The Innocent's Shock Pregnancy

by Carol Marinelli

  For once Ethan dealt with her luggage and waved away the bellboy, heading straight for the elevators. And this time it was Ethan who checked her reflection in the mirrored doors.

  Pregnant.

  Just as Merida must have stared at that word over and over, it played on repeat in his mind. And then he looked briefly at his own reflection, and thought it odd that he looked much the same as the man who a couple of hours ago had headed out to the theatre.

  Yet, while he looked much the same, it felt as if a thunderbolt had hit him and still hadn’t quite gone to ground.

  He’d never envisaged being a father.

  The prospect didn’t warm him or thaw him; it terrified him. He thought of the complete mess his father had made of things...of his own terrible reputation. Of his innate refusal to let anyone close to him. Where it had come from, he did not know, Ethan just knew it was there. And an emotional desert did not, to his mind, a good father make.

  And then he heard her voice.

  ‘It takes a bit of getting used to, doesn’t it?’

  He didn’t answer. Ethan doubted he would ever get used to it.

  He walked down the corridor, and the only indication that he wasn’t quite as calm and collected as he was making out was the slight cuss he gave when the security card didn’t unlock the door on his first swipe.

  It was odd to be back in this suite, Merida thought as she stepped inside. The last time they had barely been able to keep their hands off each other; now they stood far apart as he poured two drinks.

  ‘I can’t have that,’ Merida pointed out.

  That didn’t stop him. He took a drink as he looked at her, and she wished—how she wished—she could work out what was going on in his mind. He looked completely together—as if he’d just come back from a night at the theatre, rather than made a mad dash to JFK, having found out he was to be a father.

  And then he asked a question. ‘Is there any doubt that it’s mine?’

  She could have slapped him. ‘Do you really have to ask?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ethan said. ‘I really have to ask.’

  By Devereux standards she was getting off lightly—DNA evidence would usually be required before they even met face to face.

  He’d been through this before. Not directly, but with Abe. It had turned out that the baby wasn’t his.

  There had also been a few pregnancy scares over the years with his father, though all that had eased off in the last decade.

  ‘Is it mine?’ he asked again.

  ‘Yes,’ Merida said. ‘There’s been no one else before or after that night. I was a virgin, Ethan,’ she pointed out.

  ‘You said you were on the Pill. That you had it “all covered”.’ He put his fingers up and mimed quotation marks, because he had replayed that morning several times.

  ‘I was on the Pill,’ Merida said. ‘I used to take it at night. I thought that I’d be home to take it.’

  Merida looked at his rigid, unreadable face. Her voice rose to a near shout.

  ‘I meant to take it when I got changed for the audition, but I forgot, and then, after you ended things, I was upset.’

  ‘And now you’re angry and threatening lawyers?’

  ‘I only said that because I couldn’t get through to you.’

  ‘Well, you’re through to me now.’ He gave a black smile. ‘Why the wait, Merida? We could have been having this conversation three months ago.’

  ‘I only recently found out...’ she attempted, but then decided it was best not to lie. ‘I’ve been avoiding facing it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘I’m not here to play guessing games. Why have you been avoiding facing it and telling me?’

  ‘Because as much as I didn’t want to be pregnant, I didn’t want an abortion. Something told me that that might be your suggestion.’

  He said nothing to that.

  ‘And I was getting it from all angles at work.’

  Still he said nothing, and she looked at his granite features.

  ‘Why are you acting so cold?’

  ‘I’m not acting,’ Ethan retorted. ‘I am cold, Merida.’

  ‘No, you’re not. That night we met—’

  ‘I wanted you in bed!’ he retorted. ‘I can be charming if I want.’

  ‘So you were faking being nice?’ Merida let out an angry incredulous laugh. ‘What about the next morning?’ It still killed her the way he had ended things. ‘Were you pretending then?’

  He could not bear to think about that morning, so he got back to this night. ‘When are you due?’

  ‘December the fourteenth.’

  This year. He would be a father this year.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Merida said, and the panic in her voice sounded a lot like the way he felt.

  Yet he remained calm on the surface. ‘We are where we are.’

  ‘What does that even mean?’

  That he would deal with it. In the same methodical way he dealt with any drama that landed on his desk.

  Emotions were not helpful when it came to decision-making, and his head and his heart were both pounding now. He was looking at the night they had met through less than rose-coloured glasses now, and wondering if Merida was quite as innocent as she made out.

  Sure, she’d been a virgin in the flesh—but, hell, had she seen an opportunity? Arrogance might have a part in his thought process, but it was more than that. For as long as he could remember he’d been warned to be more than careful. Mothers had deliberately enrolled their daughters in the same schools as him, young women had switched to Columbia when they’d found out he was there, just for a shot at the Devereux name.

  But rather than accuse he decided to get out.

  ‘I’m going to go,’ he told her. ‘Right now I think you need to rest, get some dinner...’

  ‘You’re going to go?’ She was aghast. ‘You’ve just found out that I’m pregnant and you’re walking off...?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ethan said. ‘Or I might say something I regret.’

  ‘Such as?’

  He gave a terse shake of his head. ‘We’ll speak tomorrow. You’ve had months to get your head around the fact there’s a baby on the way. I’ve had a couple of hours, Merida. It needs to sink in.’

  He needed a clear head, and so too did she—though there was one thing that had to be said.

  ‘I would never have asked you to have an abortion.’

  She just stared.

  ‘But I would never have chosen this situation either.’

  ‘And you think I would?’

  He refused to be drawn. ‘Get some sleep,’ Ethan said. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow, after I’ve spoken to a few people.’

  ‘Speak to me!’ Merida shouted, and then all the weeks of pent-up fear and anger erupted. She ran at him, but Ethan was less than impressed with her drama.

  ‘I shall be back tomorrow, and we’ll work out how to proceed.’

  He made it sound like a court case, Merida thought as the door closed on him. A delay in proceedings. Temporarily adjourned.

  Yet as her anger faded she was actually grateful for the reprieve...

  Merida opened the curtains to a gorgeous summer night and lay in bed, looking out to the park and remembering filming there and walking across the bridge, never thinking she would see Ethan again.

  Let alone be back in this suite.

  ‘We are where we are.’

  Those words had angered her when he’d said them, yet oddly they comforted her now.

  Ethan knew.

  They would move on from there.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ETHAN DIDN’T GO HOME.

  Instead he landed on Abe, who had a stunning brownstone in Greenwich Village.

  He took fo
r ever to answer the door.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘Tell Candice—’

  ‘She’s not here,’ Abe said. ‘I took her home. Come in.’

  ‘How was Jobe?’ Ethan asked as Abe poured them both a Scotch. They often referred to their father by his name; it worked far better in meetings.

  ‘He stuck it out right to the end, but he was pretty wrecked by the time it was over. I’ve just been looking at the press write-ups. His weight loss hasn’t gone unnoticed.’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t, would it?’ Ethan said. ‘He must have lost thirty pounds. Why can’t he just step back?’

  ‘According to him, now’s not the time. Anyway, you’re not here about that, are you?’

  ‘Nope.’ Ethan looked over to his brother, and for a moment wondered about the wisdom of coming to Abe for advice.

  Abe, even by Ethan’s standards, was a rake. God alone knew how Candice put up with him. Then again, Abe was brilliant, and tonight Ethan needed his brain.

  ‘I met a woman some time back. The night Jobe first went in to hospital...’

  ‘How long have you been seeing her?’

  ‘Just that night,’ Ethan said, and took a drink. ‘She’s from England.’

  ‘And...?’ Abe pushed.

  ‘I’ve just found out that she’s pregnant.’

  ‘I hope you’ve told her that there’s no way it can be yours.’

  Ethan said nothing.

  ‘And there is no way it can be yours because you wouldn’t be so idiotic as to have unprotected sex...’

  When Ethan still said nothing Abe let out a frustrated cuss. Then he shook his head and gave a dismissive wave of his hand.

  ‘Get a DNA test, talk to Maurice—’

  ‘It’s mine,’ Ethan said.

  ‘And you know that because...?’

  ‘I just know it is.’

  ‘Does she work?’

  ‘She’s an actress.’

  ‘So she’s had training at being convincing?’

  Ethan knew why he’d come then. Abe was like a black mirror, voicing his doubts. Yet he found himself arguing back at him.

  ‘She was working at a gallery when I met her. I dropped in to check things out for Khalid. Merida gave me a private tour.’

  ‘So it would seem.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘It was exactly like that,’ Abe said. ‘And don’t forget it for a moment. She saw you coming. Or rather she saw dollar signs and made sure you were coming. Some two-bit actress saw her chance—’

  ‘Hey!’ Ethan roared. ‘Merida’s good at what she does. I found out last night that she’d been cast in Night Forest...’

  But it didn’t sway Abe. ‘I’ll bet this house that she hadn’t been cast when you bedded her.’

  Ethan might be cynical where relationships were concerned but Abe was contemptuous.

  He was also right.

  ‘So what do you want to do?’ Abe asked.

  ‘I don’t know, but I have to sort something out. She was on her way back to England when I found out.’

  ‘Well, that sounds like a solution to me.’ Abe shrugged. ‘Pay her off, set her up, drop in now and then, be seen to do the right thing...’

  His final words were like a punch to the gut. Ethan practically felt Abe’s fist land and was grateful he was sitting down. He sat there, staring into the amber fluid, remembering being lined up for photos, smiling for journalists, being ‘seen to do the right thing’, just as Abe described.

  And then their father, being his usual arrogant self, closing the door on his study the moment the photographers and reporters were gone.

  His mind cast around for their mother, for the perfect childhood he had had before she was gone. For a memory of her.

  Except there wasn’t one.

  Not one that he could remember, aside from the photos that lined his father’s walls.

  ‘I don’t want them in another country,’ Ethan said, and that winded feeling stirred into nausea as he thought of his close call tonight.

  Had he arrived a few moments later they might be on a plane now.

  They.

  Merida and his baby.

  ‘Then we’ll sort it,’ Abe said. ‘It’s going to cost you, but...’

  ‘I’m not here for financial advice,’ Ethan said. ‘I’m thinking of marrying her.’

  Ethan didn’t exactly expect his brother to jump up and shake his hand and slap his back, but at the revelation that he was about to be a father Ethan had expected a little more,

  But Abe was thinking in dollars. ‘A contract needs to be nutted out properly. How many divorce meetings have we sat through? How many times have we stepped in when Jobe got too generous...?’

  Ethan closed his eyes.

  ‘It’s not all bad,’ Abe said. ‘If she’s an actress she’ll at least know how to smile for the cameras. And it might be a nice way to divert the press from Jobe’s health, or lack of it. Babies are good for that.’’

  ‘I don’t know how Candice puts up with you.’

  ‘She puts up with me because I pay her to,’ Abe said, and Ethan looked up as for the first time he heard the truth about his brother and Candice. ‘It’s a business arrangement.’

  ‘Just business?’

  ‘Yes. Candice gets an apartment, a monthly allowance, and for that she just has to trot out for dinner or the theatre once in a while—and, of course, appear to forgive me for my indiscretions. The board likes to see stability and a constant partner by my side. It’s not for ever. I don’t doubt that I’ll have to work out alternative arrangements soon. But for now everyone’s happy.’

  ‘You don’t have a baby on the way, though.’

  ‘Which makes it all the more important that you go into this well informed. Call Maurice now and tell him to meet you at the office—and to get Lewis in.’

  Lewis was their contract attorney, and had had his work cut out with Jobe’s health crisis.

  It would seem the baton had been handed back to Ethan.

  ‘Now?’ Ethan checked.

  ‘Now.’ Abe nodded. ‘Don’t speak with her again until you’ve sorted out a plan.’

  It was the classic Devereux modus operandi—they never walked into a meeting unarmed. And they never played nice.

  ‘It’s up to you to make it work,’ Abe said. ‘Set the tone from the start. You need to plan for the day when this sham of a marriage is over.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ETHAN KNOCKED ON the door to his own suite and then let himself in.

  There were dishes on the table when he put down his briefcase, so he knew she’d had dinner. And there were towels on the floor when he walked into the bedroom.

  There Merida lay, on her side, her red hair so long that it spilled onto both pillows, her breathing deep and even.

  She looked so peaceful that after a long night with Maurice and Lewis he wanted to flick the Do Not Disturb switch, undress and climb into bed. Not even for sex, but just to blot out the world and share in a slice of that peace.

  There would be no peace today, though.

  He’d listened to Lewis, but—like his father before him—had insisted on more generous terms than he’d recommended.

  God, the apple really didn’t fall far from the tree, Ethan thought. And then he thought how his own parents’ marriage had ended—with his mother running off and dead within a couple of weeks.

  He and Merida had to be properly prepared for the end of their marriage. To Ethan, that was the one certainty in all of this—because he knew, beyond doubt, that nothing lasted.

  There was not one relationship that he could draw on that said otherwise. Not a single one.

  It was easier to believe he’d been trapped than to be
lieve in the beauty of that night. It was safer that way.

  ‘Merida?’

  She didn’t move.

  ‘Merida...’ he said again, and watched her green eyes open and a slight moment of disorientation flick over her features as she looked up at him and first frowned and then smiled.

  ‘For a moment I thought you were an air steward with breakfast.’

  He didn’t smile.

  ‘And that I’d been upgraded to first class.’

  ‘You have been.’

  Merida sat up, and he saw that she’d gone to bed wearing the hotel robe.

  ‘How did you sleep?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘Far better than I expected to,’ Merida admitted. ‘You?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Ethan replied, and she saw then that he was wearing the same suit he’d had on last night and had dark violet smudges beneath his eyes.

  He called Room Service and ordered strong coffee. Merida asked for tea.

  ‘Do you want to get dressed?’ Ethan suggested. ‘Before we start?’

  Merida gave a small nod of her head.

  ‘Fifteen minutes, then. I’ll see you out there.’

  ‘You make it sound like a business meeting.’

  He gave a mirthless laugh and headed out of the bedroom. He didn’t tell her that was exactly what this was.

  Merida climbed out of bed and went through her case—although, given her expanding waist, she wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice. She washed her face and settled for a pale shift dress, and then, hearing breakfast arrive, she tied back her hair and headed out.

  He held a chair for her at the gleaming walnut table, and she nibbled on a pastry as he went to his briefcase.

  Given that it felt like a business meeting, Merida decided that she would kick things off. She’d been doing a lot of thinking last night as she had lain looking out at the moon drifting across the sky.

  A lot.

  ‘I’m not asking for financial support...’

  For some reason that served to make him smile, she saw. Not a friendly smile, though, more a private smile—as if she had delivered the punchline to some private joke.

  But Merida pushed on. ‘I want to work.’

  ‘As an actress?’