him, my pulse raced out of control, so I had the idea of writing a letter. I could put down everything I needed to say without the risk of getting flustered and forgetting half of it. But on Saturday morning, I went through half a notepad of wadded-up attempts and got no further with the actual words.

  I needed to let Oliver know I didn’t want anything from him, but if he did want to see the baby, or be involved, I’d encourage that. Because losing my daddy at an early age had taught me one thing—there was no substitute for a real father’s love. Chester had proven that over the weekend.

  Then on Saturday afternoon came the moment I’d been dreading. A phone call. From Oliver.

  I stared at the screen as the phone vibrated on the table, the theme song from Gone with the Wind breaking the silence in the apartment. But I didn’t answer it. I couldn’t. I hadn’t got things straight in my own head yet, and what if he said something that hurt me more? Not that he’d do it on purpose, but sometimes he just didn’t think. He didn’t leave a voicemail either, so at least there wasn’t that temptation.

  If he had, I’d probably have listened to it over and over, no matter what he said, because I missed the smooth sound of his voice. I missed everything about him.

  On Sunday at Il Tramonto, I kept glancing towards the ceiling as if I could see through twenty floors into the apartment above.

  “Is Oliver home?” I asked Giovanni.

  “I’m not sure. He came back yesterday, but the regular night concierge called in sick, so I don’t know if Oliver went out again.”

  “He did,” one of the waitresses chipped in. “But, uh, it’s not good news.”

  My stomach dropped so fast the poor baby must have thought it was on an express elevator.

  “What happened?”

  She popped through to the break room and rummaged in the stack of newspapers and magazines that lived on the table there, then came back with a copy of The Richmond Times.

  “I saw this earlier. Sorry, but I guess you should know.”

  A write-up from last night’s charity gala at the Black Diamond Hotel filled the society section, photos of the great and good splashed across each page. I recognised Dan and Ethan looking at each other like they were the only people in the room and caught a fleeting glance of Emmy as she turned away from the camera. Then I saw Oliver. Only he wasn’t alone.

  A blonde girl stood next to him as he smiled for the camera, her talons grasping his arm and a glass of champagne in each of their hands.

  He’d gone on a date?

  While I sat on the sofa crying into my pyjamas and trying not to eat another cookie, Oliver had gone on a date?

  The caption underneath certainly seemed to think so: Star lawyer Oliver Rhodes and his date for the evening.

  Giovanni snatched the paper from my hands and threw it onto the table. “The man is even more of a pig than we thought.”

  The chef picked it up and glanced at the photo. “I’ll get laxatives to go in his dinner. He won�
��t know what hit him.”

  If I saw him anytime soon, I’d hit him. How could he?

  I mean, technically he hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d ended things with me before he took another woman out, but it still hurt so, so badly. Even more so because in all the months we’d spent together, he’d never taken me to a fancy dinner like that.

  “To think I considered the man a friend,” Giovanni said. “It just goes to show that you can work with someone for years but never truly know them. I always imagined Oliver had more morals than that.”

  The waitress put her arm around me. “You poor thing. Is there anything we can do?”

  I shook my head.

  “I know we shouldn’t drink on duty, but would a glass of wine help?” a second waitress asked.

  “No, I can’t have wine.”

  She gave me a strange look.

  “Uh, I made a pact with my bestie that we’d cut out alcohol for a month, and I don’t want to break it.”

  “I think she’d understand.”

  Giovanni pushed a chair under my bottom, and I sat down.

  “Wine is not the answer,” he said. “We should find Stef a hot date. Make Oliver jealous.”

  “I don’t want to go on a date either. Besides, I don’t know anyone hotter than Oliver.”

  The first waitress grinned. “My brother knows a model.”

  “Please, no dates.”

  Unless they were with a pint of chocolate ice cream and Marlon Brando.

  “Do you want to go home?” Giovanni asked. “We’ll manage this evening.”

  “No, I just want to work. If I let this affect me, I’ll never move on.”

  “You have the right spirit, tesoro. We’ll help you get through this. All of us.”

  At least I had friends. What was life without friends?

  CHAPTER 42

  IMOGEN THREATENED TO scratch Oliver’s eyes out when I told her how he’d spent his Saturday night.

  “Honestly, the man’s an idiot. If that’s how he behaves, you’re better off without him.”

  “It still hurts.”

  She gave me a hug. “Of course it does, sweetie. But that’ll fade. One day, you’ll meet someone else and Oliver won’t matter anymore.”