by Amelia Hart
“The doctor said it was probably the grapefruit juice. I didn’t know that could counteract the pill, but apparently it can. I would like the baby to be a decision we made together, but I’m not sorry it exists.”
“Oh, Kate,” he sighed and she felt a faint brush over the top of her head like he had rested his chin there for just a moment. She didn’t know what that meant but she didn’t care. He was holding her and she’d never thought to have his touch ever again. She would soak up every moment of it, store it up. It was like wrapping her arms around happiness.
He sighed again. “I’m sorry I said what I did about custody. We’ll sort out some kind of peaceful agreement. And I’ll support you both financially.”
“There’s no need for money. I have plenty.”
He pulled back so he could look at her quizzically. “You do?” She saw suspicion in his eyes, and pretended she didn’t notice. Who knew what dishonest or nefarious methods he might attribute to her? She didn’t want to enquire.
“Yes. I wrote a pregnancy tracking application. It’s selling very well. I did another one about nutrition during pregnancy that’s doing okay, and I thought maybe a general fertility one might go down well. I think I’ll add something about parenting once I know a bit more about it. There are plenty of parents out there. It’s a big market. So I’m sorted financially; at least for now. And as long as I save and keep developing new things as I can around the baby, I shouldn’t need any hand outs. Though thanks for the offer.” She lifted her chin, proud of what she had achieved in these five months of solitude.
“Oh. Okay.” He paused, considered this, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking now. Her open, honest Mike was gone and in his place was this guarded man. “That’s . . . well done.”
“I thought I wasn’t ready. Really I was waiting for permission. For someone to tell me I was good enough; waiting for my dad, actually. It seems stupid to say it. I mean, I’m in my twenties. Of course I should know I can get out there and make things happen. But . . . well I’ve been seeing this counselor, and she’s helped me see I was . . . I won’t go into it, but I’m making some different choices now. It’s good. I’m happy about it. It was pretty messed up before.”
She was leaning into him so the heat of his body warmed her from knees to chest. She had to stand at an angle because of the thrust of her abdomen, but that was okay. Everything was okay. It was more than okay. It was unbelievably good. She smiled at him tentatively and saw a quirk of his lips on one side. An acknowledgement rather than an actual smile.
“Yes, you were messed up. You did some stuff that was just totally wrong.”
“I know, I know.” She hung her head. “I’ve talked through that with the counselor and she gave me information about human behavior and authority figures that made me feel a little better, but ultimately we’ve focused on independence and taking responsibility and . . . I’m mastering new skills. It feels very . . . wholesome. I’m still not working with the family company.”
“That’s a big change.”
“It is. It had got pretty toxic there, and now I feel able to be my own person without the expectations of others.”
“Big changes,” he repeated.
“Hmm,” she agreed, keeping her head down.
“So I’m expected to believe you’re a whole different character, then?”
She raised her eyes anxiously to meet his. “I’m not expecting you to believe anything that isn’t true.”
“So you’re expecting me to believe you’re a whole different character?” he repeated inexorably, his expression uncompromising.
Her head dropped again. “I . . . uh . . . no, I guess not,” she said in a small voice, and closed her eyes, feeling the tears well up again. Her arms fell to her sides and she stepped away, a half step. She waited for the axe to fall.
“I still can’t believe what you did. There are no words, really.”
“No.”
“You made major mistakes.”
“I did. I regret them a lot. Often.”
“You treated me appallingly.”
“Yes. I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve it. Not one bit of it.”
“Sometimes you did treat me very well, too.” He paused, and she looked up through her wet lashes with caution, to see if – with his weighty tone – he was making some joke. His face held no clue.
“Not well enough,” she said humbly, and thought she saw his lips twitch for just a moment. Then they were still, and maybe she had been mistaken.
“I would be an idiot if I made any space for you in my life, whatsoever,” he said.
She felt her face crumple, the tears welling up to roll down her cheeks again. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Oh come off it,” he said with some exasperation. “This humble act isn’t you at all.”
“I’m not acting,” she said on a sob. “I am sorry, and I did screw up, and do you think I don’t think about it ev . . . ev . . . every day? I do! I wish I could go back and fix it, but I can’t. And I know you h . . . ha . . . hate me but all I do is love you and I can’t stop and I ca . . . can’t fix it.” She couldn’t say any more. But she took a deep breath, and then another, and then she could say: “My heart is broken, Mike.” She put that broken heart in her eyes, letting him see all her regret, and pain. No walls, no cleverness, no defenses.
His gaze flicked over her face, reading it minutely. She felt weighed and assessed, and didn’t try to hide from him. He had the right. She thought she saw compassion in his expression. And maybe tenderness. The silence stretched out endlessly.
“I’m afraid to trust you again,” he said starkly.
“Oh Mike, please, please give me another chance. I’ll try not to hurt you again. I’ll try to be what you deserve. I will be. I can. I know I can, if you’ll just give me a chance. I don’t want to lose you again. I couldn’t bear it. It hurts too much. I’m not . . . I’m not perfect but I’m pretty damn good and I . . . if you’ll just give me a chance to show you . . .”
“I don’t know, Kate.”
“You said once that I was loyal. I mean, you didn’t know you were talking about me to me at the time, but you said I was the sort of person who, once they get pointed in the right direction, will just keep on going that way, without deviation. You said I was loyal. And unswerving.”
His brows drew together in confusion as he searched his memories for that conversation months ago. She saw them go up as he recalled the moment, and the beginning of anger in his eyes – she guessed at the remembrance of how she had fooled him – so she hurried to speak before he could say anything.
“You were right. You were right that that’s how I am. I was loyal and unswerving to my family, and so I didn’t question when I should have; didn’t protect you like I should. I’m still that loyal, unswerving person, but now I’m on a much better course. The right one, I think. I want to make a new family. Which is not to say I forget my old one completely. But they’re on a different path. I’m choosing mine now, not just inheriting. I want you in it. If you will be. If you can forgive me. Oh Mike, I want it so much! For you to be my family, and this baby too, and we make decisions for just us, to do the things we think are right. To . . . to write software together, and grow your business and . . . and maybe make more children if I do okay with this one. I want that, Mike.”
“Are you proposing to me?”
“No! Uh . . . no. Unless . . . unless you want me to. Do you want me to? Because yes if you want me to, I am.”
“You have a bloody nerve.”
“It’s one of my best qualities,” she said hopefully, and at that he finally laughed, reluctant, half-strangled but as if the man she loved might still be there for her underneath the anger and pain, and she took a deep breath and smiled back at him, hands clasped together underneath her belly.
“You slay me, Kate. You really do. You really do.” The last was said quietly, almost sadly.
“I want you Mike,” she said simply. “More t
han I have ever wanted anything in my life. I can understand you don’t feel the same. But I also know you’re very brave and I’d like you to take a chance.”
“And nothing about the baby, and how we owe it to the baby to try and be together?”
“She is not a commodity,” she said fiercely, all temperance forgotten. “She will never be a bargaining chip. Never. You take me or you don’t take me. She doesn’t need us both together. She doesn’t need it,” she finished lamely, embarrassed by her outburst when she was trying so hard to keep calm. “I mean-“
“I get it. You won’t use her against me, and you don’t think we have to be together for her benefit.” He regarded her grimly, his mouth a thin line.
She drew in yet another calming breath, blowing it out over a long count to cool and centre herself. “Yes.”
“I don’t know how to do it, Kate. I don’t know how to get back to where we were, before . . .”
“We’ll figure it out. We’ll get there together. We can do it.” She stepped in close again, hands rising to his lapels to capture him, hold him in place. “We were good together. Both of us felt it. That’s why this hurt so bad.”
“I don’t think-“
“Don’t think. Don’t think at all.” She lifted her chin, tilted her face towards him and waited. Hoped.
She saw his doubts, his uncertainty. It was painful to think of all she had destroyed. Then he lowered his head, those cautious dark blue eyes drifting closed as his lips met hers as lightly as a butterfly landing.
She meant to be serious and respectful, and give him plenty of space, and time to make up his mind. To just accept what he offered her and not ask for more.
But she had forgotten. Having his mouth on hers was a feast to the starving. She was ravenous for it, for the sensual touch and everything it might mean. Her lips parted under his in a gasp of surprised passion, arms reaching up to twine around his neck and hang on for dear life. Her whole body curved into his, awkwardly striving to get closer, to wind around him so tight he would never know how to get himself free from her again.
But he wasn’t trying to escape. His one hand was wrapped in her hair, a great fistful of it gripped hard to hold her still while he plundered her soft mouth, the other hand in the small of her back under her coat, pressing her as close as he could get her and never mind the bulge of her pregnancy.
She shuddered and gave a muffled moan, echoed by his. His hand slid under her shirt, up her spine, finding bare skin. It wasn’t enough. She wanted to rip his clothes off where they stood, going up in flames on the footpath in the middle of a busy street.
Reluctantly – so extraordinarily reluctantly – she eased her grip on him, let there be a few millimeters of space between their bodies. “See,” she gasped, senses reeling. “We’re good together. We really are. I believe in it.”
His face was buried in her hair, in the curve where her neck met her shoulder. “My God, my God. How do you do it? How do you bring me to my knees like this, over and over?”
“I’m brilliant but flawed,’ she said, trying to make light of it when all she wanted to do was hold him forever, so hard he’d need a crowbar to get away. “And possibly also a force of nature,” she added after a moment’s contemplation. She felt his body shake as he laughed briefly, soundlessly. “Mind you, you shouldn’t get too used to it. I’m about to be a mother. I understand that can have a mellowing effect on one.”
“Here’s hoping. I don’t think my heart can stand up to more of this sort of excitement.”
“Oh. That’s a pity. I was hoping you might take me home for a little more of just exactly that kind of excitement. My car’s right here, after all.”
“Yes, so it is. Kate. Kate, I’d be a fool to let you in again.”
“It’s not foolish. It’s incredibly right,” she said, willing him to feel it the way she did, that soul-deep connection, like he was the part of her that was missing. “Mike, my few weeks with you were the most happy I’ve been in my life. In my whole life. I know how it feels to lose it. I’d be pretty stupid if you gave that back to me and I threw it away a second time. I’m not going to be that stupid again; that I can promise you. And Mike, there’s nothing I want from you; Nothing other than you. Just you. There’s no scheme or plot or plan here. It’s me wanting you more than I want anything else in the world. That’s all.”
He looked down at her, gravely listening, that big, warm heart of his just there underneath the surface so she could almost see it. She wanted in. She was shaking at the thought he might give it to her. Her brave love, generous and tender beyond measure. Hesitant and angry because she’d taught him to be.
He sighed, closed his eyes and gave a tiny little shake of his head and she thought he was saying ‘no’ and her mouth gaped open as she tried to breathe with the pain of it and then he said: “That’s enough, Kate. That’s enough.”
She sucked in a breath. Grabbed the front of his coat again to keep him still and close so she could hear it for sure. “You’re saying yes? Oh Mike, don’t play with me. Are you saying yes?”
“Okay, okay. Settle down. We’ll give it a try. I’m still angry at you, you know. You’ll have to keep saying sorry for a long time.” He sounded sad and weary, but there was a faint twinkle in his eye and perhaps he was teasing her. But she was prepared to believe the truth of his words, even if he told her gently like this, trying to make a joke of it. To soften it.
“I can do that. I am very sorry. I can’t imagine being more sorry than I am. I’m happy to tell you about it until you’re sick of hearing.”
He pressed his lips together and smiled that sad smile again.
She would do it, she swore. She would make him happy again, the way he had been. The way they had both been. She had done it once. She would do it again.
Chapter Twenty-Five
She paused in the doorway, a dark silhouette against the brightness. As he lifted his gaze from the computer screen it took a moment to adjust his vision so he could see the detail of her, baby propped on one hip, hat like an enormous wheel set back on her head, shading them both. Her hair rioted wildly to her waist, bedraggled and windblown, a bleached caramel.
She was wearing that look she got on a breezy day, as if she’d swallowed enough air to be light-headed and giddy. She liked the wind. Sometimes he saw her put Sandy down and caper in circles about her as if joining it. Sandy would lift chubby fists and wave them like a tiny conductor, trying to track her dancing mother, bewildered but content to be in the midst of craziness.
“Have you finished yet?” she asked, a grin wrapped around her face like she had forgotten it was there, understanding and impatience mixed together in her tone. “You’ve been at the computer all day, nearly. You should come outside, enjoy the sunshine. The forecast for tomorrow’s pretty bad. You can code all you like then.”
“It’s not all coding, you know. Some of us have businesses to run.”
“Oh pfft,” she blew a raspberry at him. “Amanda can take care of it for half an hour.”
“But it’s never half an hour. Once I’m out there I won’t want to work again for hours,” he grumbled, already almost convinced. She could lure him into anything, his happy siren, confident and sparkling with the energy he loved irresistibly.
“Oh fine. Fine. Stay here for as long as you like. I’m going to have a proper swim,” she said, waving a pretty foot at him to show him the sand-crusted evidence of paddling. “The water’s beautiful.” And while he was distracted looking at her long, tan legs, she placed a baby in his lap with chubby feet right on top of his keyboard and danced right back out the door, already stripping down to her bikini, clothes left draped nonchalantly across the grass.
He moved quickly to rescue the laptop from Sandy, who gurgled and patted his face with soft, squishy little hands. “Oh. Oh really? Izzat so?” he asked her, kissing the one laid on his mouth, then nuzzling into her chest until she grabbed his ears and pulled, crowing.
“Have you got h
im? Have you caught your Daddy? Did you catch him, clever pants?” She squealed and smacked him and he felt her gather up a fistful of his hair and try to stuff it in her mouth by pulling. “Is he yummy? Is Daddy yummy? Oh ho, you’re laughing. That’s because Daddy’s funny, isn’t he? He’s so funny.” She gaped up at him ecstatically, green eyes sparkling. “You’re all covered in sand. And you’re wet. Has mummy been dunking you? Dunking you in the beautiful water? Who’s a lucky girl? Who’s my lucky girl?” He changed her nappy, finding sand in every crevice, working quickly around a squirming, chortling flurry of arms and legs.
“Where’s mummy gone?” She was right. He’d had enough time cooped up inside, missing all the fun. “Let’s go find her. Let’s go find our favorite toy.” He pulled the door closed behind him, carrying Alexandra high against his chest, enjoying the fist curled around the collar of his shirt, the settled mien now they were going somewhere together. She liked to be on the move, his girl. Always seeking out new horizons.
“Eh. Bah,” Sandy said softly at the top of the grassy dune, looking at the nearby water where Kate had just come bursting out of the crest of a wave. He took in the voluptuous figure, breasts full of milk, wider hips and a softer belly than when they had first met, and felt the ready surge of arousal, a little embarrassing with Sandy here in his arms.
“Silly daddy,” he said, talking to Sandy and grinning foolishly at his Kate, his glorious Kate, his sunshine.
She saw him, laughed up at him standing there holding her beautiful child, and flung her arms up wide to embrace the sky. He relished that expression on her face, that proprietary smugness with which she surveyed him, like she was the luckiest woman in the world and knew it full well. She said it to him often enough, fingers twined with his, or riding him vigorously, or sliding into sleep with her mouth against his neck.
