by Miranda Lee
‘In that case, we’ll try that one first,’ he said as he shoved the condom packet in his pocket then bent to scoop her up into his arms.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go have some fun.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
‘NO, NOT THAT one,’ Sophie said when Abby came out of the dressing room in a black and white spotted dress that she herself had chosen. ‘It makes you look too busty. When a girl is as well endowed as you, Abby, she should never wear dresses which come right up to the neck. You should mainly stick to lower necklines, not to mention block colours. You can get away with some patterned materials but only if the design is delicate and not overpowering. That dress you wore last Friday night looked good on you because the pattern wasn’t too big, or bright. And the dress had a V neckline, if you recall.’
Abby sighed. ‘There’s a lot more to choosing the right wardrobe than I ever imagined. It’s also very tiring.’ They’d been at it all day, only stopping for a light lunch. Admittedly, they’d bought heaps, Sophie waving aside any protest from Abby, claiming she’d been given instructions from Jake that there was to be no expense spared. Abby was to have a full wardrobe suitable for travelling, and which catered for every occasion and season.
Abby had stopped looking at the price tags after a while, but she knew the clothes had to be costing a small fortune, Sophie taking her into several expensive-looking boutiques as well as those floors in the big city department stores which carried the designer ranges. Jake’s sister got special treatment everywhere she went, the sales people obviously knowing her well. They didn’t even have to carry their purchases around, the various shops agreeing to deliver everything they bought—free of charge.
Whilst Abby felt somewhat overwhelmed by the experience, she suspected she could quickly get used to being treated with such consideration and deference. She could also get used to wearing the kind of clothes which fitted perfectly and looked fantastic. Ignoring any qualms that she was fast becoming a kept woman, Abby resolved to enjoy the experience. After all, Jake could afford it; Sophie told her over coffee just how much he’d inherited from his uncle. Not that she’d sounded jealous. Apparently, Sophie had received a substantial cash legacy, as had all her brothers and sisters; her mother as well.
‘Come on,’ she said to Abby. ‘Get that dress off and we’ll call it quits for today. Tomorrow I’ll take you shopping for shoes and handbags and underwear.’
‘Underwear?’ Abby exclaimed.
‘Got to have the right underwear, Abby. It can make all the difference to the way a garment looks. Same with the shoes. And then, of course, there’s the jewellery.’
‘No,’ Abby protested at last. ‘No jewellery.’
‘But…’
‘No buts. And no jewellery. I’ve gone along with this wardrobe business because I don’t want to embarrass Jake by not being dressed correctly. But I am his girlfriend, Sophie, not his mistress. So I’d like to keep the underwear and the accessories to a minimum, if you don’t mind. I’m not broke. Once I know what I should be buying I can get some of these things myself. I appreciate your help, I really do. But enough is enough!’
‘Wow. You can be really forceful when you want to be.’
Abby realised with some surprise that that was true. But forcefulness was a fairly recent trait.
‘I’ve had to learn to be forceful with Jake,’ she said. ‘He’s way too used to getting his own way with women.’
Sophie grinned. ‘You could be right there.’
‘Did he tell you he asked me to move in with him?’
‘No!’ Sophie exclaimed, stunned. ‘Now that’s a first.’
‘Oh, dear. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’
‘Why not? Am I right in presuming you said no?’
‘Yes, I did. For now, at least.’
‘Good for you. Make the devil wait.’
‘He might not ask me again,’ Abby said with a frown.
Sophie smiled. ‘I think he will. Now, why don’t you put on those sexy blue jeans you had on earlier? I’ll find you a white shirt to go with them, and some little black pumps. Then we’ll go down to Café Sydney for some drinks before dinner. I’ll text Jake to meet us there instead of going home.’
‘No, please don’t do that,’ Abby said straight away. ‘I got a text from Jake earlier today saying that he has a meeting with the man who’s buying his show and he’s sure to have to take him to dinner. Look, I honestly think I should just go home. I’m wrecked. I wouldn’t mind a coffee first, though.’
She didn’t want to tell Sophie that she could feel a headache coming on. She really needed to sit down for a while and take a couple of painkillers before it developed into a migraine.
Unfortunately, by the time they got out of the department store and into a café, Abby was seeing circles in front of her eyes. Fortunately, the table they were shown to had a bottle of water already on the table with two clean glasses. Abby poured herself a glass immediately then dived into the inner zipped section of her handbag where she kept her painkillers. It was also where she always put her Pills if she was going to be away from home in the evening, like last Friday night.
The sight of her strip of Pills made Abby catch her breath. There was one more than there should have been. What on earth…?
Instantly alarmed, she checked the strip again.
‘What’s the matter?’ Sophie asked. ‘What have you lost?’
Abby groaned. She hadn’t lost anything, except perhaps her mind. For she knew immediately what must have happened. She’d forgotten to take the Pill on the night of the dinner party, just the way she’d feared. And then in the panic of the moment she had miscounted.
Her head spun at the thought of all the unsafe sex she’d had that same night. Just the possibility that she might have fallen pregnant sent her stomach swirling and her breathing haywire.
‘Abby, what’s wrong?’ Sophie asked, alarmed.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she choked out, leaping up and rushing for the Ladies, where she dry retched into the toilet. Afraid that she was going to faint, she sank down on to the tiled toilet floor, pale-faced and panting.
Sophie didn’t know what to do. Abby looked dreadful. It reminded her of how her father had looked when he’d had his heart attack. Though surely Abby was too young to have a heart attack.
‘Do you have any pains in your chest?’ she asked frantically.
When Abby nodded, Sophie didn’t hesitate. She called for an ambulance. Ten minutes later, paramedics were checking Abby over, taking her blood pressure and asking her questions. In the end, they declared that she wasn’t having a heart attack but a panic attack, which sometimes had similar symptoms to a coronary. They administered a sedative, both for her nausea and her nerves, then suggested Sophie take her straight home. Before they left, one of the paramedics quietly told Sophie to encourage her friend to see a therapist to discover the cause of such a severe panic attack.
Within no time they were in a taxi heading for Balmain, Sophie overriding Abby’s request to go to her own home, saying that she wasn’t taking her anywhere she would be alone. Then she rang Jake and explained the situation. Not that she could really explain the situation.
‘A panic attack?’ Jake exclaimed, sounding both shocked and puzzled. ‘What in hell happened to give her a panic attack?’
‘Honestly, Jake, I don’t know. She was looking for something in her handbag when she suddenly went a ghastly colour. Then she bolted for the Ladies. Look, I suggest you make your excuses and catch a ferry home. I dare say we’ll be at your place before you are, even though this is the long way around. I’ll put Abby to bed in the downstairs guest room. She’s almost asleep now. The ambulance guys gave her something to calm her down.’
‘I wish I knew what upset her in the first place.’
‘Me too. We’ll put our heads to
gether when you get home.’
‘I’m on my way.’
‘Good.’ She clicked off then dropped her phone in her own handbag.
‘You shouldn’t have called him,’ Abby mumbled from where she was half sitting, half lying in the corner of the back seat.
‘Are you kidding me? Jake would have had my guts for garters if I hadn’t. He loves you, Abby,’ Sophie said, not because Jake had confessed as much to her but because she knew her brother better than anyone. No way would he have asked Abby to live with him if he didn’t love her.
Abby shook her head from side to side. ‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘Oh, yes, he does,’ Sophie insisted, wondering if this was part of Abby’s problem—the fact that Jake was asking a lot of her without telling her that he loved her. She would have to speak to him about that.
‘But let’s not worry about that right now,’ Sophie went on, and gently pulled Abby over towards her, putting an arm around her shoulders and cradling her head against her chest. ‘All you need to do at the moment is rest.’
When a deeply emotional shudder rippled through Abby’s body, Sophie wanted to weep. She wasn’t the most empathetic of people, but there was something about Abby which touched her. Sophie could see that she’d touched Jake too, more than anyone else ever had. She had no doubt that he loved her. Of course, it was highly possible her anti-commitment bachelor brother didn’t know that he’d fallen in love at long last. Maybe she should tell him. As soon as he got home—before he went in to talk to Abby.
His blue eyes stormed at her across the kitchen. ‘You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, Sophie. I realised over the weekend that I was in love with her.’
‘Then why haven’t you told her?’
‘Perhaps because she doesn’t want any man to love her at the moment, Miss Smarty-Pants. You heard what she said last Friday night. She doesn’t want to get married again. If you don’t mind, I would like to go in and talk to Abby and see if I can find out what upset her.’
‘She might be asleep,’ Sophie called after him as he strode from the room.
She wasn’t. She was just lying there in the bed, on her back, her hands crossed over her chest, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. Jake watched her from the doorway for a long moment, his heart going out to her, his ego troubled by the thought that he might not be able to fix whatever it was that had distressed her so much. When he finally walked into the room, she turned her head to look at him, her face bleak but worryingly blank.
‘Sophie shouldn’t have interrupted your meeting,’ she said in a dull voice. ‘Or brought me here. I would have preferred to go home but she insisted and I was too weak to argue with her.’
Jake sat down on the side of the bed and picked up one of Abby’s hands. It was alarmingly cold.
‘She did the right thing,’ he said as he gently rubbed her hand with both of his. ‘You had a nasty turn, from what I’ve been told. A severe panic attack, according to the paramedics.’
‘Yes,’ was all Abby said before she turned her eyes away to stare up at the ceiling again.
Jake hated seeing her like this. So sad. Too sad.
‘Do you know what caused it?’ he asked softly.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said with a strange sigh.
Jake’s hands stilled on her. ‘What?’
‘The Pill in my handbag,’ she answered, still without looking at him. ‘I miscounted, which means I didn’t take my Pill last Friday night after all. Which also means that I could be pregnant.’
Jake tried to make sense of her rather confused confession but failed, so he just cut to the chase, which was that it was possible she’d fallen pregnant last Friday night since they’d had heaps of unsafe sex. He could understand that this would upset her, but not to the extent of having a panic attack. He was definitely missing a piece of the puzzle here.
‘You’d have to be unlucky to fall pregnant on one slip-up, Abby,’ he pointed out.
She laughed. A short dry laugh which worried the life out of him.
‘That’s me,’ she said. ‘Unlucky. Especially when it comes to babies.’
He recalled her saying that she’d tried for a baby during her marriage but it hadn’t happened. Which should have reassured her, in a way. Obviously, she didn’t fall pregnant easily.
‘It’s not the end of the world if you did have a baby, is it?’
Again that odd laugh.
‘You don’t have to have a baby these days, Abby,’ Jake continued gently. ‘Terminations are legal and not dangerous.’ Yet even as the words came out of his mouth Jake knew he wouldn’t want her to terminate their baby. It shocked Jake to discover that he wasn’t unhappy with the idea of Abby having his child.
Not Abby, though. She obviously found the idea devastating.
Her eyes flashed his way, eyes full of sudden fury and hurt. ‘I should have known that was what you’d suggest. But you don’t have to worry about arranging a termination for me, Jake. I’m the original baby terminator. Put a baby in me and it’s lucky to last three months. Do you know what it’s like to lose three babies, Jake? No, how could you? You don’t want children, anyway. But I did. Once upon a time. More than anything I wanted to make my own family where the mummy and daddy truly loved each other as well as their children. Wayne did, too. He’d been a foster child, did I mention that? My parents were pretty rotten but his were even worse. Oh, God,’ she sobbed, her hands lifting to cover her face. ‘I failed him on all counts, didn’t I?’
When Jake saw the tears seeping out from under her fingers he felt like weeping himself. But at least he now knew why she’d had that panic attack. Abby was suffering from a type of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, something he’d become acquainted with after several years of filming in war-torn countries. When he’d started not sleeping, then having flashbacks of the various horrors he’d witnessed, he’d gone to a doctor who’d diagnosed his problem and suggested he go home and do something less stressful. Of course he’d dismissed the doctor’s diagnosis as rubbish and kept on filming the world’s atrocities till one day a bullet had forced him to come home.
During his recovery he’d read up on PTSD and finally agreed he had been suffering from the condition. Apparently there were only so many rotten things you could see and experience before it affected your well-being. He imagined that for a woman who desperately wanted children even one miscarriage would be distressing. Three definitely qualified as traumatic! Where once Abby had longed to fall pregnant, now just the possibility of falling pregnant set off old hurts which were so full of pain and loss and grief that her whole nervous system had gone berserk.
Unfortunately, Jake didn’t think she was in a fit state right now to listen to that kind of logic. What she needed at this moment was kindness and compassion.
‘Abby…darling,’ he said, holding both her hands tightly as he searched for the right words to say. ‘I’m sure Wayne never thought of you as a failure. He obviously loved you very much. And if I know you, I’m sure you were very loving to him in return. As far as your miscarriages are concerned, things like that happen sometimes. One of my sisters-in-law had a couple of miscarriages before she carried a baby full term. There’s no reason why this baby—if there is a baby—won’t survive, and be born happy and healthy.’
‘No, no,’ Abby sobbed. ‘It won’t survive. And I won’t be happy. Oh, God, you don’t understand.’
‘I understand more than you realise. You’re crossing your bridges before you come to them, Abby. Why don’t we wait and see if you are pregnant? I’ll take you to the doctor tomorrow to have a test done. They’ve made great strides with pregnancy tests these days. They can tell if you are or not even after a few days.’
She snatched her hands away and looked at him then, her expression strangely wary. ‘How come you know that?’
‘Not for the reason you think. I did a segme
nt on the subject on my show.’
‘Oh…’
‘And if you are pregnant, then I want you to know that I will stand by you, no matter what you decide to do. I promise I’ll be there for you, Abby. Always.’
She stared at him, her eyes still sceptical. Which he supposed was better than sad.
‘You won’t want to take a pregnant lady overseas with you,’ she said.
Jake smiled. ‘How do you know?’
‘I know.’
‘Why don’t we just wait and see what the doctor says?’
Abby groaned. ‘I really don’t want to be pregnant, Jake.’
Not with my baby, Jake thought with some dismay. The temptation to tell her he loved her was acute, but it still didn’t feel like the right time.
‘Why don’t you close your eyes and go to sleep? Then later, when you’re feeling better, I’ll cook you something for dinner.’
Her chin began to quiver.
‘No more tears now,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion. ‘Everything will be all right, just you wait and see.’
When he returned to the kitchen Sophie was there, looking anxious.
‘Did you find out what upset her?’
Jake nodded. ‘I’ll just get us a drink and then I’ll tell you the whole wretched story.’
‘Oh, the poor love,’ Sophie said once she knew everything. ‘No wonder she had a panic attack. So what are you going to do, Jake? I mean, if she is pregnant.’
‘That rather depends on Abby, don’t you think?’
‘Would you marry her?’
‘In a heartbeat.’
‘Did you tell her that?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I honestly don’t think it’s what she wants. Not right now.’
‘You could be right. There again, you could be wrong.’
Jake rolled his eyes. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’
‘Sorry. But there are no certainties in life, Jake. Or guarantees. Sometimes you just have to take a risk.’
