The Baby Question

by Caroline Anderson

  ‘You’re a web designer,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Ten out of ten. Out.’

  He unfolded himself from the desk and stepped closer, looking down into her face searchingly. ‘There was no need for you to leave. You could have told me you wanted to do it,’ he said, his voice seductive, almost convincing.

  ‘I wanted it to be mine,’ she said, and he gave a tiny huff of laughter.

  ‘Mine again. You seem to be using that word a lot. Whatever happened to ours?’

  ‘Yours, you mean.’

  His eyes narrowed and he searched her face, then shrugged. ‘I don’t know what’s eating you, Laurie, but we’ll talk about it when you come home.’

  ‘I’m not coming home,’ she repeated emphatically, but he just smiled.

  ‘Oh, I think you are.’

  That was it. She lost it. Without another thought, she dumped the contents of the mugs on his head and stomped off down the stairs, leaving him swearing under his breath and brushing ineffectually at his clothes. A smile tugged at her mouth, but she suppressed it. It was a childish thing to have done, but he’d provoked her beyond endurance, and she wasn’t going to laugh it off. God forbid he should think she wasn’t serious about this. She was done being dictated to.

  He was right behind her, his temper barely under control, and she felt a tiny frisson of anticipation. She hadn’t seen him really angry for ages, but she knew she could trust him not to hurt her, and right then she was spoiling for a fight.

  She marched over to the cottage, just half a stride ahead of him, and he was through the door behind her before she had time to slam it in his face.

  ‘It won’t work, Laurie,’ he said grimly, following her into the kitchen with the dog at his heels. ‘I’m not going without you.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going, and you’re not staying, so it’s going to be a bit tricky, really, isn’t it?’

  ‘I mean it,’ he said, his voice taut with determination, all that earlier gentle coaxing gone, banished no doubt by the coffee dregs in his hair and the cold bite of the wind and her failure to succumb to his authority. ‘I’m not just walking away from this,’ he went on. ‘You’re my wife, and if you think you can just run off like this without talking about it, you’re mistaken.’

  ‘I hardly ran off.’

  ‘No? Then why didn’t you tell me where you were going, and what you were doing? And what the hell is this business you’ve been running in the attic of my house without telling me? How long’s it been going on?’

  ‘Our house, I think, and don’t you mean asking your permission?’ she snapped, whirling on him, her temper finally frayed beyond endurance. ‘Don’t you mean what the hell was I doing sneaking around behind your back daring to have a life?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he retorted. ‘Of course you can have a life.’

  ‘Just so long as it includes playing hostess to your incredibly boring business acquaintances with monotonous regularity, and dressing up in pretty clothes to be the elegant little social butterfly I’m expected to be. God forbid I should wear jeans.’

  ‘You can wear jeans.’

  ‘Versace jeans,’ she snorted, whirling away again to dump the mugs in the sink before she hurled them at him. ‘Not ordinary jeans from the discount shop on the corner.’

  ‘You’ve never worn jeans like that! You don’t even like jeans,’ he protested, and she felt a pang of guilt. He was quite right, she hadn’t ever bought cheap jeans, or any cheap clothes in fact, and she wouldn’t want to. She just wanted the right to, that was all.

  She turned back to the sink, washing the mugs for something to do that didn’t involve screaming with frustration.

  He sighed, a harsh exhalation filled with the same frustration and irritation that she was feeling. I must be getting to him, she thought in satisfaction. There’s a miracle.

  She turned round, just as he hooked out a chair from the table and dropped wearily into it. His eyes were tired and red-rimmed, his face was drawn, and she remembered he’d been travelling now for over twenty-four hours.

  He didn’t have to come up here after me, she reminded herself. It was his choice. Then a little dribble of stale coffee trickled off his hair and down his temple and dripped onto his coat, and she felt a twinge of guilt. It was a lovely navy cashmere coat, only a few weeks old and hideously expensive, and the splash of coffee over one shoulder and down the front did nothing to enhance it. Her guilt prompted a partial climb-down.

  ‘I’ll make you tea, then you can go,’ she conceded.

  She waited for a second, but instead of repeating his intention to stay he merely settled back, folded his arms across his chest and smiled.

  Rats. He looked so sexy when he did that, sexy enough to distract her—but only for a moment. She reminded herself of all the reasons why she was here—his autocratic behaviour, his expectations of her, the time he spent away from home when she was left holding the fort.

  Holding the baby? She shuddered to think what would have happened if she’d conceived. Would he have come home at all, without the need to attempt to impregnate her at regular intervals?

  No, there was no way she was going back to him. Not yet, at least, and maybe not ever.

  Even if he did have the sexiest eyes she’d ever seen. She’d fallen for them years ago. She wasn’t falling for them again.

  Oh, no…

  She was a web designer. He was amazed, although he shouldn’t have been. If he’d given it a moment’s thought, he would have realised that sitting at home with only the dog for company while she waited to see if she was pregnant wouldn’t be enough for her. She was too bright, far too bright and full of imagination and life and restless invention.

  In the past two years since she’d given up work and settled down to wait for the baby that hadn’t come, she’d redone the house from end to end, got Midas from a rescue centre and turned him from a cowering, gangly pup into a bright and confident dog who was her devoted companion, and sorted out the grounds of the house with the help of an army of skilled gardeners and landscapers.

  That accomplished, he must have been crazy to imagine she would then settle down to wait for maternity to catch up with her.

  Not Laurie. Of course she’d needed something to do.

  But to do it in secret, without sharing it with him—that rankled. Hurt, in fact, he thought in surprise. He wondered when things had started to go wrong, and realised with shock that he hadn’t even noticed that they had until now, when he’d thought about it and remembered what it used to be like between them.

  Things had gone wrong, though, or she wouldn’t be here now, hundreds of miles from home, making him tea before she threw him out on his ear. Well, tough. He wasn’t going, not till this was sorted out, and it looked like the weather was playing right into his hands.

  A quick glance at the window showed that night had fallen while they’d been talking, the clouds so thick and full they’d snuffed out the last of the daylight.

  He stood up and swished the little curtains shut at the single window, blocking out the view of the snowflakes that were starting to whirl against the glass. In an hour, with any luck, it would be falling too thick and fast to allow him to venture out, so he’d have to stay.

  They might be snowed in for days…

  He felt his body stir. He’d missed her. It had been a couple of weeks since he’d seen her last, and a little making up would be fun. Hiding a smile of satisfaction, he settled back in the chair, picked up the mug of tea she pushed towards him and prepared to wait her out.

  It infuriated her when he did that.

  Sat there, with his tea propped on his belt buckle, a patient look on his face, and said nothing.

  She hated silence. She always had, and he knew it. Of all the things he did that got her mad, this was the worst.

  She promised herself she wouldn’t rise, not this time. Picking up her own tea, she changed the subject from her to him. ‘How was New York?’ she asked, as if they w
ere sitting in their own kitchen and she hadn’t just walked out on him and moved to the other end of the British Isles.

  He didn’t twitch an eyebrow, to his credit, but then he was a very successful businessman and used to hiding his reactions.

  ‘Cold, dull. I missed you.’

  If only that were true, she thought sadly, remembering the times he’d gone away at first and how glad she’d been to have him back—how eagerly she’d welcomed him.

  But recently…

  ‘How’s Mike?’ she asked, enquiring after the New York partner who handled most of the North American business, and refusing to rise to the bait.

  ‘All right. He asked how you were.’

  ‘And what did you tell him?’

  He smiled, a slight hitch of one side of his mouth, not really a smile so much as a grimace. ‘I told him you were fine,’ he said softly.

  She looked away. She couldn’t face down those piercing, all-seeing eyes. He was too good at boardroom games. She should know. She’d played them with him only a few years ago, before she’d ‘retired’ from active involvement in his business ventures and settled back to wait for the baby.

  She sighed and sipped her tea, wishing he would go away and knowing full well he wouldn’t, not at least without a promise from her to come home—a promise she couldn’t make. ‘When did you get back?’ she asked, wondering about his jet lag and if he’d had any sleep.

  ‘Yesterday afternoon. I was home just after four.’ The unspoken reproach hung in the air and irritated her into retaliation.

  ‘I didn’t know you were coming back yesterday.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he said, and then continued with mild reproach. ‘Not that you were there to take my call—’

  ‘I don’t have to be there twenty-four hours a day,’ she reminded him sharply, and his eyebrow quirked up in response.

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ he said soothingly. ‘But you know my mobile number, and I do think that you could perhaps have done more than leave a note before you walked out on our relationship.’

  There was no attempt now to hide the reproach, his voice hardening and showing, for the first time, his true feelings. Good. She could deal with that. She couldn’t deal with the bland, expressionless board-room persona he’d been conveying for the past few minutes. And if he was angry, then maybe he cared, and maybe, just maybe, there was hope for them.

  ‘I didn’t walk out on our relationship, I just wanted a little space,’ she reminded him.

  ‘I would have given you space if you’d asked for it. You could have said so. You know you only have to ask for anything.’

  ‘Maybe I didn’t want to ask. Maybe I’m sick of asking for everything.’

  ‘Sick of sharing?’

  ‘We don’t share,’ she told him flatly. ‘We hardly share anything any more. I’m amazed you noticed I wasn’t there—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, of course I noticed.’

  ‘Yes, you would have had to pour your own drink, make your own supper. Poor little lamb.’

  He growled under his breath, and she buried her nose in her mug and ignored him.

  ‘You could have said something, discussed it with me,’ he went on, hammering home the point.

  ‘And have you brush it aside? Or trivialise it? Patronise me with another of your “you don’t want to do that” lectures? I didn’t want that, Rob. I wanted to think—to have time to work out in my own mind just how I feel about us, before it’s too late.’

  ‘Too late?’

  ‘Yes, too late. Before we become locked together irretrievably into parenthood. I want to be sure I want your baby before I conceive, and at the moment I’m not sure—not sure at all, about any of it.’

  ‘I take it you’re not pregnant, then, again,’ he said cautiously, putting her hackles up.

  ‘No, I’m not damn well pregnant. I don’t get pregnant, remember, so all this might be academic anyway—’

  ‘And the business?’ he said smoothly, moving on without drawing breath. ‘How long have you been running that? A year? Eighteen months?’

  ‘Nearly a year.’

  ‘A year. You’ve been running it for a year—successfully, by all indications—and yet you didn’t think to mention it.’

  She had. Over and over again, she’d nearly told him, but it had never seemed like the right time.

  ‘You’re always too busy, or away, or we’re entertaining. There’s never been a good time,’ she told him. ‘We never have time to talk.’

  ‘In a year?’

  She sighed shortly. ‘Rob, you’ve been away—and when you’ve been home—’ All he’d done was try and get her pregnant. But she couldn’t say that, so she shrugged and shook her head and gave up. Not Rob, though. He didn’t give up.

  He settled back and folded his arms and gave her a level look. ‘I’m not too busy now. You want to talk about it, tell me about it now. I’ve got nothing else to do.’

  ‘Yes, you have. You’re going,’ she told him, standing up and taking his half-full cup from his hand and tipping it into the sink.

  That brow arched again. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Tough.’

  ‘It is. Look out of the window. I’m going nowhere.’

  She opened the curtain and pressed her face to the glass, but all she could see was swirling white. Snow, for heavens sake! That was all she needed.

  ‘It’s just a little flurry. It’ll pass,’ she said with more confidence than she felt. ‘You’ll easily get to the village. There’s a bed and breakfast there. You can stay there for the night and set off back to London tomorrow.’

  She snapped on the outside light, yanked open the front door and a blast of snow and arctic wind drove her back into the house. She slammed the door with difficulty and turned to lean on it, frustration threatening to overwhelm her. There was no way he could drive in that. She couldn’t see anything except a wall of white. Even finding the car would be a nightmare.

  Oh, damn, she thought. They had no choice—he could die out there, and whatever was wrong with their relationship, she didn’t hate him that much—if at all.

  ‘All right, you can stay,’ she said grudgingly, then added with as much firmness as she could muster, ‘but you’ll have to sleep in the sitting room, you aren’t sharing with me.’

  He gave a soft snort. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he reasoned. ‘We’re married. We’ve slept together for five years. What difference can one more night make?’

  Plenty to me, she thought, knowing her own weakness for his charm and knowing quite well that he’d turn it up full to get her back, if that was what he wanted. He’d seduce her—win her round, talk her into going back. No, it was too dangerous to let him that near.

  ‘Either you sleep in the sitting room, or you go,’ she said flatly, avoiding answering his question.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, and she did a mental double take. It wasn’t like him to back down so uncharacteristically fast—if at all! He settled back into the chair and folded his arms. ‘Any more tea?’

  His eyes were wide and innocent, but she knew better. There was nothing innocent about Rob—never had been, never would be. She didn’t trust him not to use that charm ruthlessly just the moment it suited him, but she was stuck. There was nowhere to go, no escape. They were trapped together, and it was going to take a massive effort of will not to allow herself to succumb.

  But she was going to do it. Come hell or high water, she was going to do it, and that was that.

  End of conversation.

  Somehow…!

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT WAS bitterly cold. It took Rob five minutes to find the car, collect his case and mobile phone and get back into the cottage, after making a detour at Laurie’s request to shut down her computer and lock the garage and set the alarm.

  She was going to do it herself, but he’d overruled her on that one. There was no way he was letting her go out there in the teeth of the blizzard that was raging all around the
m, and for one rather disturbing minute he himself hadn’t been able to find his way back to the cottage. He’d wondered in an oddly detached way if he was destined to perish out there on the barren Scottish hillside, but then the snow had eased and he’d seen the dull gleam of the outside light, and he’d realised he’d been going the wrong way.

  So easily done in the confusing swirl of snow, but a mistake that could have proved fatal under other circumstances, he thought. He felt a dawning respect for the wild and tempestuous elements and the men that braved them on a daily basis. Quite where such a blizzard had come from he couldn’t imagine, but it had, apparently out of nowhere, and it was threatening to tear the roof off the house.

  He turned the handle on the door, to have it almost snatched out of his hand by the wind. He shut it by throwing his weight against it, and as he stood inside it and listened to the raging storm outside, he wondered why on earth people chose to mount polar expeditions. Mad, the lot of them, he thought, brushing the snow off his shoulders and tousling his hair to shake the wet out of it.

  ‘Here, let me take that,’ Laurie said, peeling his coat off his back and flapping it firmly. ‘Come into the sitting room—the fire’s lit and I’ve revved it up a bit. I’ll make you a hot drink.’

  He didn’t argue. It was rather nice being waited on by her, although not entirely necessary. It made him feel a bit like one of the old hunter-gatherers, being welcomed home by his mate at the end of a hunting expedition—except that he’d only gone fifty feet to the car and back, and his quarry had been a very co-operative suitcase.

  The mate was a bit grudging, too. Ah, well.

  He chuckled wearily under his breath. The jet lag must be getting to him, addling his brain. He sat down in front of the fire, stretched out his legs towards the warmth and sighed with contentment. So good. Warm. Comfortable. Peaceful.

  Within seconds he was asleep.

  That was where Laurie found him, two minutes later, when she came back in with two cups of tea and some cake on a tray.