The Blackmail Pregnancy

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘You’ve been shopping,’ he said, looking around. ‘Very nice.’

  ‘It was frightfully expensive.’ She screwed up the cloth in her hands and avoided his eyes.

  ‘How expensive?’

  She told him and he shrugged.

  ‘I told you to do what you had to do, no price limit. You’ve done a good job.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, a rush of warmth filling her at his compliment.

  She watched as he stepped down into the lounge room and tested the sofas.

  ‘Come and sit here and tell me what sort of day you’ve had.’ He patted the sofa seat next to him.

  Cara tentatively sat beside him, conscious of the way the soft leather gathered around her, drawing her closer towards his strongly muscled thighs.

  One of his hands stretched out along the sofa behind her shoulders; the other picked up a stray lock of her hair and gently tucked it behind her ear. The soft brush of his fingers along the sensitive skin of her cheek made her heart squeeze in her chest. How she longed to feel him touch her again!

  ‘So, did you have a good day, Cara?’

  She wrenched her eyes away from the movement of his lips as he spoke and concentrated on the black dots on his tie.

  ‘It was OK.’

  He tilted her chin with one finger so she had no choice but to look him in the eyes.

  ‘You don’t like looking at me, do you?’

  She didn’t answer; in fact, couldn’t answer.

  ‘I want you to look at me,’ he said deeply. ‘I want to see what’s going on behind that cool exterior. I want to see the real Cara, not the cardboard cut-out you usually present to the world.’

  She pushed away from his hand and stood up, her expression guarded.

  ‘I need to have a shower,’ she said. ‘I’m covered in dust from unpacking the furniture.’

  He got to his feet, and before she could scoot away he caught her by the wrist and held her fast.

  ‘Don’t push me away. I’m trying to help you—can’t you see that?’

  She glared at his hand around her wrist before lifting her eyes to his.

  ‘You don’t want to help me,’ she bit out. ‘You want to control me.’

  ‘I don’t want to control you at all,’ he said. ‘I want to understand you. Anyone can see how unhappy you are. It positively comes off you in waves.’

  ‘What business is it of yours?’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t you stay out of my life? Why are you suddenly so interested in my emotional state after seven years?’

  ‘Because I made some errors of judgement in the past and I want to make sure I don’t make them again.’

  She lowered her eyes and swallowed the knot of tension building in her throat.

  ‘I want you to learn to trust me,’ he continued. ‘To stop seeing me as the enemy and more as your friend.’

  ‘You have a very strange notion of friendship.’ Her tone was heavy with sarcasm. ‘Friends don’t exploit each other; neither do they make impossible demands.’

  ‘Perhaps I should remind you at this point that if I hadn’t stepped in, your financial affairs would be in tatters. Your reputation as an interior designer would be shot to pieces—not to mention your partner’s.’ His voice was edged with steel as he looked down at her.

  Resentment burned like a fire in her as she listened to him. She bit her lip to stop herself from flying at him with words she might later have to withdraw. Her anger threatened to spill over, but she clamped down on it with determination. He had her over a barrel and he knew it. She’d seen the figures, and she knew enough about the interior design business to know how quickly the gossip network worked. If word got out they were in trouble, what little business there was would drop off even more.

  ‘I’ve engaged the services of a business manager,’ he said, watching the struggle played out on her face. ‘She’ll do the books and keep a watchful eye on things.’

  ‘How dare you?’ She wrenched herself from his hold and glared at him. ‘You’ve taken over my personal life and, not happy with that, now you’ve taken over my business as well!’

  ‘Cara, don’t let your emotions cloud the issue. Think about it, a business manager will free you and Trevor to spend more time doing the things you’re best at.’

  ‘You had no right to go over my head like that.’

  ‘I had every right,’ he said, his frustration increasing. ‘I’ve invested a lot of money and I’m not going to sit back and see my efforts go to waste. Besides, what about when you get pregnant? You’ll want to cut back on your hours and take things easy.’

  ‘You’ve got it all planned, haven’t you?’ Her eyes flashed fire at him. ‘What if I don’t fall pregnant, according to plan? What then?’

  Anger darkened his eyes and his hands reached for her with a renewed strength that she had no hope of circumventing.

  ‘You will get pregnant,’ he said in a cold, hard tone. ‘I’m going to make absolutely sure of it.’

  He pulled her into the wall of his body, his mouth crashing down on hers. Cara tried to escape, but once his lips touched hers she was lost. It was an angry kiss, but she didn’t care. His kiss brought her jaded body to instant thrumming life. Her pulse raced at the sensation of his tongue probing for entry and her heart tripped when he achieved it with deft purpose, leaving no part of her mouth untouched.

  Her breathing quickened. The hands that had earlier pushed against him to escape were now hanging on to his shirt, her nails digging through the fabric into his chest. She could feel the hard ridge of his erection and her spine loosened in reaction. Her legs quivered as he pushed her down on to the sofa, his hands already under her top, freeing her breasts from her bra. He bent his mouth to each hardened peak, sucking hard as if he wanted to cause her both pleasure and pain. She whimpered as his mouth moved lower, his hands at the waistband of her toffee-coloured trousers.

  Suddenly he lifted himself off her and, standing up, scored a pathway through his hair with his hand. His breathing wasn’t much steadier than hers she was relieved to see as she struggled upright and tidied the disarray of her clothes.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ His tone was gruff. ‘I shouldn’t have reacted like that. It won’t happen again.’

  She lifted her chin and, getting to her feet, brushed past him without a word.

  ‘Cara.’

  She hesitated on the step out of the lounge, but then thinking better of it continued on as if he hadn’t spoken. Byron watched her go, his mouth tightening as he turned to stare at the evening view instead.

  ‘Damn it.’ He addressed the harbour in front of him. ‘Damn it to hell.’

  She came downstairs an hour later, dressed in a brown skirt and a long-sleeved white top, her hair piled on top of her head. Her eyes skilfully avoided his as she asked, ‘Do you still want to eat out? I wasn’t sure so…’ She left the rest of the sentence hanging in the air.

  ‘Yes.’

  He reached for his jacket from where he’d thrown it earlier, across the back of one of the stately dining chairs.

  ‘Come on—it’s what we both need. Neutral ground.’

  She felt inclined to agree with him. The house, large as it was, didn’t offer her the same sense of safety a crowded restaurant would.

  Some minutes later they were shown to a quiet table in the corner of a small French restaurant, and she had cause to wonder if she’d overrated the safety factor. She didn’t feel too safe, sitting alone with him in this private corner, away from the cynosure of the other clientele’s eyes.

  His eyes met and held hers across the small intimate table.

  ‘There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.’

  Cara felt her spine stiffen in apprehension.

  ‘Yes?’

  He waited until the waiter had placed their drinks before continuing. ‘I’m flying to Melbourne the weekend after next. I want you to come with me.’

  ‘Are you asking me or telling me?’

  He considered her
question for a moment.

  ‘Both. I’ve already booked the flights. It is an important occasion and I don’t want to miss out.’

  ‘Why are you telling me? You’ve already organised it. What if I don’t wish to go?’

  ‘I’d like you to make the effort,’ he said. ‘My parents are celebrating forty years of marriage. I think it would be nice for us to share in it.’

  ‘It has nothing to do with me. You go; I’ve got plenty to do to fill my time.’

  ‘My parents would like you to be there.’

  She looked at him in consternation.

  ‘You’ve told them about…about us?’

  ‘Not in so many words. I’ve told them what they need to know. When they heard we were…’ he hesitated over the word ‘…seeing each other again, they insisted you be invited.’

  ‘We’re not “seeing each other”, as you so euphemistically describe.’ Her tone was cutting. ‘You’re hoping to use me as a human incubator. Did you tell them that?’

  ‘I don’t wish to be drawn into an argument with you, Cara. Certainly not in a busy restaurant. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to discuss this like two rational adults.’

  ‘I don’t want to go.’

  He sighed and tried another tack.

  ‘Please, Cara. Fliss would like to see you again. She’s missed you over the years. She was devastated when you left.’

  Cara thought about his younger sister, picturing her as she had been back then—four years younger than her, full of the vigour of youthfulness, eighteen and on the threshold of adulthood. Even then she had outclassed her school-friends in her academic achievements, with a perfect score in her leaving certificate. Cara imagined her now, with a small child and another on the way, a doctorate already under her belt and still only twenty-five years old. As gifted went, Fliss had certainly upped the benchmark.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.

  ‘That’s as good as I’m going to get from you, isn’t it?’

  She inspected his face for bitterness, but instead he was smiling at her wryly. She liked the way his features relaxed when he smiled. She liked the way his dark eyes softened and the way his forehead lost the almost permanent groove she was so used to seeing there whenever he was with her.

  ‘I’m not very good at making promises that far ahead of time,’ she confessed reluctantly.

  ‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘We’ll just take it one day at a time. You can tell me in a few days, or if you like even on the Friday morning; the flight doesn’t leave until six p.m.’

  The waiter came to over them with the daily specials blackboard and Cara was spared the necessity of reply. They ordered their food, and once the waiter had left she felt herself relax a little into the chair, relieved she had a few days before she had to commit herself.

  It had been such a busy day, fraught with emotional highs and lows. She wasn’t used to dealing with the intensity of an intimate relationship any more. She hadn’t ever been that good at it, even when they were married. Byron’s expectations of their relationship had been so different from hers.

  He came from a secure family background—noisy at times, but totally secure. His parents loved each other, and their four children, and had even made a huge effort to welcome her into the family, though they’d been a little shocked at the speed with which she’d joined it. She suspected they had believed her to be pregnant and desperate for the respectability of marriage, but as the months had gone on their attitude towards her had seemed to improve. It was ironic, really, she thought as she twirled the drinking straw in her glass; they had no sooner begun to accept her when the real trouble between her and Byron had begun.

  In truth she’d found the whole exercise claustrophobic. She’d felt as if she couldn’t breathe, with everyone so involved in each other’s life. She and Byron hadn’t spent a single weekend of their short marriage alone. There’d been family picnics or barbecues, or other outings that somehow required each and everyone to attend. Cara hadn’t been prepared for such a frenetic lifestyle and had retreated even further into her shell. She’d felt trapped by Byron’s desire to start a family and had argued heatedly and repeatedly with him over her use of contraceptives.

  She’d left him soon after a particularly vicious row. She still cringed to think of the names they’d thrown at each other. She’d been unwell for weeks, not having picked up properly after a bad bout of flu, and her temper had been frayed beyond the limit by yet another demand for their attendance at a family gathering. Cara had packed her bags and caught the first train to the city, desperate for some breathing space.

  Later that day she’d seen Byron in a café with Megan, his childhood sweetheart, the young woman everyone had previously expected him to marry. Megan had obviously been crying and Byron’s arm had been around her shaking shoulders, his head bent close to hers. Cara hadn’t needed to see any more. Something deep inside her had closed up, as if a door that had been prised apart earlier had finally snapped shut, never to be reopened.

  She had caught the next available flight to Sydney and within a week had filed for divorce. She had known he’d come after her, so had covered her tracks until eventually he’d given up. Her lawyer had at one point laid professional interests aside and tried to get her to rethink her actions, but her mind had already been made up. She didn’t belong in the Rockcliffe family; she never had. She’d been foolish to think the clash of their backgrounds wouldn’t have some sort of effect.

  Her mother had gloated over the dissolution of her marriage. Cara hadn’t seen her manipulation until it had been too late to escape. The pattern of years had disguised its power over her. It pained her to think of her gullibility, to see the way her mother had so skilfully achieved her own selfish ends, destroying her daughter’s life in the process.

  Quite by accident Cara had discovered she was pregnant. She had no longer been able to ignore her general malaise, and a routine check-up had uncovered that she was close to six months pregnant. Her mother had been furious. She obviously hadn’t wanted Cara to return to Byron and had railed at her to get rid of it, before her life was ruined as hers had been by Cara’s birth.

  Cara had been in such a low state emotionally that she’d lost concentration whilst driving with her mother to an appointment with a family planning advisor. A car running a red light had slammed into her mother’s side of the car. Her mother had been seriously injured, needing months of rehabilitation, and Cara had lost the baby. Her own rehabilitation had been postponed while she dealt with the increasing demands of her mother. She’d been well and truly caught in her mother’s trap and there had been no way out.

  Every day for the next four years Edna Gillem had berated her daughter for ruining her life, ending her marriage and taking away her every chance at happiness. Cara had been exposed to her mother’s vitriol all her life, but somehow her guard had been down further than usual after the loss of her baby. Her mother’s hatred had injured her in a place no one had ever been able to reach before. Without even being aware of it she had slipped into the role of her mother’s slave, juggling her ever-increasing demands with her own study commitments.

  She would never know how she’d got through those years. Somehow she had, but the legacy they had left had marked her for life. She felt damaged. Her mother had spent years trying to destroy her self-esteem and finally she had.

  Cara had privately buried the tiny body that hadn’t had a chance at life. She’d had her daughter’s name engraved on a headstone she’d paid for with money from the divorce settlement. She’d told no one. Her secret was locked away inside, where no one could touch it, but every single time she even heard the name Emma mentioned that secret part of her contracted painfully, reminding her of all she’d lost…

  Byron broke into her agonising reverie with a gentle call of her name.

  She looked up and stared at him, as if she were surprised to see him sitting opposite her.

  ‘Where did you go?’ he asked.
/>
  ‘Go?’

  ‘In your mind. You had that faraway look in your eyes.’

  ‘Did I?’

  He reached for her hand, holding it in the warmth of his.

  ‘Tell me, Cara. Don’t shut me out.’

  She stared at her small cold hand, almost swallowed up by his large one. She thought about telling him, even imagined framing the words in such a way he’d understand, but then decided against it. She still didn’t know how he’d heard about her pregnancy. She wanted to find out but didn’t want to bring up the subject. It was just too painful, still too raw.

  ‘I was thinking about…about the colour of the rugs for the spare bedrooms,’ she lied. ‘And curtains. I was thinking about long ruffled pull-back curtains—swathes of fabric that offer privacy without obstructing the view.’

  Byron watched the movement of her eyes away from his and knew she was lying. Annoyance flicked along his veins. He wanted to get inside her head, find out everything about her. He’d never met a more complex person in his life and he hated the fact that she made it so clear she didn’t need him emotionally.

  He decided to let her get away with it this once. Something about the shadowed look in her eyes had alerted him to her fragility, and even though on the outside she presented a cool diffidence he was beginning to see it as a ruse. A very important, significant ruse.

  Their food arrived and he watched as she gave every appearance of enjoying her meal, even commenting on the various flavours once or twice.

  They left the restaurant in a companionable silence and Byron privately congratulated himself for not pushing her. She reminded him of a flighty horse who balked at the drinking trough. He’d have to think of some other strategy to get her to relax enough to drink.

  The house welcomed them with a warmth that secretly delighted Cara. The rugs she’d chosen for the marble floors took away their cold formality and added a cosiness that made the grand house feel more like a home.