Tangled Lives

by Stephanie Harte

  ‘Gemma Stone?’ the lady dressed in blue medical scrubs asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Nathan replied in the manner of an excited child before I had a chance to speak.

  Nathan was out of his chair in an instant and offered me his hand before escorting me into the dimly lit room. I lay down on the couch, and after tucking tissue paper around my clothing to protect it, the sonographer spread the cold clear gel onto my skin. As I was only in the first trimester, my stomach hadn’t acquired the tell-tale bump yet, even with a bladder full of water. Nathan sat in the chair next to the couch and held one of my hands in both of his. He was taking his role as the expectant father very seriously.

  When we saw the image of our child appear on the screen, Nathan and I both beamed at each other. That first glimpse of a life growing inside me was a moment I’ll never forget. The heartbeat was tiny but so strong, and it brought a tear to my eye.

  I confirmed the date of my last period. The information I gave was met with stony silence. The next few moments were some of the most terrifying of my life. I thought something was wrong with the baby developing in my womb. I tried not to speculate that there was a complication, but why had the sonographer gone quiet? Maybe I was overreacting and overthinking the situation. But as my eyes moved from the screen to her face, I couldn’t help noticing she was frowning. She was probably just concentrating on getting accurate measurements I reasoned, but something didn’t feel right. She seemed to be repeatedly scanning the same area. I could feel my anxiety start to rise.

  The sonographer worked on without saying a word, carefully examining my baby’s body, until finally, she informed me that my dates appeared to be wrong. According to the ultrasound measurements she’d taken, the baby was conceived a month earlier than we had originally thought. Instead of being twelve weeks pregnant, I was sixteen weeks. This brought my due date forward from September 30 to September 2. My earlier elation had been replaced with a feeling of dread.

  The sonographer’s words were stuck on a continuous loop in my head. I didn’t want to believe what I’d just heard and was stunned to learn I was a lot further along than I’d originally thought. When I worked out the dates again, I realised there was no chance Nathan could be the father. There was only one viable explanation. The child I was carrying was Alfie’s. After just one encounter with him, I’d become pregnant. What were the chances of conceiving after a one-night stand? The situation was too awful for me to comprehend. I didn’t know what to do.

  I should have been relieved that the baby was healthy, but instead, my mind felt like it was going to explode. The significance of the sonographer’s findings went over Nathan’s head. Having not been blessed with patience, he was delighted he wouldn’t have to wait an extra month for the baby to arrive. Nathan continued clutching my hands while smiling from ear to ear. I didn’t attempt to argue with her findings. She had just confirmed my worst nightmare.

  Up until now, the thought had never crossed my mind that the baby might be Alfie’s. Why would it? The one and only time I’d been unfaithful to my husband, I’d used protection. At the back of my mind, I was still holding on to the slim chance that the measurements were wrong, and the next time I had a scan, it would confirm that Nathan was my baby’s father.

  If I’d thought for one minute the condom had failed, I’d have taken the morning-after pill to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. When I glanced down at my stomach, the thought of that filled me with guilt. I was so glad I hadn’t realised. I wanted this baby no matter who the biological father was.

  As far as I was concerned, a baby was growing inside me. The child’s paternity was irrelevant. But I wasn’t sure Nathan would see it that way. He had struggled so much to get over my infidelity; if he realised the baby I was carrying wasn’t his, he might not be prepared to accept it. I didn’t want to take that chance, so I decided to keep my discovery a secret. That decision had now come back to haunt me.

  54

  Gemma

  Alfie began bombarding me with text messages asking me if I’d told Nathan yet, but I ignored them all. He’d told me he’d give me forty-eight hours to come clean. That was barely twelve hours ago. I wasn’t going to let him rush my life-changing decision. I needed to think things through carefully before I had the conversation I’d been dreading. It was a sensitive subject to broach. It was going to be particularly painful for Nathan, so I needed to pick the right moment, even though part of me just wanted to blurt it out and get it over with before I lost my nerve. If Alfie wasn’t pressuring me into telling my secret, I wasn’t sure I’d ever have admitted the truth to Nathan.

  Last night, I considered every possible way the conversation with Nathan would go. Each time I pictured the scenario, the outcome was worse than the last. I had a strong tendency to overthink things, and my imagination began running riot. I reminded myself that each time I did this, the situation never unfolded the way I’d predicted it. But that didn’t stop me playing out the horrible scenes in my mind. You didn’t need to be a genius to work out this wasn’t going to end well.

  I didn’t want to tell my husband until I’d had a chance to work out a plan. The problem was I couldn’t seem to come up with a solution to my dilemma. The more time that passed, the closer I got to the deadline. I knew the longer I delayed speaking to Nathan, the greater the chance I’d chicken out altogether. Things had been bad enough before, but it didn’t bear thinking about what would happen if the truth was out in the open.

  The inner turmoil I felt was caused by guilt, and it was having a toxic effect on our relationship. Since we’d returned from Darkwood Manor, Nathan had tried to question me on several occasions. He wanted to know what had happened with Alfie. Every time he tried to bring up the conversation, I’d bite his head off, so he’d reluctantly let it go. My anger was a mask for my fear and frustration. I was being a first-class bitch to him, I knew that, but I didn’t feel ready to answer his questions. The more I tried to conceal the truth from him, the deeper I found myself sinking into the fabrication I’d created. I felt like I was wading through quicksand in a pair of concrete boots. I was in an impossible situation, and I couldn’t see a way out.

  The energy it took to keep my secret under wraps was exhausting, and I found it a constant drain. Would the burden be instantly lifted if I came clean? I somehow doubted that. But I knew I’d reached the end of the line. The situation had finally caught up with me. I had kept denying that Alfie was the father of my son to spare my husband’s feelings. I wasn’t ready to face up to what I’d done yet. I needed more time, but that was the one thing I didn’t have.

  The enormous amount of guilt I felt weighed heavily on my conscience. I couldn’t shrug it off, and it began to eat away at me. I knew when the truth came out, it was going to cause my husband a great deal of pain and heartache. By staying quiet, I was acting like a coward. But I was frightened to open a can of worms because once my secret was freed, it would ruin my husband’s life.

  The way I saw it, whether Nathan was the biological father of our son or not was beside the point. He adored Luca as if the child was his own flesh and blood. If I did what Alfie wanted, I was going to take that away from him.

  The voice of reason inside my head told me I should have the decency to tell Nathan myself. It wasn’t right to let him hear the news from Alfie. But how do you tell somebody something that you know will destroy them? Nathan was the love of my life. I didn’t want to be the one to break his heart.

  55

  Alfie

  I’d wanted Gemma to be happy, and if that meant setting her free, so be it. At the time, I hadn’t appreciated how difficult that would be. I was fully aware that the last time I made contact with Gemma, I’d told her I would let her go. But then again, I couldn’t have mentioned that I was going to keep her under twenty-four-hour surveillance, could I? She would never have let her guard down if she’d realised I wasn’t going to keep my word.

  Soon after Gemma and Nathan relocated to the Costa del Sol, I de
cided to take up residence at my family’s villa, close by to where the couple were living. A change of scenery would do me good after the stress I’d been through recently following my arrest in Boulogne. My dad had been desperate to take back the reins of the family business for years now, so he was more than happy to oversee the running of the firm while I had some time off. Dad knew about the situation with Gemma, and he’d given me his blessing to stay in Spain for the foreseeable future. It made good business sense. Our supplier, Vladimir, was also based in Marbella, and while I was out there, I could channel cash from our offshore bank accounts into Spanish property and businesses to expand our portfolio.

  Over the years, Dad and I had fallen out on many occasions. I blamed him for my mum’s death. There was never a good time to lose a parent, but it was even harder to come to terms with if it happened to a person while they were still a child. Our relationship took a nosedive after Mum’s funeral. He’d treated her like shit, and I was never going to let him forget it.

  It was fair to say Dad and I had our differences. We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, but Dad had been through an experience similar to mine when he fell in love with Rosa, so he understood what I was going through. We’d both fallen for unavailable married women. Who would have thought the situation that destroyed my family and my parents’ marriage would be the thing that brought Dad and I closer together. Finally, we had something in common. The fact that we shared the same problem with our non-existent love lives gave us a new understanding of each other.

  56

  Gemma

  When I’d discovered the true identity of Luca’s father, after my first scan, I hadn’t stopped to think about the consequences failing to share the details would bring. My head and my heart were in conflict as I weighed up what to do. I had to decide whether or not to come clean, or say nothing. I’d normally listen carefully to my conscience, and it was telling me that lying to Nathan was wrong whatever the circumstances. But I chose to ignore it and, instead, I focused on allowing my unsuspecting husband to believe the lie. My stomach twisted in revulsion at what I’d done. It was wrong of me to think it was OK to keep this to myself, but I panicked when I realised the baby was Alfie’s, and Nathan seemed completely oblivious to the fact that my dates were wrong, so that justified keeping the news a secret from him, didn’t it?

  I thought I’d got away with it. Now the clock was ticking; Nathan was going to find out the truth one way or another. If I didn’t come clean, Alfie was going to break the news for me. Why was I so reluctant to own up? I knew it was better that Nathan heard it from me, but the prospect of admitting what I’d done was so horrible, I didn’t want to contemplate it. It was easier to hide behind my emotions, which were currently alternating between fear-filled fits of temper and floods of tears. The stress of hiding Luca’s paternity was taking its toll on me.

  Not surprisingly, given the pressure I was under, my relationship with Nathan had started to fall apart. I was pushing him away and had become emotionally distant from him. That was driving a wedge between us.

  My worst fear had been realised. The web of lies I’d cocooned myself in was starting to unravel. The secret I’d been hiding was about to come out, and it was going to destroy Nathan. I’d never intended that to happen. I was expecting to take this information to the grave. I realised now, that was naive of me. I wasn’t concealing a harmless untruth, it was a lie of monumental proportions, and staying silent was a destructive choice. It was impossible to keep a secret of this size without the details beginning to leak somewhere. The bigger the secret, the harder it was to keep. Having nobody to share it with had left me feeling incredibly isolated.

  When I’d initially found out I was pregnant, I genuinely thought the baby was my husband’s. He was thrilled that we were going to become parents. By the time I realised the truth, for me, there was no going back. I had a baby growing inside me and abortion was absolutely not an option for me. I made the decision not to tell Nathan the result of the scan as an act of self-preservation. I’d selfishly kept Luca’s father’s identity a secret in the hope it would spare Nathan immense heartache. I wanted to shield him from the suffering I knew the truth would cause.

  In hindsight, I should have been honest right from the start. But I didn’t know how he was going to respond. I was scared he might not be prepared to bring up another man’s child, and who could blame him? I didn’t know at that stage that Alfie was a free man. If he’d been behind bars like he was meant to be, I might have got away with the deception. If only I’d known then what I know now.

  Fear stopped me from coming clean. I was terrified I’d have to raise my child alone. If Nathan knew the truth, he might have turned his back on me. I didn’t want him to leave me. I wasn’t sure I would be able to cope if I was left as a single mum. This was not a situation I ever expected to be in, not in a million years.

  As I tried to reach a decision on the best time to tell my husband the truth, I lay awake, listening to every sound. Nathan was sleeping peacefully beside me, blissfully unaware of the secret I was hiding from him.

  57

  Nathan

  Alfie had been spending an unhealthy amount of time with Gemma. I tried not to let it get to me, but it was hard for me to turn a blind eye. I trusted Gemma; and knew she was more than likely putting up with the situation, so she didn’t rock the boat. But Alfie was turning on the charm at every opportunity as he tried to worm his way back into her affections. I was doing my best not to rise to the bait. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of provoking a reaction out of me, but ignoring a man who is blatantly trying to crack on with your wife is virtually impossible.

  Gemma and I needed to put on a united front. The best thing we could do to ward off his unwanted attention was show Alfie we had rebuilt our relationship and we were happy together. Then Alfie would realise he wouldn’t be able to come between us, but for us to be able to do that, Gemma and I would need to be on the same page. The problem was, she’d been so distant with me recently, I was having trouble communicating with her. It was like she’d retreated into her own world. The more I tried to reach out to her, the more she was shutting me out. Something was bothering Gemma. I couldn’t put my finger on what was troubling her, but whatever it was, she was keeping it to herself.

  Everything I did seemed to irritate Gemma. I wasn’t sure why, so I questioned her about it, but she denied she’d been snappy with me. All I wanted to do was right the wrong, but I couldn’t if Gemma wouldn’t tell me why she was pissed off with me. The more I thought about it, the more worried I was becoming.

  The change in Gemma’s attitude towards me seemed to coincide with Alfie’s reappearance in our lives. Levels of trust fluctuate in a relationship, and it was normal to feel insecure, especially if you’d been burned in the past. I had a sudden sinking feeling in my stomach. It was obvious that Alfie still found Gemma attractive, but did she still have feelings for him? Perhaps something was going on between them, after all. Was I so stupid that I hadn’t noticed them rekindle their romance right under my nose? If they were sleeping together, that would explain why she’d begun to push me away.

  It was difficult not to be suspicious and so easy to jump to conclusions, but I had to think logically about the situation and not put two and two together and get five. I had no proof that anything was going on, so the best thing I could do was block that thought from my mind. Losing my wife, especially to Alfie, was too painful for me to contemplate.

  58

  Alfie

  The moment I realised Gemma was pregnant, I’d had my suspicions that the child she was carrying might be mine. That gave me even more reason to keep a watchful eye on her movements and made me more convinced than ever that Gemma and I were meant to be together. I became obsessed with every aspect of her life. Absence really did make the heart grow fonder, and it soon became clear to me that I could never let her go.

  In the beginning, I had to observe from the sidelines, and that
was torture. I could look, but I couldn’t touch. Gemma seemed to sense my presence, although I never allowed myself to get close enough so that she could see me. I wanted Gemma to think I was out of her life for good so that when the time came for us to meet again, I wouldn’t have ruined the shock factor. The element of surprise always produced the best response.

  I had to bide my time until I made my move. I knew Nathan wouldn’t be able to resist tracking down his dad now that Rosa had told him the truth. It was only a matter of time before they came back to England. Once the family were back on UK soil, it would make my plan easier to orchestrate. Everything had fallen into place without a hitch, and when Gemma and I had eventually come face to face, she looked like she’d seen a ghost. I couldn’t help smiling at the memory. Her expression was priceless. It had been worth the wait.

  I couldn’t believe she’d blatantly lied to me about Luca’s age. It was just as well I’d witnessed her leaving for the hospital while she was in labour and returning the next day with her bundle of joy. Otherwise, I might have believed her. She was clearly desperate to throw me off the scent by pretending Luca was a month younger than he was. I was disappointed that she’d stooped to underhand tactics in an attempt to convince me that I wasn’t the baby’s father, but that was the behaviour of a guilty person if ever I’d seen it.

  59

  Gemma

  When Nathan came home from Sherlock’s in the early hours of the morning, he’d found me sitting alone in the dark in Gareth’s living room.

  ‘What’s up, Gemma?’

  ‘I’m terrified that Alfie’s going to go through with his threat.’ Tears sprang from my puffy eyes again, and I dabbed at them with a soggy tissue. The emotional roller coaster I’d recently found myself stuck on was travelling on a continuous loop at high speed.