Not a Marrying Man

by Miranda Lee

  ‘All right,’ she agreed.

  But down deep, in that place where guilt festered, Amber knew that tonight was different from what they used to do. Tonight she was deceiving Warwick, big time. Tonight she had a secret agenda.

  And whilst she had no intention of telling Warwick the truth, it struck Amber that maybe her troubled conscience would stop her from enjoying the sex the way she used to. Perhaps she would have to fake an orgasm or two, something she’d never had to do with Warwick before.

  It was a worrying and slightly depressing thought.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said, and began to move, using that tantalising but powerful rhythm where he would almost withdraw before plunging back into her like a sword filling its scabbard to the hilt.

  Soon, all worry had ceased, all her thoughts focusing on the exquisite sensations he was evoking. She knew, well before it happened, that she would not have to fake her orgasm. How silly of her to imagine that could ever be the case!

  Her hands gripped handfuls of the quilt, trying to hold on to the pleasure, trying to make it last.

  A futile exercise!

  She cried out as she came, her bottom lifting from the bed at the same moment that he reached release. He cried out too, as his seed shot, hot and strong, into her womb. Only then, as he shuddered into her, did she think of the child whom this mating might produce. Just the thought of it brought an elation—and an emotion—which was difficult to control. She wanted to laugh and to cry at the same time. It was the strangest feeling, both joyful and sad.

  She turned her head away and closed her eyes tightly shut, afraid to look up at him, afraid of what he might see.

  ‘I’m sorry, Amber,’ he said, and stroked a gentle hand down her cheek. ‘I know this was not what you wanted.’

  She could not bear to let him think that. Could not bear it!

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ she exclaimed, her eyelids flying upwards as her head turned to face him. ‘It’s exactly what I wanted. I haven’t liked being celibate any more than you have.’

  His eyebrows lifted at her words. ‘Does that mean I’m not going to have my wrists slapped for seducing you?’

  ‘For pity’s sake, Warwick, you didn’t seduce me. I’m as responsible for what happened just now as you were. I could have said no at some point but I didn’t. I chose to let you make love to me.’

  ‘And will you choose to let me make love to you some more?’ he asked, a sudden movement of his hips reminding her that he was still deep inside her and not totally spent, by the feel of him.

  A memory popped into her mind, of a television programme she’d once seen about fertility problems, where it had been explained that too much sex was not conducive to conception. It was more a matter of quality rather than quantity, and of timing.

  The trouble was Amber wasn’t quite sure when she might ovulate.

  Was more than once a night too much? she wondered.

  ‘I’ll take your silence for a yes,’ Warwick said, and started to move, rocking backwards and forwards in a slow, sensual rhythm.

  Amber caught her bottom lip with her teeth in an effort not to moan. But it felt so delicious. He felt delicious.

  She couldn’t tell him to stop now. She just couldn’t.

  Tomorrow she’d be more in control.

  Tomorrow she’d come up with a plan.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Excerpt from Amber’s diary two weeks later.

  Haven’t been writing much in you lately. Guess I didn’t really want to think too hard over what I’ve been doing. It’s not in my nature to deceive anyone. I hate dishonesty. But really, what else can I do? I simply can’t face the rest of my life living alone, like Aunt Kate did. I need a child to love. I need Warwick’s child. It worries me though that we’ve been doing it too much—way, way too much. If that show I saw on television is right, then that’s not the best way to conceive. And I’m running out of time. Warwick’s still going to leave when the six weeks are up. He tells me so every now and then, usually after he’s made mad passionate love to me, sweet sensitive man that he is. Not! Lord knows what I’m going to say to Mum and Dad when he goes. They came up to visit me last Sunday and you know what Warwick did? Cooked them a baked dinner. I tell you, they were dead impressed. Mum even admitted to me that she was wrong about him, that it was obvious he loved me and would marry me in the end. I have to confess she did put ideas into my head. So I asked Warwick why he went to all that trouble, and do you know what he said? He said it was because he wanted my parents to see that he did care for me, and that I wasn’t a total idiot to give up a year of my life to live with him. Which was not quite what I was hoping for, as you can imagine. I didn’t cry, though. I haven’t cried ever since Warwick said I was a cry baby, not even when my ankle hurt like hell. By the way, my foot’s feeling great now. I’ve given up the walking frame and am just using a walking stick to get around. Warwick still carries me up and down the stairs, though, which I find very romantic. He helps me in the shower as well. Naturally, I told Judy she was no longer needed. Warwick’s out shopping at the moment but he’ll be back soon. I’m down in Aunt Kate’s room whilst he’s gone. Warwick says he’d worry about me if he left me upstairs. I think I just heard him drive in. Must go.

  WARWICK CALLED out to Amber as he carried the first of the shopping bags inside. She didn’t answer.

  Frowning, he dumped the bags onto the kitchen table and walked across the hallway to the bedroom where he’d left her. She wasn’t there. The bathroom door, however, was shut.

  ‘Amber! Are you in there?’ he called out from the doorway.

  ‘Yes,’ came a rather feeble reply through the bathroom door.

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  No answer this time.

  Instant alarm had him striding over to the bathroom door and knocking on it. ‘Amber, what’s going on in there?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she choked out.

  He wasn’t having any of that. But when he went to open the door he discovered that it was locked.

  ‘If you don’t tell me what’s going on,’ he ground out, ‘I’m going to break this door down.’

  He was about to do just that when the door opened and there stood a devastated-looking Amber, her lovely blue eyes awash with tears.

  ‘Dear God, what is it? What’s happened? ‘

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ she cried.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just can’t!’ she blurted out, then broke down entirely, almost falling over when her head dropped into her hands.

  Warwick scooped her up into his arms and carried her over to the bed, where he laid her gently down on top of the quilt. There, she gave him one last traumatised look before she rolled over onto her side and curled up into the foetal position, her eyes squeezing shut as deep sobs racked her slender body.

  ‘Go away!’ she choked out when he bent to stroke her hair. ‘Just go away!’

  Warwick had never in his life felt so helpless, or so guilty. Because he didn’t have to be told what was behind Amber’s distress.

  He was, somehow.

  He didn’t go away; he couldn’t. He pulled up a chair by the bed and sat watching over her till her weeping subsided. Even so she didn’t speak, just lay there staring blankly into space.

  ‘It’s me, isn’t it?’ he said bleakly at last. ‘I’ve caused this.’

  A deep sigh reverberated through her as she slowly straightened and looked up at him.

  ‘I wish I could blame you but I can’t,’ she said in a dull, flat voice. ‘It’s all my own fault. I’m the one who did the wrong thing. And now I’m being punished.’

  Warwick had no idea what she was talking about. ‘What do you mean, punished? For what? ‘

  Her eyes searched his face, her expression half guilty, half regretful.

  ‘Shortly after I broke my ankle,’ she said brokenly, ‘I stopped taking the pill. No, please don’t say anything. Let me finish first. Let me try to explain.’

 
Warwick’s stomach had already fallen into a deep dark pit. For she didn’t really have to explain. He knew why she hadn’t told him she’d gone off the pill. And he knew exactly what had just happened.

  Poor darling, he thought as a tidal wave of remorse washed through him, poor, poor darling.

  ‘At first, I did it because I thought we were finished. Then I realised I wanted a baby,’ she blurted out. ‘No, that’s not totally true. I wanted your baby. And I knew you’d never give me one willingly.’ Her face twisted with raw emotion, her throat convulsing as she swallowed several times. ‘Believe me when I tell you I wasn’t trying to trap you into marriage or anything. I would never do that. I just wanted a small part of you to love after you left me. I knew all along it wasn’t right. But you do dreadful things when you’re desperate. Still, you don’t have to worry,’ she added, her voice turning bitter. ‘As I’m sure you’ve gathered by now, I got my period just now. So I’m not pregnant. I’m sure you’re relieved to hear that.’

  Warwick sighed a deeply unhappy sigh. He’d been hoping to extricate himself from Amber’s life without leaving behind too much hurt, and without revealing the wretched truth. But he could see now the extent of his delusion. He knew Amber loved him. How could he possibly think that staying all this time and making love to her as much as he had would not give her more pain?

  ‘I’m not at all relieved, Amber,’ he told her truthfully. ‘I would dearly love you to have my child.’

  She sat bolt upright in surprise, eyes blinking wide. ‘You would? ‘

  ‘Yes. But it’s never going to be, my love.’

  His love? Had she heard that right?

  Amber frowned as she struggled to make sense of the rest of what he’d said. Was he sterile? Could that be the answer to his distancing himself from any form of commitment?

  ‘What I’m about to tell you will come as a shock.’

  Amber was all ears.

  ‘You could not become pregnant by me because I have had a vasectomy.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ‘A VASECTOMY!’ Amber exclaimed, her eyes rounding.

  ‘Yes.’

  Warwick saw her shock turn to confusion.

  ‘But why … why would you do something like that?’ she asked in disbelieving tones. ‘And when? When did you do it?’

  Warwick sighed. ‘I had it when I was twenty.’

  Amber’s mouth fell open as her face registered, not just shock, but total disbelief.

  ‘I have this gene,’ he went on whilst she just sat there, staring at him with stunned eyes. ‘All the men in our family have it. Actually, now that I come to think of it, there are only men in our family. Except for their wives, of course. But they don’t carry the same blood.’

  She blinked. It was the first movement he’d noted since he told her how long ago he’d rendered himself sterile. Clearly, she was in deep shock.

  Good, he thought. It would give him time to explain.

  ‘My father didn’t commit suicide because of gambling losses,’ he went on. ‘I believe he did it because he’d begun experiencing the first signs that his mind had begun to deteriorate. That’s what this gene causes. Early onset dementia, or Alzheimer’s, if you want the more technical term. I found out the truth not long after my father died. My aunt Fenella told me. She was married to my dad’s older brother. I knew my uncle had suffered from dementia before he died but I had no idea that it ran through the family tree the way it did. My grandfather also had it, apparently, and my great-grandfather. Aunt Fenella did some research and discovered that they all had begun to lose it around fifty years old. She said she was only telling me to stop me from having children and passing on the gene to another generation. She said it was a shame that my father hadn’t realised the situation before he’d had me. Apparently, Uncle George had had his suspicions and had refused to have kids. Unfortunately, he and my dad were always at loggerheads with each other and hadn’t spoken in years. She said she was sorry to have to tell me such bad news but felt it was her duty.’

  Warwick dragged in some much-needed breath before continuing his harrowing tale. ‘I have to confess I wasn’t too happy with her at the time. I’d never suspected a thing, you see. My grandfather died when I was a very small boy so I never knew what ailed him. To me he was just an old man in a wheelchair. My grandmother never enlightened me. Maybe she didn’t know back then that it could be inherited. She died when I was eight, leaving me a whole heap of money in trust because she didn’t approve of my father’s hedonistic lifestyle. I used to disapprove of his amoral behaviour as well, till I found out why he’d gone off the rails the way he had. Down deep, he must have suspected what might happen to him. Like they say, you shouldn’t judge a man till you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. Well, I’ve walked in my father’s shoes for the last twenty years and, I can tell you, it’s not a very pleasant experience.’

  ‘Oh, Warwick …’

  ‘Please don’t cry. I couldn’t bear it if you cry.’

  Amber struggled to fight back the tears. And she managed, on the surface. Inside, she was still weeping. But not for herself—for him. How dreadful it must have been to have found out at twenty that you had no hope of living a long happy life; that you were condemned to a future where you knew nobody and remembered nothing. Bad enough at seventy, or eighty, but at fifty? It didn’t bear thinking about.

  But she had to think about it. She had to find a way to make what life Warwick did have left be filled to the brim with happiness.

  ‘If you didn’t have this gene,’ she said, ‘would you have got married and had children? ‘

  ‘I don’t believe in what ifs, Amber. I do have this gene and nothing can change that.’

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, are you absolutely sure? Have you been tested? They have tests for such things, don’t they? I know they do.’

  Warwick frowned at her questions. In actual fact he hadn’t been tested. There hadn’t been an accurate test twenty years ago. But he’d known the truth, as his aunt Fenella had known the truth. With some further research he’d found out that there were others in his family line who had gone the same way.

  In view of this cast-iron evidence, he’d taken what actions were necessary to make sure he never passed on the flawed gene. When a test had become available in more recent years, he’d thought about having it, then dismissed the idea as a total waste of time.

  ‘You haven’t been tested, have you?’ Amber swept on.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good heavens, why not?’

  Warwick shrugged. ‘By the time a test became available, it seemed … pointless.’

  ‘How can you say that? Genes are known to skip generations. Or become recessive. Or whatever it is genes do!’

  ‘In my family this gene has not skipped a single generation.’

  ‘Maybe not, but miracles do happen, Warwick. I thought you would never fall in love with me,’ she said. ‘But you have, haven’t you?’

  How could he lie? If nothing else, she deserved the memory of his loving her.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and for the first time in twenty years he felt tears well up in his own eyes. But to start weeping was unthinkable.

  ‘I must go,’ he said, and stood up abruptly.

  ‘But you can’t go!’ Amber cried, and swung her legs over the side of the bed, wincing when she tried to stand up without the walking stick.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, woman,’ he ground out as he settled her back on the side of the bed, ‘I’m only going out to the kitchen. The ice cream’s probably melted by now.’

  ‘I don’t give a hoot about the ice cream. I’m not letting you leave this room till you promise me to go and have that test.’

  He sighed. ‘Amber, I—’

  ‘If you love me at all then you’ll promise me.’

  ‘And when it comes back positive? ‘

  ‘Then we’ll know for sure and we’ll deal with it. We, Warwick: you and me together. That’s what love is all about. Being the
re for the person you love, through good times and bad.’

  ‘But all I can offer you is bad.’

  ‘That’s not true. We could still get married and have a child. We could adopt. You’re wealthy. We could get a baby from Asia without waiting too long. An orphan in need of a good home. You’re only forty, Warwick. You have years and years of good life ahead of you.’

  ‘No more than ten, Amber,’ he reminded her harshly. ‘And what then? You’d nurse me until I wouldn’t even recognise who you are? I know you. You wouldn’t put me in a nursing home. I’d be like a millstone around your neck until the day I died. Sorry, Amber, but I love you too much to put you through that. You deserve better out of life. You deserve a man who’s going to be there for you and your children until they grow up, a man who can make love to you and make you happy.’

  ‘Please don’t do this, Warwick,’ she sobbed. ‘Please don’t leave me.’

  ‘I have to, Amber.’

  ‘No, you don’t. Not yet. Look, forget marriage and children. We could still have a lot of good years together. We could travel and make love and … and …’

  ‘No, Amber. Trust me to do the right thing here at long last. I have to leave and let you get on with your own life.’

  ‘No, no, no!’ she cried, shaking her head violently from side to side. ‘You don’t understand. I won’t get on with my own life. I’ll never love anyone else the way I love you. I’ll never get married. I’ll die in this place a lonely old maid, just like Aunt Kate.’

  Warwick ached to take her in his arms and say he would do whatever she wanted. But he knew he would hate himself in the end if he weakened.

  ‘That’s your choice, Amber. But you don’t have to die lonely. I’m sure there are plenty of men out there who will happily give you what you want. Though, for crying out loud, don’t try Jim Hansen! Find someone nice, a man who comes from a good family. Check out what kind of man his father is. That’ll give you a good guide. And make sure he’s healthy.’

  Amber clamped her hands hard over her ears. ‘I’m not listening to any more of this. You’re not going to leave, you’re going to stay, and we’re going to work something out.’