A Scandal, a Secret, a BabyMarriage Scandal, Showbiz Baby!

by Sharon Kendrick

  And then, before she could relaunch herself on the world, she began to feel peculiar. From being full of energy, she found that she could hardly drag herself out of bed in the mornings.

  And her appetite increased. When she’d first met Matt she’d had the normal rounded body of a healthy young woman, but he’d taken her to Hollywood and she had realised that wasn’t good enough. It was stick-thin or nothing. She had trained her appetite to be satisfied with sparrow-like portions, but suddenly they were no longer enough.

  Now she found that she simply couldn’t control her hunger, and it was scary to find herself wolfing down a bowl of porridge for breakfast every morning—and covering it with golden syrup!

  She blamed the syrup for the nagging tightness of her jeans. But even when she cut out the syrup and dragged herself down to the exclusive gym in the basement of the apartment complex there was no marked improvement. In fact, quite the contrary.

  When it hit her, she realized she’d been very stupid. She wasn’t comfort-eating at all. But of course she had denied it—as she expected women who’d taken risks had done ever since the beginning of time.

  Except she hadn’t taken any risks!

  Telling herself it was hysteria, she upped her sessions at the gym and began to wear more forgiving trousers.

  But there came a day when her warped kind of logic refused to be heard any more. And that was the day she sent her cleaning lady out to buy a pregnancy testing kit.

  She didn’t really need to sit and wait to see whether a blue line would develop. She had known for weeks and weeks what the result would be.

  Jennifer sat down on one of the sofas and buried her head in her hands. In that moment she had never felt more lost or more alone. But it wasn’t as though she was going to waste time worrying about what she was going to do.

  There was only one thing she could do.

  She kept putting it off. And meanwhile time was ticking away. Her shape was changing and the appetite which had consumed her had now deserted her. Maybe that was a blessing in disguise—because she didn’t dare venture out to the local stores. Thank God for online shopping.

  But she couldn’t put off telling Matt for ever—and one morning, when the bright blue of the early-autumn sky seemed unbearably poignant, she hunted down her phone and found Matteo’s programmed-in number. It rang for a while before he picked up, and his voice was wary in a way she had never heard it sound before. That in itself was a shock—the thought that Matteo was moving on, changing and growing and leaving her behind, while she remained stuck firmly in the groove of the past.

  ‘Jennifer?’ he said slowly. ‘This is very unexpected.’

  Was it really? Didn’t it occur to him that she might want to discuss what had happened between them in France? Unless the caution in his voice was there for a more pragmatic reason—because she was disturbing him in the middle of…

  Her words came out as if someone was strangling her. ‘Can you…?’ She swallowed. ‘Is it all right for you to talk?’

  He frowned. ‘Sure.’

  He wasn’t giving her any kind of help—but then, why should he? She was the one who had instigated this conversation, and soon all his ties with her would be severed completely. She bit her lip. Except that they wouldn’t. Not now.

  ‘Matteo, I have to see you.’

  His voice hardened. ‘No, Jenny.’

  The room swayed. ‘No?’

  ‘There isn’t any point.’

  Jennifer felt the blood drain from her face as she realised that she had put herself in a position to be rejected. And that only increased her pain. ‘Matt, you don’t understand—’

  ‘Oh, but I do—believe me, I do. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.’ More than he’d wanted to. More than he could bear to. Matteo closed his eyes, wishing that he could blot out the memory of her legs laced tightly around his waist while he thrust deep inside her. Or—even more poignant—the memory of her blonde hair spread all over his pillow in Cannes. But their frantic coupling had been nothing but a mockery of a simple and tender intimacy which was gone for ever. Well, he would tolerate it—but he would not be used as some kind of stud to satisfy his ex-wife’s sexual needs!

  He kept his voice terse. ‘What happened between us proved that we’re still sexually compatible. That’s all. Nothing more. That’s not enough basis for a relationship—and it would destroy even the memory of what we once had.’

  In her outrage and her shame Jennifer nearly dropped the phone. He thought she was ringing him in order to get him back! He thought she was begging him to come back into her life! Trying to resurrect a relationship that was dead!

  She wanted to hurl the phone hard against the wall—to finish this conversation and all future conversations with the arrogant and egotistical bastard in the most satisfyingly violent way possible.

  But not yet.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said coldly. ‘Such an agenda couldn’t be further from my mind.’

  He felt a nerve flickering in his cheek. ‘I’m glad we understand each other.’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘So. Why are you ringing?’

  She couldn’t say it over the phone. She couldn’t. It was the coward’s way out and she wanted to see his face. Needed to see his face.

  ‘There’s some paperwork I need you to look at.’

  And what? Look into those big sapphire eyes again and start seeing what he wanted to see instead of what was real? Letting himself confide in her and share his thoughts with her? Start wanting to tear her clothing off, with her letting him? Or would she? Maybe this time she would torment him by saying no, by flaunting her magnificent body and torturing him because it was hands-off.

  ‘Can’t you get someone else to deal with it?’ he questioned impatiently.

  ‘That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it, Matt? Why bother doing something when you can pay someone else to do it for you? No wonder you’re becoming increasingly remote from reality!’

  There was a short, angry pause. ‘Do you really think I want to see you?’ he demanded hotly. ‘That I would voluntarily put myself in a position where I lay myself open to being insulted by you?’

  ‘Matt, you have to see me.’

  ‘Have to?’ he repeated dangerously. ‘Cara, nobody, but nobody, tells me that I have to do something.’

  She realised then that there was no way out of telling him over the phone. And maybe this way was best. At least it would be short—if not sweet. She would provide the information in the starkest way possible and leave him with the options. Maybe the best one was for him to leave her completely alone.

  ‘I just thought you’d better know that I’m pregnant,’ she said, and then she hung up.

  For a moment Matteo listened blankly to the burr of the dial tone, his eyes staring unseeingly at the wall in front of him. And then her words slammed into the forefront of his mind with the impact of a sledgehammer.

  ‘Jenny!’ As if saying that would suddenly put her back on the line! He dialled her number, but predictably she let it go through to voicemail.

  He shook his head as a floodgate of feelings swamped him. Disbelief and anger and frustration made his heart-rate soar, but the tiniest flicker of hope and joy dazed him.

  A baby?

  He didn’t even know where she was!

  Strega!

  His mind worked around all the possibilities. She could be anywhere…but it was most likely that she was in their London flat. Her London flat, he reminded himself. He knew she wasn’t crazy about staying in hotels—not if she was on her own. And then he remembered the night in Cannes, and his heart contracted.

  He frowned as he rang the service number of the exclusive apartment block and spoke to the concierge, using blatant influence, charm, and a hefty bribe to ensure that his enq
uiry was not passed on to Signora d’Arezzo. But, yes, she was there.

  He allowed himself a brief, hard smile of satisfaction and then set about flying to England. Normally he might have cursed at a back-to-back flight from the States, but this wasn’t normal. He didn’t get told he was going to be a father every day of the week.

  Beneath the knitted black brows his ebony eyes glittered with a hundred questions. But the one uppermost in his mind was the most important.

  Was she telling him the truth?

  CHAPTER SIX

  The knocking on the door wouldn’t stop, and Jennifer knew that she could not lie there for ever, pretending that the outside world did not exist.

  Slowly she made her way to the hallway and began to unslide the great bolts which had made their flat into a fortress. When she finally opened the door she was not surprised to see Matteo standing there, but it was a Matteo she scarcely recognised.

  Uncharacteristically, he had not shaved. His dark hair was unruly—and his black eyes wild and angry. He walked straight in and shut the door behind him, and when he turned to face her his breathing was unsteady—as if he had been running in a long, long race.

  ‘Now I see that your words are true,’ he breathed, because for the first time in his life he felt out of his depth as he raked his eyes over her body.

  She was pregnant! Rosily and unashamedly pregnant! Oh, the curve of her belly was not huge, but on a woman of Jennifer’s slenderness it looked huge. Her breasts were swollen, and she had a look about her which made her appear quite different—but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. An experience which had changed her? The most profound experience a woman could have? Or just a kind of luminous fragility which almost took his breath away?

  ‘You thought I would lie about something like this?’ she questioned wearily.

  He lifted his dazed eyes to her face to study that, slowly and properly, and there he could see changes, too. For her skin was whiter than milk and there were dark shadows beneath her eyes. He knew that pregnant women were supposed to glow from within, yet her eyes were dull, with none of their customary inner fire.

  ‘Dio! What have you been doing to yourself, Jenny?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Come through and sit down!’ he commanded. ‘At once.’

  Jennifer laughed. After doing his utmost to wriggle out of coming to see her—how dared he? ‘It’s my home and I won’t stand for being bossed around by you!’

  He sucked in a low breath. ‘I will forgive you your stubbornness because of your hormones. But I am telling you this—if you do not do as I say and go and lie down on the sofa, then I shall pick you up and carry you there myself!’

  ‘Isn’t that how we got ourselves into this whole mess to begin with?’ she questioned bitterly.

  Matteo opened his mouth to ask the question which was uppermost in his mind, but something told him to wait until she was comfortable.

  He went through to the kitchen to make coffee while she settled herself, clicking his lips with disapproval as he looked inside the fridge. He carried the tray through and poured her a cup—just the way she liked it—and watched with approval as she slowly sipped it. His own lay cooling. Suddenly he could wait no longer.

  ‘It is mine?’

  She put the cup down quickly, before she dropped it. She had been expecting this, and had tried to tell herself that it was not an unreasonable question under the circumstances. But knowing something and feeling something were two entirely different things, and Jennifer felt as if he had driven a knife of accusation through her heart.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are certain? There is no other candidate?’

  Her mouth crumpled with hurt and scorn. ‘Candidate?’ she echoed. ‘You make it sound like a presidential election! No, there isn’t another “candidate”. I haven’t slept with anyone else since the day I first set eyes on you.’

  He looked up. ‘You haven’t?’

  She heard the macho pleasure in his voice and felt as if she’d been scalded. ‘No. Unlike you.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘But…how can this be, Jenny? How can it?’

  She looked at him. ‘You’re thirty-three years old, Matteo—do you really need me to tell you?’

  ‘You took a chance like that when we were separated?’ he demanded incredulously. ‘You risked getting pregnant?’

  Something inside her snapped. The weeks of waiting and wondering and worrying all came to a head. ‘How dare you make it sound as if it was something I planned?’ she exploded. ‘It happened in a lift, for God’s sake! A lift which you found! If anyone planned it, it must have been you!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous!’ he countered, and he saw her eyes darken in response. With a giant effort of will he drew a deep breath, trying to contain his emotions. But it wasn’t easy. Yet he knew that he had to make allowances for her condition. He had to. For Jenny held all the cards, and if he was not careful…

  ‘If you were unprotected then you should have told me, Jenny. And, yes, we were hot for each other—but there are other ways we could have pleasured each other without risking this type of consequence.’

  Jennifer clapped her hand over her mouth as if she was going to be sick. ‘I’m having a baby!’ she choked. ‘And all you can think about is mutual masturbation!’

  ‘Jenny!’ he protested. ‘How can you say that? This is not like you!’

  ‘What isn’t? I don’t know what is like me any more! And what do you expect me to say in the face of your monstrous accusation? If you must know—I was still on the Pill—’

  ‘And why was that?’ he shot back immediately. ‘If, as you say, there was nobody else but me and we were divorcing?’

  Jennifer’s hand fell from her mouth to lie protectively on her belly as his suspicions reinforced how hopeless it all was. ‘Because my periods are heavy—remember? My doctor thought it advisable. But it must have let me down.’ She gave him a crooked kind of smile. ‘Don’t they say that the only surefire form of contraception is abstinence?’

  ‘But you never got pregnant when we were married—when we were having sex every second of the day!’

  ‘Maybe I wasn’t taking it as fastidiously as I used to.’ Jennifer shrugged listlessly. ‘Blame it on me, if it makes you feel better.’

  ‘I don’t want to blame anyone!’ he grated. ‘Recriminations aren’t going to help us.’

  Matteo was silent for a moment as for the first time in his life he felt authority slip from his fingers. He could not get his way here by coercion or charm. Jennifer was in the process of divorcing him. She no longer loved him. What happened now was her decision. She was in the driver’s seat, and suddenly he felt out of his depth. ‘What do you want to do?’ he questioned quietly.

  ‘I’m having the baby,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Of course you are!’ But a great warm wave of relief rolled over him and for the first time he smiled—a smile so wide that he felt it might split his face in two. ‘And look at you, Jenny—you are so big…it must be…’

  She could see him doing mental arithmetic and the expression on his face was almost comical. Jennifer smiled too—realising how long it had been since she’d done that. ‘Nearly sixteen weeks.’

  ‘That long?’ he breathed. ‘My God. Jenny…this is a miracle.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply. And in that moment the divorce and the anger and the bitterness and the tearing apart of a shared life all seemed inconsequential when compared to the beginning of a brand-new life.

  But her emotions were volatile, and hot on the heels of her heady exhilaration came the despair of the situation into which their baby would be born.

  A shuddering sob was torn from her throat and Matteo sprang to his feet, going over to her side and taking her hand between his. ‘You are in pain?’ he demanded.

  She shoo
k her head. ‘No, I’m not in pain,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m just thinking how hopeless this all is.’

  ‘Shh.’ Now he lifted his hand to her wet cheeks and began to smooth the tears away, his heart contracting in genuine remorse as he saw the expression in her blurry eyes. ‘It is not hopeless,’ he said softly.

  ‘Yes, it is! We’re getting a divorce and you don’t love me!’

  ‘But, Jenny, I will always—’

  ‘No!’ She sat up, her face serious, the tears stopping as if by magic. ‘Never say it, Matteo,’ she urged. ‘Don’t say something to try and make it better, because if it isn’t true then it will only make it worse. I’m not a little girl who needs to be given a lolly because she’s hurt her knee. This isn’t about me, or the way I feel, or the mess we’ve made of our relationship. This is about someone far more important than both of us now…our baby.’

  Matteo stared at her, his fingertips lingering for one last moment on her face. ‘You sound so strong,’ he breathed, in open admiration.

  ‘I have to be,’ she said simply. ‘I’m going to be a mother—maybe it comes with the job description.’

  And he needed to be strong, too.

  He needed to take control. But he must not do it in a high-handed way or she would rebel; he knew that. He must allow Jennifer to think that she was making all the decisions.

  ‘Have you thought about what you want to do?’

  ‘I’ve tried.’ There had been a fantasy version, about taking a time machine and fast-rewinding so that the episode in the lift had never happened. Or back further still, to a time when they’d still been in love and they could have conceived their baby out of that love, instead of out of lust and anger and passion.

  But she was dealing with reality, not fantasy—and that posed all kinds of problems.

  ‘Oh, Matt—I just don’t know what to do for the best. If I stay around here—or even if I go back to the States—it’ll soon become obvious that I’m pregnant.’ She glanced down at the swell of her belly. ‘Though you can tell that even now, can’t you?’