by Amelia Hart
Chapter Twenty-Four
She decided to go and look at cots. Oh, not to buy one just yet. There was plenty of time for that. But it would be a good idea to have some idea what was available, and online catalogues weren’t really satisfactory. Not as good as fiddling with a real one and deciding if it was well-designed and sturdy enough to hold her baby.
Since it was a half-hour drive each way, if there was anything else that needed doing in Auckland, this would be the time.
The thing that immediately sprang to mind was him. Mike. She wanted to see him.
Oh, not to talk to. That would be far too painful. No.
She wanted to just see him, reassure herself the world was still ticking by as it should, with him on it.
There was a café right across the road from the DigiCom building. He went for a walk every lunchtime, for around twenty minutes; because exercise helped with neuroplasticity, he said. Everyone should exercise on their lunch breaks. If she sat at the café across the road she would see him go, and then return.
That would do it. That would be enough. Just a glimpse. Two, if she stayed for the extra twenty minutes to see him come back again. Which she probably wouldn’t, of course. What was the point, if she had seen him on the way out?
No, just the once would be quite enough.
Then she would come away again, with not a word said.
-----
The day was dragging. Every day was dragging, but this one seemed particularly slow. He didn’t want to be sitting here chewing over these issues for the tenth time. Could they not simply discuss it once, make a decision and then implement it? Would that be so hard? It wasn’t rocket science.
He drummed his fingers on the table, a bad-tempered little tattoo his assistant immediately noticed. She was no fool. She saw the warning signs. They had no doubt become all too familiar to her of late.
“So, ah, I think we probably have all the information we need for now,” she said smoothly, standing and giving a subtle hand signal to invite the clients to do the same. “I’ll send through an email with details of what’s been discussed here. Feel free to make any changes you like, and send it back for us to quote on. Thank you so much for your time.”
Mike nodded, shook hands, smiled perfunctorily and watched them go, shepherded off across the road to the company’s underground car park by Amanda. He stayed to finish his coffee. He didn’t feel like going back into the building, to carry on with exactly the same tasks he’d been doing this morning, and yesterday, and the day before . . .
Dull. All of it. Just . . . dull. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a pregnant woman who was taking a seat at one of the sidewalk tables outside the cafe. He saw them everywhere, these days. He always found himself taking a second look, reassuring himself the woman was unfamiliar.
Then he would examine the size of the bump, wondering, making a mental comparison of where she might be in that whole process.
If she had kept the baby, of course.
She might not.
She might be anywhere in the world, sans bump, having the time of her life.
Twice he had even struck up a conversation with the owner of the randomly encountered bump. When was she due? How was she finding it? Tiring? Exciting? He supposed it was a vain attempt to have some connection with that other bump.
His bump.
Or not his, he obviously couldn’t claim any sort of meaningful ownership, but . . . well.
He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair, rubbed his temples. He was so tired. He hadn’t been sleeping well for . . . for a while now.
The pregnant woman sat with her back to him. She was swaddled in a winter coat, scarf and hat. From behind she didn’t look pregnant at all, still a relatively slender silhouette, dark against the white of the DigiCom building.
When the waitress brought her teapot and cup, she looked sideways and upwards, and smiled her thanks.
He froze.
What the hell! What was she doing here, across the road from his building? Was she meeting someone from the office here? Was she planning to meet him?
His hand crept into his pocket to wrap around the reassuring flat rectangle of his phone. He had it with him. So he hadn’t missed her call. He drew it out and laid it on the table.
The bump was there, the bulge of her pregnancy, their pregnancy. Only meters away. She had kept it.
She had his baby there, inside her body, wrapped up under her heart.
Her scheming, lying heart.
So what did she want from him? Was she here to negotiate? Two trimesters in, did she think she was in a stronger position? His lips curled back from his teeth. She was going to get a nasty shock. He had no intention of being used. Not by her.
He wouldn’t be her fool again.
She still hadn’t placed her call. Was she steeling herself for the conversation? She had to know it wouldn’t be pleasant.
The sun had moved enough to hit her face, and she shifted position to capture a little more of it, turning, tilting her head back and closing her eyes for a moment to enjoy the heat. The move changed the angle at which she sat. Now he could see the bump again, a gentle curve over the arm of the chair, disappearing into the lapel of her open coat.
Then she put her hand on it, stroking it slowly as she lifted her tea with her other hand and drank, her eyes fixed on the DigiCom building.
Was she plotting how she would use the baby against him?
She looked down and smiled a faint smile, and he saw her lips move as she said something in a soft undertone. Her voice didn’t reach him.
He watched her finish the cup of tea, and pour another from the plain white teapot. She drank that too, one sip at a time, as he waited in a fever of impatience to find out what she wanted. Several times his phone whirred or pipped, but it wasn’t her, so he ignored the calls and texts.
She drained the second cup, took the lid off the teapot and inspected the contents, as if to see whether any remained. A dribble, he saw, when she poured it out too. Drank it. Set her cup aside.
Ah, now, he thought as she pushed to her feet, a little awkward as the swell of her stomach collided with the table. She rubbed the spot absently as she took her scarf off the back of the chair and wrapped it around her neck, one handed. Put her hat on and pulled it down over her ears so her caramel blonde hair was squashed flat, emerging in disordered ripples in the gap between hat and scarf.
It was a little overgrown, not superbly styled as when he’d last seen her. As she turned to gather up her bag he saw she looked pale. Worn out.
Was she eating properly? Pregnancy was draining. A woman needed good nutrition. There was no bloom in her cheeks. Weren’t pregnant women supposed to be blooming? Softly rounded? There were hollows under her cheekbones. Her jawline looked sharply defined.
He registered a dozen minute changes. The flash of worry became anger.
She wasn’t taking proper care of the baby. How difficult was it to eat a little extra and pop a multi vitamin? Of all the irresponsible women . . .
Well that was certainly one condition he’d demand. She must take better care of herself. She had more to think of now than just herself. She couldn’t afford to be selfish. He would insist she visit a doctor. And a nutritionist.
He stood too, slid his phone back in his pocket and put his jacket on, ready to follow her across the street.
He only looked away for a moment, but when he turned back she was gone.
He froze for a second, and then he was surging outside, heart beating madly, echoes of that other time awakened; when he had turned away and turned back to find her gone; out of reach; without leaving a trace.
Not a word.
Nothing.
As if she had never been.
A pit yawned before him as he thought it had happened again.
He clutched at the doorframe, fingers digging into the wood, and looked up the street.
She was there; walking steadily, but in no particular hurry. She
was walking away. He frowned in confusion, dug his phone out again, checked it for the dozenth time. Still no call, no missed message.
It dawned on him she wasn’t there to meet him. She had no intention of meeting him.
If he had not chosen to have his meeting in the café, he would never even have known she had sat there for half an hour, staring at his building.
She walked around a corner and out of sight.
“God damn it!” he muttered explosively, and ran after her. She stood at the curb, unlocking her car door.
“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare walk away again! Do you hear me?” he called out, rage and desperation roiling inside him.
She started violently and whirled, her hand flying out to ward him off. As she staggered with the sudden movement he grabbed her elbow to steady her, releasing it as soon as she had her balance. She stared up at him, green eyes enormous, pupils dilated. She looked horrorstricken. As well she might.
He glared at her.
“You have a bloody nerve. Think you can take off again? Think you can just disappear again when you’re carrying my child? This is outrageous.” It was outrageous, completely wrong that so much importance could be wrapped up inside a single person. Someone he knew he could not trust to do the right thing. Yet when he looked at her his heart turned over, too stupid to protect itself, knowing only the joy it had once had with her. He leaned towards her and she shied back, jaw set in what he took as wary readiness for a fight.
“I have a right to be heard!” he said, and she didn’t deny it. He waited to see if she would respond.
She waited too, breathing hard as if she had just been running, but silent.
“You do not get to shut me out,” he went on when she refused to speak, to give him anything to grip on to. How could he fight her if she wouldn’t say anything? “You do not get to just do as you please. If that’s what you wanted then you should just have terminated the pregnancy.” He saw her flinch, but still she said nothing. “But you didn’t, and that’s my kid too. I get a say.”
He couldn’t keep on talking like this or he was going to put himself in an even worse bargaining position. She already held all the power. He had nothing over her, nothing to force her to regard his wishes or do right by his child and nothing . . . nothing to influence her to . . . to what? What did he want from her? He could have sworn it was nothing, would have sworn it right up until the instant she turned those sad green eyes on him and the whole of his internal world turned on his axis. He cursed himself for the most terrible fool.
He had to shut up. He’d been in many negotiations before and knew the rule well: Never be the one to make the first offer. The person who speaks first, loses.
But she would not open her mouth. When he stopped talking there was only silence, painful and frightening. So he carried on, finding it difficult to speak through the obstruction in his throat, wishing she’d just say something and put him out of his misery.
“You think you can just play with people’s lives,” he accused her wildly. “Well we’re not toys. That baby deserves the best you know how to give it. And if you’re not capable, I damned well am.”
“What?” she said softly, barely above a whisper.
“I said I am,” he answered recklessly, giving up trying to gauge where she had set her trap. “If you are not prepared to look after the baby well and make sure it has access to what it needs, including its father, then I will have custody. Full custody.” It wasn’t an idle threat. He’d done his research and he had the resources to fight it out if she insisted. He didn’t want to, but nor would he let his child, conceived as some sort of weapon in a failed plot, then be raised without love.
“You can’t do that,” she said, a faint furrow between her brows, a minimal response that only made him more furious, the evidence she didn’t really care about their baby.
“I can and I will. I’d rather not make a battle of it, but if you leave me no choice then you will regret it. I swear you will.”
He scanned her face intently, looking for clues, knowing her for a canny and ruthless fighter. If she demanded a pay-off she’d get it, but he’d ring fence her with the contract he’d already had drawn up. He’d get the child to raise and he wouldn’t let her wander off again until it was in his arms.
He was unprepared for the way his gut clenched as her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t say anything, just stood there as they welled up and overflowed.
“Don’t do that!” he said sharply. He couldn’t think straight when she gazed at him like that, helpless, white-faced and trembling so he felt like a monster to have done that to her.
“Sorry,” she breathed. She looked heartbroken and terrified; completely lost. Her face was tragic, and still the tears flowed.
He ground his teeth together, clenched his fists at his sides. It was unendurable.
“You are so bloody manipulative!”
She shook her head at him, wordless.
He bared his teeth at her, glaring, breathing hard. It hurt him to see her face twist up like that, no fight in her, just despair. Why didn’t she damned well say something?
She had to stop crying like that. She just had to.
It was breaking his heart.
When he couldn’t take the pain of watching her anymore, he stepped forward and took her in his arms, one hand clasping the back of her head as he pressed it into his jacket. He moved the lapel to one side so the zipper would not dig into her cheek, wrapping it around her a little. Her tears soaked into his shirt, and her hands came up, little fists digging into the small of his back as she sobbed, clinging to him.
He met the eyes of the three bystanders who had paused around them, ready to step in and protect the pregnant woman menaced by him. He nodded a respectful acknowledgement. Each of them relaxed their wary stance and carried on their way.
He stroked her back between her shoulder blades, deep, kneading strokes to ease the terrible tension there. She was knotted like a rope. Lower down the hard curve of her pregnant belly pressed against him, carving a way into him.
Carving out a place in his soul.
Surreptitiously he splayed his other hand on the side of that mysterious hardness, longing to feel a connection with it. With the child it sheltered. His child.
He didn’t want to acknowledge the warm swell of protectiveness he felt, with her nestled so close to him, their baby between them. The urge to mend what was broken, to keep her safe from harm. It was just plain stupid. Impossible to trust her. Impossible to let her in again.
And impossible that she felt so utterly right in his arms.
A hunger rose in him to touch her, to feel the hidden silkiness of her skin. Her scent was in his nose, bringing a cascade of intimate memories. No, he didn’t trust her. But he sure as hell wanted her. Wanted to bury himself in her softness and reforge the link he had thought building between them; before she had destroyed it.
Though she hadn’t destroyed it, for it had never existed of course. Not outside his own head.
Yet there was the way she clung to him now, so tightly, as if she’d never let go, sobbing like she was destroyed. Over what? Why was she crying? Just because he’d been mean to her? That wasn’t right. Someone as heartless as she . . .
But no, that wasn’t right either. She would have to be a consummate actress to fake the feelings she had shown in their time together. And she was no actress. Look at her terrible performance as a meek and obedient employee.
She had felt something for him. But she had put her family before him; used his attachment to her to take advantage of him. Though ultimately she had stolen nothing, it was her intention . . . gnnnrrh. He didn’t want to do this like he’d done a thousand times already. To go round the same stale cycle of resentment and blame. Just this moment – just for this one stolen minute – he wanted to hold her and pretend that everything was as it should be, that she was his to comfort and protect.
That she was his to love again.
--
---
It felt like every pore of her was wide open, trying to absorb him, to drink him in. She could barely think, having this feast after her long famine. She was enveloped by him, like he still cared. He must, or he wouldn’t hold her like this, surely. But he was so angry, still. Justifiably angry.
“Why did you do it, Kate? Why?” He spoke softly, with a regret that made her heart ache.
But he was asking. Really asking, and now, silent and listening, waiting for an answer. Might he listen to her? Could he understand her, if she explained it all to him? The surge of hope within her was so powerful, so consuming, she faltered. There might be a path through this, if she could only say the right thing. There might be a way back to him.
She took a breath, held it suspended for a moment, two. The right words didn’t come, but she couldn’t stay silent either. “I was stupid. I thought I was invincible. I thought I could have everything I wanted. I thought everything would be okay. I was . . . stupid.” She nodded against his chest and waited, not breathing now, sorting through what she could tell him. How she could frame up the truth – only the truth this time – to show him her choices had been foolishness and selfishness and ego, but not true evil. That she had the potential to be a good person. A person worthy of him, even, if he would just give her the chance to show it.
“Would you do it differently?”
“Yes!” she said fervently, then hesitated. “At least . . . I would want things to be right between us. No lies. No deception. I wish the whole Cathy thing never happened. That we just met at a party. Whatever else, I’m glad about the baby. But I didn’t intend to get pregnant.”
“I don’t understand that. How could it happen by accident? Were you careless with the pill? With taking it?”
She felt the surge of defensiveness, the desire to go on the attack about contraception being a shared responsibility, and that he had never worn a condom after the conversation of that first night. But she fought it down, trying to stay meek, to accept the blame where it lay. She could hear the clear edge of anger in his voice. She had to get this right. If she took the wrong tone she could lose this chance.
