Page 220 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

‘How is that supposed to fit in it?’

‘Let me check my guide to loading a dishwasher.’

He turned to face her.

She was staring at her opened palm. Shaking her head ruefully, she met his stare. ‘I’m so sorry. The guide’s not working. You’ll have to figure it out all by yourself like a big boy.’

Ignoring her jest, he leaned his face more closely to hers. Was he imagining that she’d lost colour in her cheeks? Victoria was so naturally pale that it was hard to tell but there was something about her colour that made him ask, ‘Are you feeling okay?’

She gave the slightest wince. ‘Your whining has given me a headache.’

With any other woman he’d immediately come back with the quip used by men for what was probably millennia. Instead, he said, ‘Do you need painkillers?’

‘No need for you to take such drastic action on my behalf.’

He grinned. ‘Go and sit down. I will finish up in here,’ he added magnanimously.

Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘Areyoufeeling okay?’

He only just restrained himself from giving her big, beautiful bottom an affectionate slap.

The snow was falling so thickly that Victoria could hardly make out any of Central Park. Manhattan was no longer blanketed in white. It was laden with it. Once the storm cleared, she’d get herself a sled and head to Pilgrim Hill.

One of her fondest childhood memories was of her family all trudging through foot-high snow to the nearest decent slope and sledging on bin bags for what had felt like hours. She’d sat on her mother’s lap, she remembered, a treat that had been as rare as having enough snow to sledge on. She remembered, too, how she’d cried when her mother, deciding they were all in danger of turning into popsicles, had made the unilateral decision to return home. The promise of hot chocolate had dried Victoria’s tears, and when they’d trooped through the front door and her mother had seen how blue the girls’ fingers were, she’d whipped the youngest two, Victoria and Sinead, upstairs and run them a bath, staying to lift them out and dry them, another treat as rare as the snow. Mags had usually supervised Victoria’s bath time.

It had been one of the best days of her life, and her already chilled body shivered in remembrance at how wonderfully cold it had been that day and yet how wonderfully warm she’d felt inside under the glow of her mother’s attention.

Her brain, though, was still burning, and she pressed her forehead to the cold window pane and dimly wondered if Marcello would like to go sledging with her. As quickly as she thought it, she discarded it. Sheena, her old roommate, would definitely be up for it. That was if she’d forgiven Victoria for abandoning her at the theatre for the sake of a missing Montblanc pen.

Her head was really hurting. And she was still shivering. Marcello’s usually tropically heated apartment felt like an igloo.

She was about to climb off the windowsill she’d sat herself on and go to find him for some of the painkillers he’d suggested just fifteen short minutes ago, when he finally came out of the kitchen. Even with her suddenly fuzzy vision, Victoria could see his top was soaked.

‘What happened?’ Her voice sounded as fuzzy to her ears as Marcello was to her eyes.

‘The dishwasher is faulty.’

‘How?’

‘It made banging noises after I turned it on so I opened it. The top thing that spins around and sprays water was hitting the grill thing.’

That explained why he was wet. From the look on his fuzzy face, Victoria was clearly at fault for not pointing out the danger of this happening.

She scrambled for a quip but nothing came to her. It wasn’t just her sight and hearing that had become fuzzy but the whole of her goosebump-flecked body. Her burning brain had become incapable of conjuring even a minor jest.

Marcello, anticipating a witty retort, was disconcerted when nothing came. Surely she must have a riposte for him? ‘Is your head still hurting?’

Her answering nod was small, as if it hurt to make too much movement.

Disconcertment turned into concern. Victoria had been his assistant for eighteen months. They worked so closely together that he’d learned to recognise the signs of her cycle, knew that when she spent a couple of days being a touch irritable, in another week she would silently suffer the stomach cramps that had her bring a hot-water bottle to the office and hold it to her abdomen whenever she thought he wasn’t paying attention. He wouldn’t dream of embarrassing her by asking if she needed anything in those times, but this was different. His brave, stoical executive assistant, who’d never taken a single day off sick, had pain etched on her face.

‘You should lie down.’

His concern deepened when, instead of arguing, she gave another small nod.

Concern turned to alarm when she slid off the windowsill and her knees buckled. He had no doubt that if she hadn’t gripped the armchair to the side of the sill, she would have collapsed onto the floor.

He strode straight to her.

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