The Blackmail Pregnancy

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘Praise indeed.’

  She couldn’t distinguish his tone. His expression was masked, as if he didn’t want her to see what he was really thinking. She looked into his eyes, looking for reassurance. She found none. His eyes were like cold, deep pools—unfathomable, unreachable.

  She moved away from the window and stepped down into the sunken lounge, her footsteps echoing along the floor. A large open fireplace took up almost one wall, and she imagined cosy evenings curled up on comfortable leather sofas, watching the flickering flames.

  She was startled out of her reverie by the sound of Byron’s approach. She swung away from the fireplace and headed for the kitchen, uncomfortable with being in the same room as him for too long.

  ‘The kitchen, as you can see, has already been decorated.’ Byron spoke from his leaning position against the doorframe.

  ‘It’s very nice,’ she offered, running a hand across the black gleam of the granite countertop.

  Stainless steel appliances added to the modern effect, and she knew she would have chosen exactly the same. She wondered if he’d chosen the design himself, or if perhaps his sister Felicity had helped him.

  ‘I thought it would be best to get a head start on this. You can choose the colours for the rest of the house—the carpets and furniture and drapes and so on. Do whatever you think. I won’t balk at the price.’

  Cara’s hand fell away from the smooth countertop as he stepped towards her.

  ‘Byron, I—’

  He cut off her speech with a long lean finger pressed gently but firmly against the soft swell of her lips.

  ‘No, Cara,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t want to hear your final decision yet.’

  Her eyes communicated her distress.

  ‘You haven’t made up your mind, I can tell,’ he continued, his dark eyes never once leaving her face. ‘But you’re sorely tempted—aren’t you, Cara?’

  She tried to shake her head, but couldn’t move under the caress of his finger, tracing the line of her bottom lip on a path of rediscovery that sent tremors of feeling to her curling toes and back.

  ‘You want the house but you haven’t quite made up your mind about all that comes with it, have you?’

  She opened her mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out.

  ‘I’ll give you until the end of the weekend to decide,’ he said, stepping away from her. ‘But that’s all. On Sunday night I want your final answer.’

  She felt cold without his warm body so close to hers. Her mouth felt dry and overly sensitive, and she ran her tongue over her lips and tasted where his finger had been.

  ‘All right,’ she said in a voice she hardly recognised.

  He lifted his dark brows slightly, as if surprised by her acquiescence.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Come and I’ll show you the garden. I think you’ll like it.’

  What was not to like? Cara thought as she followed him around the grounds. The crinkling surface of the lap pool glistened in the dancing sunlight and the fragrance of jasmine was heady in the air. Potted azaleas cascaded their bright blooms and the verdant expanse of lawn led down to a tennis court built on the lower terrace. The harbour sparkled in the distance and Cara breathed in the salty air and wished with every fibre of her being that she could turn back the clock.

  As he came closer all the fine hairs on the back of her neck rose like antennae.

  ‘Do you still play?’ he asked, indicating the lush green of the tennis court as he stood beside her, his broad shoulder brushing against her.

  She turned to look up at him, her throat suddenly dry.

  ‘I haven’t played in years.’

  ‘Shame.’ He looked down at her. ‘You should take it up again. You were good. Damn good.’

  Time seemed to stand still. Cara was almost certain she could hear the sound of children’s laughter somewhere in the distance, but wondered if she’d just imagined it. The chirruping sparrows and the cooing doves on the lawn faded into the background as she lost herself in the deep, dark and mesmerising gaze of her ex-husband.

  His head lowered towards hers, hesitated for an inestimable pause, then finished the distance with a soft press of his lips to hers. Her lips swelled in response. She could feel the tingle of their heightened sensitivity from that merest touch. His warm breath caressed her face before he pressed his mouth to hers once more—firmer this time, but only just.

  A part of Cara demanded she step away from that tempting mouth. But an even bigger part of her overruled it. It was just a kiss, she reassured herself. Almost a kiss between strangers.

  But there was nothing strange about Byron’s mouth when he swooped a third time. Her mouth flowered open beneath his, just like one of the spilling azalea blooms at their feet. His tongue grazed her bottom lip and her fight was over before it had even truly begun. His tongue tangled with hers and she would have fallen if it hadn’t been for the steel band of his arm coming around her to draw her into the hard wall of his body. She jolted against him in a combination of shock at his ready arousal and shame at her instant response to it. She wanted him. After seven long years she was his for the asking, and his mouth was responding to hers as if he knew it as well.

  Cara felt the brush of his hand underneath her breast and ached for the cradle of his palm on her engorged flesh. He pulled her further into his body and her pelvis loosened at the feel of his hips grinding into hers. He was rock-hard, and even through the barrier of their clothes she could feel his scorching heat. Her secret place remembered and responded, moistening in preparation for the intimate invasion she’d spent seven years trying to expunge from her mind.

  He lifted his mouth from hers and stepped away. Cara steadied herself by grasping the wrought-iron railing that divided the lap pool from the lawn. She brushed back her loosened hair with a hand that threatened to betray her outward composure.

  ‘I’ll be waiting in the car,’ he said in a flat, emotionless tone. ‘Take your time looking around. I have some phone calls to make.’

  As he strode towards the side gate Cara stared after him until he disappeared from view. She ran her tongue over her swollen mouth and tasted him. Familiar, yet strange. Known but now unknowable.

  She looked up at the big empty house and agonised over what her decision would be on Sunday evening. She wasn’t sure she had much say in the matter; the way her body was feeling had already decided for her. Did she have the strength to walk away from him a second time?

  She went back through the house via the bathroom, to tidy herself before rejoining Byron at the car. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and was a little shocked by the wild, abandoned look in her hazel-flecked eyes. Passion burned in her gaze—a dormant passion now stirred into blistering life by just one kiss from a mouth that still hadn’t once smiled at her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  BYRON was leaning against the car, listening to someone on the other end of his mobile phone, his eyes squinting slightly against the bright sunshine. Cara approached the car and he turned as if he sensed her behind him. He carefully avoided her eyes as he came around and opened the door for her. He finished the call and slid into the driver’s seat, all without addressing a single word to her.

  Cara wanted to break the silence but couldn’t think of anything to say. What did one say to an ex-husband in these situations? I still love you after all these years? I made a mistake, the biggest mistake of my life, when I left you? Can we try again?

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you say something?’ His eyes flicked her way as he turned the wheel.

  She hadn’t realised she’d spoken out loud, so deep was her concentration on the past.

  ‘No, nothing…’

  He turned the car into the traffic before speaking again.

  ‘I thought we could have lunch.’ He glanced at the car clock. ‘I have a client at two, but if we’re quick we can grab a sandwich and a coffee somewhere.’

  Cara didn’t want to appear too desperate for his
company, and wished she could invent two or three clients of her own, but the rest of her afternoon was unfortunately very free.

  ‘I should get back to the office—’

  ‘And do what?’ He glanced at her again. ‘Your business has ground to a halt. Is my company so distasteful to you that you can’t even stomach the thought of sharing a simple meal with me?’

  She flinched at the bitterness in his voice.

  ‘No, of course not.’ But even to her own ears her tone lacked conviction.

  ‘No wonder you’re balking at the suggestion of sharing my bed,’ he ground out. ‘Let alone bearing my child.’

  Cara stared at her tightly clenched hands in her lap, and before replying waited until she had her emotions under some sort of control.

  ‘Lunch will be fine,’ she said at last. ‘I don’t have any other engagements.’

  He drove to a café in Neutral Bay in stony silence. Cara looked at him once or twice, but his attention was on the traffic ahead. His normally smooth brow was deeply furrowed, the lines around his mouth tightly etched, as if he were only just managing to keep control of his anger. She knew he was angry with her. Seven years of anger separated them just as much as the issues that had caused the first rift.

  She’d been adamant from their very first date that she had no intention of ever having children. She hadn’t told him the real reason, but instead had grasped for the generally held assumption that young career-driven women had better things to do with their time than haunt some man’s kitchen barefoot with a protruding belly. The fact that she hadn’t at that point in her life had a career hadn’t taken away the strength of her argument. But at twenty-two years old what truths of the world had she really known? She’d flitted from job to job, searching for something she had known was out there somewhere for her to devote herself to. But back then it hadn’t yet appeared on the horizon.

  It had taken the bitter divorce to propel her into the field of interior design. She’d immersed herself in her studies, trying to dull the throb of pain that just wouldn’t go away. And yet for all her efforts the pain was still there, waiting for a chance to break free of its bounds.

  Byron parked the car and she joined him on the pavement outside the café. A waitress led them to a table shaded by a huge leafy tree and Cara sat down and stared at the menu sightlessly.

  ‘Cara?’

  She looked up and his eyes clashed with hers.

  ‘What sort of coffee would you like?’ he asked, indicating the hovering waitress.

  ‘I’ll just have a mineral water, please,’ she told the waitress, who then moved to the next table.

  She could feel Byron’s speculative gaze on her and fidgeted with the hem of the tablecloth to distract her.

  ‘What happened to the latte lady?’ he asked.

  She gave a shrug and examined the menu once more.

  ‘She couldn’t sleep.’

  As she looked up and caught the tail-end of a small smile she wished she’d looked up earlier.

  ‘Do you drink?’

  ‘Alcohol, you mean?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Not any more.’ She lowered her gaze once more and stared at a tiny crinkle in the tablecloth in front of her.

  ‘Tell me about your mother, Cara.’

  Cara stiffened. Schooling her features back into indifference was hard with him sitting so close. So close and yet so far.

  ‘I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead,’ she countered, and was relieved when the waitress arrived with their drinks.

  She drank thirstily and hoped he’d move onto another subject.

  Once the waitress had left Byron spooned sugar into his cappuccino and stirred it thoughtfully. He’d been a little unprepared for seeing Cara again. He’d thought it would be easy. He’d breeze in and call the shots. But somehow something wasn’t quite right. He’d been too young and inexperienced to see it before. He’d fallen in lust and then in love with an ideal—an ideal that had turned out to be a real woman with issues that just wouldn’t go away. He could see that now. Hurt shone from her hazel eyes, hurt that he’d certainly contributed to—but not just him; he felt sure about that.

  She’d never let him meet her mother. He wondered now why he hadn’t insisted. Somehow Cara had always found an excuse: her mother was away visiting relatives, couldn’t make it to the wedding, had the flu and wasn’t seeing anyone. He hadn’t pressed her about it. Anyway, her mother had lived in another state, so visiting had mostly been out of the question. He had spoken to Edna Gillem once on the telephone, and it still pained him to recall their conversation. It had well and truly driven the last nail into the coffin that had contained his short marriage.

  With the wisdom of hindsight he could see the mistakes he’d made almost from the first moment he’d met Cara. She had been out with a group of friends whom he’d later referred to as ‘the pack’. They had been like baying hounds, crying out for male flesh, and from the first moment he had seen Cara was in the wrong company. She’d looked scared, vulnerable in a way that had dug deeply at the masculine protective devices his father and grandfather before him had entrenched in his soul.

  He’d taken her to one side to buy her a drink and one drink had led to another. He’d taken her to his apartment and she’d fallen asleep on his sofa. In three weeks she had been sleeping in his bed, and eight weeks later wearing his ring. He’d never slept with a virgin before, and it had taken him completely by surprise.

  He often felt guilty when he recalled his actions of all those years ago. If only he’d taken his time, got to know her—the real Cara, not the shell she presented to the world. Maybe he wouldn’t be sitting opposite her now, in a crowded café, with the pain of seven years dividing them. They could have had kids in school by now—kids with hazel eyes and light brown hair that wouldn’t always do as it was told.

  He stirred his coffee and took a deep draught, his eyes catching hers as she reached for her mineral water. What was she thinking? She looked so cool, so composed, but still he wondered…

  ‘How are your parents?’ she asked.

  He gave his coffee another absent stir and Cara saw the hint of a small smile of affection briefly lift the corners of his mouth.

  ‘They’re fine. Fighting fit. Dad has taken up golf and Mum is part of a bridge club.’

  ‘And your twin brothers and sister?’

  He pushed his half-finished coffee aside and met her interested gaze.

  ‘Patrick eventually married Sally, and they have five-year-old twins—Katie and Kirstie. Leon and Olivia now have three kids—Ben, seven, Bethany, five, and Clare is three. Fliss has two-year-old Thomas, and is apparently expecting a girl this time.’

  Cara drained her glass and set it aside.

  ‘And your business?’ she added. ‘It finally took off?’

  ‘Like you would never believe,’ he said, and then added with a rueful twist to his mouth, ‘You should’ve hung around.’

  She didn’t respond. The waitress appeared with the sandwiches he’d ordered earlier, and she stared at the food set down before her and wondered how she’d ever force it down her restricted throat.

  She’d never doubted he’d be successful as a property developer; he came from a long line of very successful moneyed men. What surprised her was how little that success had fulfilled him. She’d imagined him married, with the brood of kids he’d always wanted, but he was still single—and asking her to resume their relationship temporarily. She didn’t understand him. Perhaps she never had.

  Some endless minutes passed before either of them spoke.

  ‘My parents send their regards,’ Byron said. ‘I was speaking to them last night.’

  Cara met his eyes across the table and looked away again.

  ‘Please send on my own. I’ve thought of them over the years.’

  ‘What about me?’ he asked after a tiny pause. ‘Have you thought about me?’

  She fidgeted with her napkin, ignoring the untouched food in f
ront of her.

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘Just a bit?’

  ‘A lot.’

  He seemed satisfied with her answer and she instantly regretted saying anything that would make Byron think she was still hankering after him, like a lovelorn ex-wife who couldn’t get her life back on track.

  ‘Did Felicity finish her degree?’ She asked the first question that came into her mind.

  ‘With honours. We’re very proud of her. She’s the first Rockcliffe female to complete a doctorate. My mother got as far as her master’s, but it took Fliss’s determination and brilliance to lift the game that next notch.’

  ‘I always thought she’d do it,’ Cara said. ‘She’s got what it takes.’

  ‘Evidently so have you,’ he observed. ‘That’s an impressive degree hanging on your office wall.’

  ‘It came at a high price.’

  ‘But worth it, surely?’ he asked. ‘You’ve made your mark on Sydney’s design intelligentsia.’

  ‘But not on the bank manager.’

  ‘No, but they’re hard to please at the best of times.’

  She felt a smile tug at her mouth.

  ‘Trevor would be glad to hear you say that,’ she said.

  ‘Did you meet him at design school?’

  She nodded. ‘He was a friend of a friend—you know how it goes.’

  ‘Have you got a boyfriend? A lover?’

  Cara bent her head over her food, playing with the salad garnish. ‘I can’t see that it’s any of your business. What about you?’ She lifted her eyes gamely to his.

  His dark gaze gave nothing away. ‘Suffice it to say I’m in between appointments.’

  Her heart squeezed at the thought of him involved with someone else, but she fought against revealing her feelings to him. It was none of her business who he slept with—now.

  ‘So I take it your offer to me is some sort of stop-gap?’

  ‘You might like to see it that way, but I prefer to see it as an investment in the future.’

  ‘There’s not much future for children without two loving parents,’ she pointed out. ‘Surely all children are entitled to at least that?’