The Secret Love-Child

by Miranda Lee

  'Yes, I think you did mention it.'

  'She's a darned good dressmaker, too, but alterations pay better and take less time. Anyway, Alice has this son. His name's Justin.'

  'Oh, no, not another match-making mother. Poor Rachel. She's deep in grief and some old battleaxe is already lining her up for her son.'

  'Oh, do stop being paranoid. And Alice is not a battle-axe. She's very sweet. Anyway, this Justin doesn't want a wife. He wants a secretary. As for Rachel being in grief, she needs to get out and about as quickly as possible, otherwise she'll get even more lonely and depressed than she already is. A job is ideal. She'll have to interview, of course, but Alice is going to twist her son's arm to at least give her a go for a while.'

  'That's nice of her, but can Rachel do the job? Has she ever been a secretary before?'

  'Has she ever been a secretary before!' Isabel scoffed. 'I'll have you know that Rachel was a finalist in the Secretary of the Year award one year. Of course, that was a few years ago, and she has lost a bit of confidence since then, but nothing which can't be put to right with some boosting up from her friends.'

  'Mmm. Tell me about this Alice's son. What does he do for a crust?'

  'He's some high-flying executive in the city. One of those companies with fingers in lots of pies. Insurance. Property development. You know the kind of thing.'

  'What happened to his present secretary? He must have one.'

  'The story goes that she suddenly resigned last month. Flew over to England a few weeks back for her niece's wedding, realised how homesick she was for her mother country, came back just to get her things, and quit. He's been making do with a temp but he's not thrilled. Says she's far too flashy-looking and far too flirtatious. He can't concentrate on his work.'

  'My heart goes out to him,' Rafe said drily. 'Still, I guess his wife might not be pleased.'

  'He's divorced.'

  'What's his problem, then?'

  Isabel sighed. She should have known a man like Rafe wouldn't see a problem. If he was in the same position, he'd just have the girl on his desk every lunchtime and not think twice about it.

  'Office romances are never a good idea, Rafe,' she tried explaining. "This is something you might not appreciate, since you don't work in a traditional office. And since you're not female. If a female employee has an affair with a male colleague, especially her boss, it's always the girl who ends up getting the rough end of the pineapple.'

  He laughed. 'What a delicate way of putting it.'

  Isabel rolled her eyes with utter exasperation. 'Truly. Must you always put a sexual connotation on everything?'

  'Honey, I'm not the one putting a sexual connotation on this. This divorced bloke thinks his sexy temp has the hots for him and he doesn't like it. Rather makes you wonder why. Is he mentally deranged? Otherwise involved? Gay? Or just bitter and twisted?'

  'Maybe he's the kind of man who doesn't like mixing business with pleasure. Unlike some men we know.'

  'Man's a fool. He's got it made by the sound of it. Still, Rachel should suit him. She's hardly what you'd call flashy. Or flirtatious.' More like shy and retiring. Sweet, though. Rafe really liked her.

  'No, not at the moment. But she used to be very outgoing. And drop-dead gorgeous.'

  'Mmm. Hard to visualise.' The Rachel he'd met today had been a long way from drop-dead gorgeous. Okay, so there were some lingering remnants of past beauty in her thin face and gaunt body. Her eyes certainly had something.

  But the hardships of minding a loved one with Alzheimer's twenty-four hours a day for over four years had clearly taken its toll. Isabel had told him Rachel was only thirty-one. But she looked forty if she was a day.

  'She just needs some tender loving care,' Isabel said.

  'And a serious makeover,' Rafe added. 'New hair colour. Clothes. Make-up.'

  'Don't be ridiculous, Rafe. Haven't you been listening? This man doesn't want a glamour-puss for a secretary. He wants a woman who looks sensible and who doesn't turn him on.'

  'Oh, yeah, I forgot. Better get her a pair of glasses then, because she has got nice eyes.'

  'Yes, she does, doesn't she?'

  'And get her to put on a few pounds. That anorexic look she's sporting is considered pretty desirable nowadays.'

  'Are you being sarcastic?'

  'Not at all. Oh, and tell her to wear black for the interview. It looks bloody awful on her. Unlike you, my darling,' he whispered in her ear, 'who looks so sexy in black that it's criminal.'

  'Stop that,' Isabel choked out, shivering when he began to blow softly in her ear.

  But she didn't really want him to stop. It felt like an eon since they'd been alone together, since he'd held her in his arms. She was going to go mad if she wasn't with him soon.

  'Stay with me tonight,' he murmured.

  'I...I can't,' she groaned. 'I'm taking Rachel home to Turramurra with me for a few days. I don't want to leave her alone just yet.'

  'When, then?'

  'I don't know. I'll give you a call.'

  Rafe didn't want to press. But he wanted her so much. He needed her. And it had nothing to do with getting her pregnant.

  Being in love, he decided, was hell, especially if the person you loved didn't love you back.

  And she didn't. Not yet. No use pretending she did.

  It was a depressing thought. The confidence which Rafe had projected to Isabel's mother suddenly seemed like so much hot air. What if she never fell in love with him? What if she never fell pregnant to him?

  Then he would have nothing.

  She had to fall pregnant. Had to. Which meant that he had to do absolutely nothing to frighten her off. He had to keep her wanting him. Had to keep her sexually intrigued.

  'How about a couple of hours, then?' he suggested boldly. 'After Rachel's gone to bed. I'll pick you up and we'll go somewhere local for a nightcap, then I'll find a private place for us to park.'

  Isabel was startled. 'Park?'

  'Neck, then.'

  'I haven't necked in a car since I was a teenager.'

  He grinned. 'Neither have I.'

  'Your car has buckets seats.'

  'It has a big back seat.'

  She stared at him, her heart hammering inside her chest.

  'Well, Isabel, what do you say?'

  What did she say?

  What she would always say to him.

  'Make sure you bring protection with you.'

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  AS RAFE turned down Isabel's street in Turramurra he glanced at the clock on the dash. Just after seven. It had taken him over an hour to drive through the rush-hour traffic from the airport to Turramurra.

  Rush-hour traffic through the city was the pits at the best of times, and he wouldn't normally venture outside his front door, let alone catch a flight which landed at Mascot, anywhere near the evening peak. Unless there was a dire emergency.

  In Rafe's eyes, there had been more than a dire emergency. It had been a case of life and death.

  Two weeks had passed since the funeral, and almost a week since he'd seen Isabel, work having taken him to Melbourne for some magazine shoots this past week.

  He'd rung her, of course. Every evening.

  She'd been very chuffed on the night after Rachel got the job with Justin McCarthy. Rafe had been subjected to an hour of girl-talk stuff. Not that he'd minded. He loved hearing Isabel happy.

  The next night she'd been even more excited. The two girls had spent the day shopping for a new work wardrobe for Rachel. "All non-flashy, non-flirtatious clothes, Rafe had been assured. He'd received a dollar-by-dollar description of everything they'd bought.

  The night after that, she'd raved on about how she was now helping Rachel clear out and clean up Lettie's house. Rachel was going to sell it, then buy a unit closer to the city. Isabel was going to look around for one for her, since she wasn't working and wasn't going to get herself another job for a while, if ever.

  The following evening, however, she h
ad been very subdued. When Rafe had asked her what was wrong she'd been evasive, saying in the end that she was just tired. But Rafe believed he knew what was bothering her. Her period—that event she could always set her clock by—hadn't arrived as expected that day.

  He'd contained his own secret elation at being successful so soon, and had rung her again today from Tullamarine Airport just before he'd caught an earlier plane than he'd been intending. His original booking had been for a later flight, but he was anxious to get back to Isabel.

  She'd been even more distracted during this phone-call, and when he'd said he was coming over as soon as he'd landed she'd fobbed him off, saying she was cooking dinner for her parents that night and to give her a call on the weekend.

  Rafe suspected she'd come up with another excuse not to see him then as well. Which was why he'd decided to just show up on her doorstep.

  The lights on in her town house told him she'd lied about going to her parents, and that really worried him.

  What on earth was going through her mind? Had she realised she didn't want a baby so badly after all? Or was it just his baby she didn't want?

  Rafe hoped it wasn't anything like that. He hoped she was just a little shocked, and perhaps worried over what to do where he was concerned. Perhaps she'd decided not to tell him. Naturally, she'd think the pregnancy was an accident on his part and not deliberate. Perhaps she was worried he wouldn't want the child. He stupidly hadn't thought of that. Perhaps she was going to break it off with him and have his baby on her own, as she'd always planned to do.

  He didn't want to entertain that other awful worry that she might get rid of his baby. Surely Isabel wouldn't do that. Even if she was late, and thought she was pregnant, she couldn't be sure yet. Even the most regular women were sometimes late.

  But she wasn't late, Rafe believed as he sat there, mulling everything over. She was pregnant with his child. That was why she was acting out of character.

  The time had come for a confession.

  A wave of nausea claimed his stomach as he alighted from his car. Rafe hadn't felt this nervous in years, in fact, he'd never felt this nervous. This was worse than having his photographs exhibited, or judged. This was him about to be judged. Rafe, the man.

  What if Isabel found him wanting in the role as father of her child? What if she didn't think him worthy? What then?

  Rafe had no idea. He'd just have to take this one step at a time.

  * * * * *

  Isabel couldn't settle to anything. She wandered out into the kitchen and started making herself a cup of coffee. Not because she really wanted one but just to do something.

  She couldn't be pregnant, she began thinking for the umpteenth time as she waited for the water to boil. Rafe had religiously used protection.

  But condoms weren't one hundred per cent safe, came the niggling thought. Nothing was one hundred per cent safe except abstinence. And they certainly hadn't abstained during the few days they'd spent together on Dream Island. It had been full-on sex all the time. Mind-blowing, multi-orgasm sex. The kind of sex which might cause a condom to spring a little leak.

  And a little leak was all that it took. Isabel recalled seeing a documentary once where just a drop of sperm had millions of eggs in it. Millions of very active eggs with the capacity to impregnate lots of women, if the timing was right.

  And the timing had been pretty right, hadn't it? Perhaps not optimum time, she conceded. That had been from the Thursday till the Saturday. But they'd had sex late on the Wednesday night and that could easily have done the trick. Sperm could live for forty-eight hours, that same documentary had proudly proclaimed. Surviving half a miserable day was a cinch.

  Oh, dear...

  Her front doorbell ringing had Isabel spilling coffee beans all over the grey granite-topped bench. It wasn't Rachel calling round. Isabel had not long got off the phone to Rachel, who'd told her not to be silly, she was only a day and a half late, she probably wasn't pregnant at all. Rachel had sensibly suggested buying a home-pregnancy test in the morning and putting her mind at rest.

  But Isabel already knew what the result would be. She was pregnant with Rafe's child. She just knew it.

  The doorbell rang a second time with Isabel still standing there, her mind still whirling.

  It wasn't her parents. Tonight was raffle night down at their club. Nothing short of her giving birth would drag her mother away from that raffle.

  Which event was a little way off yet.

  Unlikely to be any of her new neighbours—whose names she didn't even know—wanting a cup of sugar. People rarely did that kind of the thing in the city.

  No, it was Rafe. She'd heard the puzzled note in his voice when she'd put him off from coming round. But she simply hadn't been in a fit state to face him.

  The fear had first begun yesterday, within hours of her not getting her period around noon, as usual. By this afternoon she'd been in a right royal flap.

  Already, she could see it all. Rafe not wanting this child. Rafe making her feel terrible about her decision to have it. Rafe perhaps trying to talk her into a termination.

  No, no, she could not stand that. He was the one she had to get rid of, not the baby.

  The ringing changed to a loud knocking, followed by Rafe's voice through the door. 'I know you're in there, Isabel, so please open up. I'm not going away till I speak to you.'

  Isabel valiantly pulled herself together. Now's your opportunity, she lectured herself as she marched towards the front door. He already knows you lied to him about tonight He'll be wondering why. The timing is perfect to tell him you don't want to see him any more. That this relationship—despite the great sex—isn't working for you.

  Rafe knew, the moment she opened the door, that he was in trouble. She had that look in her eyes, a combination of steel and ice. He'd seen it before, the day they'd first met at his place.

  'Come in,' she said curtly. 'Please excuse my appearance. I wasn't expecting any visitors tonight.'

  She was wearing a simple black tracksuit and white joggers. Her hair was down and her face was free of make-up. Rafe thought she looked even more lovely than usual.

  'I was just making coffee.' She turned her back on him and headed across the cream-tiled foyer towards the archway which led into the living room. 'Would you like a cup?' she threw over her shoulder.

  Rafe decided to circumvent any social niceties and go straight to the heart of the matter.

  'No,' he said firmly as he shut the door behind him and followed her into the stylishly furnished living room. 'I didn't come here for coffee.'

  She watched him walk over to one of the cream leather armchairs. He had a sexy walk, did Rafe. Actually, he had a sexy way of doing most things. Once settled, he glanced back up at her, his dark eyes raking her up and down, reminding Isabel that she was braless underneath her top.

  Feeling her nipples automatically harden annoyed her, self-disgust giving her the courage to do what she had to do. 'If you came for sex, Rafe,' she said as she crossed her arms, 'then you're out of luck. There won't be any more sex. In fact, there won't be any more us. Period.'

  'Mmm. Was that a Freudian slip, Isabel?'

  Her resolve cracked a little. 'What...what do you mean?'

  'I mean that's the problem, isn't it? You haven't got your period.'

  She literally gaped at him, her crossed arms unfolding to dangle in limp shock at her sides.

  Rafe sucked in sharply. Bingo! He was right. She was pregnant.

  Suddenly, he was no longer afraid. He felt nothing but joy and pride, and love. Isabel didn't know it yet but he was going to make a great father. And a great husband, if she'd let him.

  'I understand your reaction,' he said carefully. 'But you have no reason to worry. I'm here to tell you that if you are pregnant, then I will support you and the child in every way.'

  She still didn't say a word.

  'You are late, aren't you?' he probed softly.

  She blinked, then shook
her head as though trying to clear the wool from her brain. 'I don't understand any of this,' she said, her hands lifting agitatedly, first to touch her hair and then to rest over her heart. 'Why would you even think I was pregnant?'

  'I have a confession to make. There was this one occasion on Dream Island when the condom failed.'

  Isabel gasped. 'Oh, that's what I thought must have happened. But why didn't you tell me?'

  'I didn't want to worry you. It was too late to do anything after the event, other than get you to a doctor for the morning-after pill. And I didn't think you'd want to do that Was I wrong, Isabel? Would you have taken that option?'

  He could see by the expression in her eyes that she wouldn't have even considered it.

  'I thought as much,' he said.

  She almost staggered over to perch on the cream leather sofa adjacent to him. 'When...when did this happen?'

  'On the Wednesday.''

  She frowned. That night after dinner?'

  'No, earlier on in the day.'

  Her frown deepened. 'So all those questions you asked about my plans to get pregnant on my honeymoon... You were trying to find out what the likelihood was of my getting pregnant that day?'

  'Yes,' he admitted.

  'You had to have been worried.'

  'No. Actually, I wasn't.'

  'But that's insane! You yourself told me you never wanted to become a father."

  'Oddly enough, once it became a distinct possibility, I found I was taken with the idea.'

  'Taken with the idea?' she exclaimed, stunned at first, then angry. 'Oh, isn't that just like a man? Taken with the idea. A baby's not just a fad, Rafe. It's a reality. A forever reality. A forever responsibility.'

  'You think I don't know that?' he countered, his own temper rising. 'I've had longer than you to get acquainted with the reality and the responsibility entailed in my being the father of your baby, and I still like the idea. If you must know, when it seemed like a pregnancy might only be a fifty-fifty possibility, I made a conscious decision to up the odds in favour of your conceiving.'

  The words were not out of his mouth more than a split second before Rafe recognised his mistake. Isabel was having enough trouble coming to terms with her 'accidental' pregnancy without his confessing to such an action. His desire to reassure her that he really did want her child could very well rebound on him. All of a sudden what he'd always considered a rather romantic decision that Wednesday night on Dream Island began developing various shades of grey about it.