The Heart Whisperer by Ella Griffin

and—’
    â€˜Betrayed.’ Kelly picked at her salad. Her voice was so low he could hardly hear it. ‘I feel betrayed.’
    After they’d left Rory and Niamh, they’d driven over to Avoca for lunch. It was one of the places Kelly loved most and Nick washoping they’d find a quiet table in the garden but it was buzzing with children and wasps.
    â€˜Betrayed,’ Nick repeated. It was hard to remember all the things Kelly felt. Offended. Upset. Shocked. Confused. She had spent the last ten minutes listing them without looking at him at all, though the Two Listening exercise was very clear about maintaining eye contact. ‘Is there anything else you want to share?’
    She shook her dark head. ‘I guess not.’
    â€˜I want to take full responsibility for all the pain I’ve caused you. We promised to tell one another everything. I broke the promise but I will never do that again.’ He waited for a small boy who had crawled under their wooden table to emerge and run off before he went on. ‘I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?’
    Kelly nodded at the half-eaten avocado on her plate.
    Nick felt a wave of relief and a prickle of excitement. It was out in the open now. They could talk about it. They could make plans. ‘It’s an amazing opportunity, you know. I mean, nothing might come of it but—’
    â€˜It is an amazing opportunity.’ Kelly folded her napkin. ‘But I’m not sure the timing is right.’
    â€˜The timing?’ Nick said carefully. He didn’t want to upset her again but what did time have to do with it?
    â€˜We have to factor our baby plans into the equation.’
    They had agreed, when they moved to Dublin, that Nick would spend three years getting his career up and running before they started thinking about a family.
    â€˜I know we said that we’d wait three years before we started trying.’ Kelly looked up at him for the first time since the river walk; her wide blue eyes were wet, she had a tiny smudge of mascara on one cheekbone. ‘But everything has really taken off for you since the OO show. I think we should start trying right away.’ She smiled at him.
    A pulse of panic ticked in the back of Nick’s throat. ‘Can we look at the big picture for a second? This job would give us a chance to get our finances on the kind of solid footing we need before we start a family.’ Her smile faded. ‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, Kelly. We’ve run through our savings. We’reliving in a rented house. We could afford to support a child at a stretch but if we wanted two—’
    â€˜Like we agreed.’
    â€˜Like we discussed, we could run into trouble.’
    â€˜But you’re booked out with private sessions!’
    â€˜There are rumours that OO in the Afternoon is going to be cancelled, and if it is I’ll be back to square one in the middle of a recession. People are struggling to pay their mortgages. They haven’t got money to throw away on therapy.’ He couldn’t believe that he was quoting Rory.
    A wasp landed on his hand. He wanted to swat it away but he sat perfectly still and, after a moment, it climbed on to Kelly’s plate. She stared down at it, her lips pressed between her teeth.
    â€˜Honey, couldn’t we just start trying anyway? In case we have a problem and we can’t conceive.’
    Nick leaned over and took her hand. ‘You’re thirty. We have all the time in the world.’
    She nodded. ‘Could you take the plates away before this little guy stings one of us.’
    â€˜Sure.’ Nick kissed her fingertips, gathered their plates and carried them across the lawn to the café.
    The wasp was circling a trickle of spilled salad dressing. Kelly picked up her water glass and turned it over, trapping it inside. She watched it fly against the glass, again and again, until, after a while, it stopped and began