by Heidi Rice
The anger and temper kicked back in at the careful question. But it wasn’t directed at Connor any more.
‘I know it took me far too long to figure it out. But yeah.’ He nodded, more sure of himself than he’d been in years. ‘Yeah, I do. And I want to put things right. But it’s kind of tough when I don’t have a clue whether she loves me back or hates my guts. She didn’t want to tell me about the baby, and that’s not making me feel too hopeful.’
‘Don’t look at me.’ Connor shrugged. ‘I can’t tell you whether she loves you or not. Daisy had to hit me over the head with how she felt before I got the picture.’ He paused. ‘But there are a couple of things I know that you don’t. According to Daisy she’s been miserable since she got back from LA, so she’s certainly not indifferent to you.’
Mac was fairly sure that wasn’t a glowing endorsement, but right now he’d take it. ‘What’s the other thing?’
‘What do you know about a guy called Tony?’
The deep-seated anger that had smouldered ever since he’d first heard the name leapt into flame. ‘That the guy raped her when she was only sixteen. And that I’d like to hunt him down and strangle him with my bare hands.’
‘You and me both,’ Connor said grimly. ‘Daisy told me the story, but there’s a fair bit more to it than that. Which may explain why she didn’t tell you of the baby. Juno’s smart and capable, but she’s also much more fragile than she appears. I guess you know you’re the first guy she’s been with since him?’
Mac could feel himself flushing as he nodded.
‘Don’t underestimate how big a point that is in your favour. She trusted you, Mac, and that counts for a lot after what she’s been through.’ Connor reached round and grabbed a pen and a notepad from the desk. He drew a few quick lines, made a couple of notes, then tore off the page and handed it to Mac. ‘She’s over at the store at the moment. Here’s a map. It’s not hard to find from here.’
Mac took the page, stared at the roughly drawn street plan. He wanted to see her again, desperately, but he was starting to realise healing the twenty-year rift between him and Connor had been the easy part. He stood and folded the note into the back pocket of his jeans. ‘Thanks.’
‘Get her to tell you the rest of it, Mac. But hold on to your temper, for God’s sake. And be honest with her about how you feel.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘It’ll be good practice for dealing with my new niece or nephew when they arrive.’
Mac nodded and strode to the door, the thought of the baby and Juno and the enormous mess he had to sort out if he was going to set things right making his head hurt again—and his heart pound.
‘Mac, one more thing,’ Connor called after him.
He glanced round with his hand on the doorknob.
‘Put in a good word for me when you’re finished. Juno’s going to murder me when she finds out it was me who blew the whistle on her.’
‘Forget it, big brother,’ he said, trying to find some small scrap of humour to ease the tension. ‘After that crack about me crying like a girl, I’ll be setting her on you myself.’
Chapter Twenty-One
JUNO took a sip of the fennel tea that helped to steady her stomach and typed the next line of numbers into the calculator.
Who would have thought she’d ever enjoy doing a VAT return? She pressed her hand to her stomach and took a deep breath of the pleasantly musty air. She hadn’t puked once this morning, and, while doing the bookkeeping in the haphazard mess of Daisy’s workshop probably wasn’t ideal, being back at work had been a major boost. As Daisy had refused point-blank to let her go front of house on a Saturday, which was always their busiest day, she’d settled for number crunching in the back room and was finding the monotonous, methodical work surprisingly soothing.
Life was finally starting to look up. She’d had the baby’s heartbeat checked this morning at Maya’s surgery and had been able to count off another day towards her three-month mark and the point when she could start making plans for her and the baby. And the sun was shining through the tiny window, making the dust motes glitter.
All she had to do now was focus on achievable goals and let everything else take care of itself. Maybe she’d never been destined to have a happy-ever-after with the man of her dreams, but if she was very lucky she might have something every bit as good in eight months’ time.
She heard the door open. ‘Just a minute, Daze,’ she said as she typed the last of the August suppliers’ receipts into the calculator.
‘You should have told me about the baby.’
Her head shot up at the deep, husky voice—and all the breath sucked right out of her lungs.
‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered. Surely she had to be hallucinating.
He stood by the door, his tall, broad-shouldered frame in worn jeans and a Cal Arts T-shirt making the cramped room look even smaller.
‘I came to talk,’ he said calmly, his eyes raking over her face, the intense blue making her breath catch. ‘Among other things.’
He stepped towards her, but she shot out of her chair and moved back. ‘Go away. I have nothing to talk to you about.’ She couldn’t go through this, not again. The yearning, the longing and the knowing it had never been real.
‘That’s nonsense and you know it.’ He skirted the table and she retreated another step, backing into a rack of dresses pushed against the wall.
‘Why don’t we start with why you walked out on me?’ he said as he continued to bear down on her. ‘And then we’ll move right along to why you didn’t tell me about our child.’
‘Why would I?’ she said as a rage that she hadn’t even known was inside her rose up to batter her chest. ‘Why would I tell you about a child you don’t want?’
There could only be one reason he was here. One reason he’d flown all the way from LA. The sickening realisation had fear sprinting up her spine.
She tried to dash past him, trapped and desperate to escape. But he stepped into her path and wrapped an arm round her waist. Hauling her into his arms.
‘You’re going nowhere until you explain that statement,’ he said, holding her easily as she tried to struggle free.
She lifted her fists, pummelled his chest. ‘I’m not having an abortion. You can’t make me.’ Tears blurred her eyes, the fear growing like a tempest.
‘Juno, stop it, it’s nothing like that.’ He took the blows and tightened his arms until her attempts to hit him became futile and she struggled uselessly in his embrace.
‘I won’t do it. I won’t. Leave me alone. I hate you,’ she cried out.
But it wasn’t Mac she saw any more, it was Tony, the sneering contempt, the smug indifference on his face. And then the last of the rage, the fury, drained to leave nothing but bone-melting exhaustion, bitter sobs racking her body.
‘Shh, Juno, don’t take on so.’ His voice seemed to come from a great distance away as he lifted her. He took the seat she’d vacated and cradled her limp body in his lap. His hand brushed her cheek, pushed the hair back from her face. ‘I never told you to have an abortion. And now you’ve fallen pregnant, an abortion is the last thing I want.’ He covered the hand fisted in her lap.
She shifted, trying to get off his lap, but his arms held her in place.
‘You told me to take the morning-after pill,’ she said. ‘What’s the difference?’
He cursed softly and gave a heavy sigh. ‘Ah, hell. That was a stupid knee-jerk reaction, said in the heat of the moment. Don’t hold it against me now.’
‘Why would you say it if you didn’t mean it?’
His eyes flicked away.
‘I’d always believed I could never be a father. That I might have the same thing inside me, the same weakness my own father had.’ He hesitated. ‘But now I can see how foolish that was.’ He looked back at her, squeezed her hand. ‘I want to be a father to this baby. Do you believe me?’
Seeing the truth in his eyes, she felt emotion swell in her chest. ‘Yes.’ She huffed o
ut a breath, resigned to telling him the rest. ‘But there’s a good chance there might not be a baby.’
‘Tell me what happened, Juno,’ he said gently, brushing his thumb across her cheek. ‘Because I’ve a feeling it wasn’t only me you were fighting a moment ago?’
Her bottom lip trembled perilously. She supposed she owed him this much. She’d accused him of something he’d never really said. ‘I got pregnant,’ she said simply. ‘After…After the night with Tony.’
‘I see,’ he said. ‘That’s not all, though, is it?’
She shook her head, wondering when he’d become so perceptive.
‘My parents were furious. They wanted me to get rid of it. Said I’d made a foolish mistake. And I had.’ She gulped the tears down, determined not to cry. This had all happened so long ago. Wasn’t it about time she got over it? ‘But I couldn’t do it. I moved out, I wanted to prove them wrong. I got a room at Mrs Valdermeyer’s. I had all these silly dreams. I would have the baby and Tony would be overjoyed and tell me he loved me and…’ She swallowed; it all sounded so idiotic now, like a little girl playing house. ‘I went to his work to tell him. He was furious, told me if I was pregnant I better get unpregnant. He picked up the phone to arrange an abortion, and I just ran off. I never saw him again.’
‘That bastard.’ She could hear the sympathy and anger in his voice, drew strength from it.
‘Two days later, I had a miscarriage. A spontaneous abortion, that’s what the doctor called it. It was for the best, I understand that now. I wasn’t mature enough to have a child. But it seemed so final, so cruel at the time. As if the baby was made to suffer for something I did.’
‘Juno.’ He sighed, threading his fingers through hers. ‘Don’t do that now. Don’t punish yourself for something that you had no control over.’ A lopsided smile tugged at his mouth. ‘It screws you up. A very wise young woman made me realise that a while back.’
As she sent him a weak smile she felt the last traces of guilt leave her heart. Until all that remained was the distant ache of grief for the child she’d lost.
He rested a palm on her midriff, warming her through the thin cotton of her dress. ‘So what does the doctor say about this little one? How careful do we have to be?’
The ‘we’ had her pulse skittering, but she pushed back the spurt of hope. One thing she’d promised herself in the last month was that she wouldn’t yearn for the impossible. Just because he cared about the baby, just because he wanted to be a part of its life, didn’t mean he wanted anything more.
‘Maya says everything’s progressing normally. She seems pretty confident. Once I get to the three-month mark, we’ll know for sure.’
‘So that’s good news, right?’ The spontaneous grin made his dark, handsome face look impossibly boyish and the pang of longing squeezed her heart.
She nodded and climbed off his lap, desperate for distance. She still loved him, so much, but she couldn’t let it cloud her judgement again.
He stood behind her. ‘So where do you think you’re off to?’
She turned to face him, determined to focus on the reality, not the fantasy. ‘I can email you, when I have my antenatal check-ups,’ she said, sweeping her hair behind her ears. ‘How long are you planning to be in London?’ When he said nothing, simply stared at her, she hurried on. ‘I have my first ultrasound at ten weeks. If you like I could give you a schedule. Although the first one’s probably not worth coming all the way from LA for.’
A schedule? What on earth was she on about?
Mac frowned, sure he’d slipped into an alternative reality. Hadn’t they just established that they were going to be doing this together? As a couple?
‘There’ll be no need for me to come over from LA as you’re coming back with me.’ Her mouth had dropped open but he soldiered on. Surely she would see this was the obvious solution. ‘Luckily the whole cast is in rehearsals at the moment, so the director can work round me for a week or so. If that’s not enough time for you to settle things here, we could maybe make a short trip back before shooting starts in October? But you’ll not be travelling alone. And that’s final.’ On some things he intended to be absolutely firm.
‘I’m not moving to LA. My life is here.’
He huffed out a breath. He supposed he could negotiate. If he absolutely had to.
‘I’m not meaning to be a dictator about this. But I’m under contract and my current project is shooting in the US, so it makes sense for us to be based there for the next six months. But after that I’m a free agent. I’ve no more projects I’m committed to. And I’m at a place in my career where I can call the shots.’ He placed his hand on her crown, stroked it down her hair, enjoying the soft silky texture and feeling positively magnanimous. ‘We can move back here before the baby’s born. I could buy a place in Daisy and Connor’s street if that’s what you want.’
In fact the idea had considerable merit now he’d thought of it. He and his brother had a fair bit of catching up to do.
She ducked out from under his hand, but instead of looking pleased, and grateful, she looked upset. ‘Who said we were going to be living together?’
The question threw him completely. ‘Of course we will be. What else would we do once we’re married?’
‘Married?’ she all but squeaked. ‘I never said I’d marry you. In fact you haven’t even asked me!’
‘True enough.’ He grasped her hand and pressed a quick kiss on her knuckles. In his eagerness to get things sorted he’d missed a fairly important step. Luckily it was easily remedied. ‘Will you marry me, Juno?’
She tugged her hand loose. ‘No, I will not,’ she shot back so succinctly he knew he hadn’t misheard her.
‘Why the hell not?’ he said back, his head throbbing again. Why was she being so damn contrary? ‘I love you and you love me. And you’re having my baby. What else would we do but get married?’
She looked as if he’d slapped her, and suddenly his good mood plummeted into the abyss. Once she’d told him the horror story about Tony and her miscarriage, once he’d explained why he’d said the things he had and apologised, the relief had been enormous. He’d just assumed that everything would be okay, that she must love him, that their parting had all simply been a hideous mistake.
But had he put two and two together and made five?
What if she didn’t love him after all?
And did he have the guts now to lay his feelings bare, knowing they might not be returned?
‘You love me?’ Juno quashed the desperate surge of hope, of love. Was it true, or was this just another role he was playing? For the baby’s sake? ‘Since when do you love me?’
‘Since…’ He paused, raked a hand through his hair. ‘Since for ever, I guess. It’s always been there, I was just too stupid to see it.’
Well, that wasn’t exactly convincing.
‘But it’s been over a month and you never contacted me.’ A miserable thought struck her and she felt as if her heart might be breaking all over again. ‘How did you know about the baby? Was it Connor? That’s why you came, wasn’t it? Because Connor told you I was pregnant.’
She saw the guilty knowledge in his eyes and wanted to scream. If only it could have been true. If only he could have loved her. But she wasn’t going to live a lie. Not ever again.
And next time she saw Connor, he was a dead man.
‘This never meant more than great sex to you,’ she said, when he didn’t respond. ‘I heard what you said to Gina. I know you don’t believe in love.’
His eyes narrowed and instead of the shame she’d expected to see, she saw annoyance. ‘So that’s what the silent treatment was about that last night?’ He didn’t sound too pleased about the discovery. ‘I never said that to you, I said it to Gina. And if you hadn’t been sneaking around and listening to what wasn’t meant for you to hear you wouldn’t have known of it.’
He wasn’t putting this on her. ‘That’s not the point.’
‘Grand! Well
, how about this for a point?’ He stepped forward, forcing her back into the dress rack. ‘What I said to Gina’s no bearing on anything. I would have told her I was gay if it meant she’d stop pestering me.’ His eyes swooped down her frame. ‘And while I’ll admit that the sex has certainly been great between the two of us, and I plan to have a lot more of it…’
She felt the liquid heat pool between her thighs at the husky promise.
‘It’s only a small piece of what I feel for you. And another thing. I’d decided to come before Connor rang me.’
‘But it still took you a whole month to do it!’ she said, aghast at his gall. How naÏve did he think she was? She straightened her spine. Faced him down. ‘Don’t patronise me. I’m not some sad, pitiful little creature you have to pretend you’re in love with, Mac.’
His jaw dropped; he didn’t look annoyed any more. He looked astonished. ‘Er, hello? Since when have you ever been sad or pitiful? You’re the strongest, smartest, most resilient woman I know. And every damn time I tried to patronise you, you wouldn’t let me get away with it. So you’re not holding that against me now.’
Good grief. Her heart stuttered and stumbled.
Was it possible he really did love her?
Delivered in that curt, irritated voice with not one ounce of his usual charm and eloquence, the surly compliment had to be the most convincing she’d ever heard. And the most wonderful. But even better than that was the feeling of power, of entitlement that gripped her. He never had patronised her. It was the truth. Because she’d never let him.
He was the most charismatic, the most gorgeous, the most overpowering man she’d ever met and yet they’d always dealt with each other as equals. He’d challenged and provoked her and driven her completely nuts—while liberating her body, and setting her spirit free.
‘You really do love me?’ She still couldn’t quite believe it. Did she really get to have her dreams come true?
He swore viciously, not exactly the epitome of anyone’s dream man. ‘Haven’t I just got through telling you as much? Now stop mucking me about and tell me whether you love me back.’
