Jack hadn’t publicly denied that the baby was his, but neither had he said that it was, which they used for fuel, speculating on the deeper meaning of his silence. I tried not to let it get to me, telling myself that the interest in us would pass soon enough and the vultures would be on to their next victim. Despite all the rumors, there was no actual evidence that I’d had an affair with Anders, so there were no photos of us together or other proof to regurgitate endlessly in the media. It was too easy to deny it ever happened, which shouldn’t have made me sad but it did.
Standing in what was now my bedroom, I looked at myself in the mirror. I dropped the towel that was wrapped around me after the shower and stared appraisingly. I had lost weight with the stress of everything, and more bones showed than I think ever had in my life before. My ribs stood out, my thighs had a gap between them, and my cheeks were concave. Only my belly was rounded, and my breasts had their pregnancy fullness.
Aesthetically, I had probably never looked better, though I had never felt less attractive on the inside. I might be the closest I’ve ever been to Anders’ skinny-minny type, but here I am, thirty-eight, pregnant and alone, said the quiet unhappy voice in my head. Shut up, voice, I told myself. No one was responsible for my situation but me. So I stuffed things up with Anders, but it wasn’t like I’d known about Jack then. And, frankly, at the time, I hadn’t been willing to admit how broken my marriage was. Any regrets were pointless.
Before I could descend into the waiting bottomless abyss of self-pity, I scrambled into my gym clothes. As part of getting back to myself, I needed to improve my mood and get out of the house, and exercise was the best way to do both. It was my third week of the new routine, and already I felt better, stronger. I think I should treat myself to some cake on the way home, I thought, and found a small bit of my optimism coming back.
It was a simple thing, but taking pleasure in the small things like cake could get me through this bad time too, even if I wasn’t making it. I had to force myself to cook, and then only as much as I needed for work, as it brought back memories of how happy I had been with Anders in the cocoon of our hotel rooms and rented apartment, eating and having sex lustfully and with abandon. Lately, my hormonal mind had been revisiting those times with even more frequency. I missed Anders, and Jack sometimes, but there was no way we could go back. Some things weren’t fixable. Once the trust was gone, it was virtually impossible to get it back. I don’t think any of us would be prepared to work that hard.
Still, all things considered, I almost felt like myself again. I guess having worse things to compare it to made my current unhappiness more bearable. The end of my marriage was awful, but not a tragedy. Losing a child is a tragedy, and I had survived that, so I could survive anything. I walked out into the crisp morning, feeling like I could cope with the day, admiring my new glossy red door. I had always wanted a red one, but Jack had insisted on black. I liked the way it brightened up the white entrance and contrasted with the black and white diamond tiles on the steps.
“So, it’s true. You are pregnant.” A man’s voice came from the footpath. The words were innocuous enough, but the anger behind them wasn’t. I looked up from the keys in my hand and saw Anders standing there. I was half way down the front stairs and hesitated, not knowing whether to go back up or make a run for it. In my indecision, I stayed where I was on the middle step. I was in my gym gear, which showed the bump, so there was no point in denying it.
“I had to read about it on the Internet. Is it mine? I can count, you know,” he said, loudly and accusingly, oblivious to anyone hearing.
He stalked over to stand at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes on my stomach. His eyebrows drew together in a harsh line. He looked furious, but I grabbed his arm and dragged him back up the stairs and into the house quickly before a more public scene could ensue. Who knew how many neighbors or lurking paparazzi had caught that! Bugger.
I took him into the lounge room and tried to think how to begin as he just stood there fuming.
“Yes, the baby is yours,” I blurted out, for want of a better way to phrase it.
“Were you going to tell me?” he asked, his voice somewhere between irate and exasperated.
“Maybe. I don’t know.” I shook my head, unable to look at him. “Later.”
“So, all that angst was a sham.” He exhaled sharply, sitting down on the couch and burying his hands in his hair. “I’m so stupid.” He shook his head. “I should have seen that I was just the stud service. Did your husband know all along?” He glared at me.
“No!” I exclaimed. “That’s not it at all. Please let me explain.” I sat down opposite him and tried to cam my own anxiety. I took a few deep breaths and rubbed my damp palms on my legs. He moved forward to perch on the edge of the opposite sofa, looking down at his tightly clenched hands like he was ready to take off at any moment.
“Jack and I hadn’t had a…real marriage in a while.” I couldn’t face telling him that Jack was gay and I hadn’t known. The humiliation of that would wait for another time. “We had difficulties getting pregnant after the twins and used IVF to fall pregnant again. The second time, we lost the baby at twenty-six weeks. A daughter.”
He looked up at me, puzzled as to why I was telling him this now.
“I don’t think we ever really recovered from that.” I steeled myself to keep going. “We’re not together any more, regardless.”
I let a shuddering breath out. It didn’t sound so bad now I’d said it out loud. I kept going, holding up my hand when he was about to say something. If I didn’t get it out in one go, I might not be able to.
“I honestly didn’t think I could get pregnant. I’m older now, so less fertile even than then, and we only had unprotected sex once. When we ended it, I thought that was it. I didn’t think being pregnant was even a possibility, so I didn’t realize until I was three months along. I couldn’t terminate a child, not after having gone through so much to have Eve. I wanted to have the baby. I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure how you’d take it. We had ended things, and you seemed to have moved on. It would have been unfair to force you into being a parent when you were so far away and we weren’t together anyway. You have your life in LA, doing the single man thing, and it was my choice. I’m prepared to accept the responsibility, and I will manage it financially. I know what I’m getting into. I would probably have told you eventually, though, when I had a handle on it. I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
He came over to me and knelt next to my chair.
“I want babies!” he said fiercely, in contrast with the large gentle hands he placed on the curve of my belly. “I can’t think of anything I want more than to feel you rounded with my child inside you. Why would you think I wouldn’t want that?” His voice sounded puzzled. “I told you this is what I wanted from us. I’ve missed you so much. Why didn’t you call me? I would have dropped everything to be here for you. You didn’t have to be on your own.”
I looked down at him, his face completely changed, earnestness mixing with joy.
“But that was before…”
“Sure, I like sleeping in and traveling wherever and whenever I want, but I would give it up in a heartbeat.” He laughed softly and placed his hands on either side of my face, kissing me with a tenderness that was as beautiful as it was unexpected.
I pulled back and searched his eyes, unable to take the surprised look from my face.
“What? You don’t think I mean it?” he asked in disbelief. “You don’t trust me?”
My silence was answer enough.
“I have never lied to you. When I met you, something changed. It felt like…coming home. All I could think about was making a life with you, seeing you every day, getting to do all the mundane things I couldn’t because you were already doing them with someone else. Getting you pregnant and having a family was what I wanted, but you said you didn’t know if you wanted that, and I never really thought you’d leave Jack without a push. I know
I shouldn’t have tried to force the issue, but I couldn’t think of another way to shake you loose from him. I love you so much it makes me crazy.”
I melted inside, needing to hear that more than I could possibly have imagined I would.
“Jack’s lawyer told my lawyer he doesn’t want a divorce and wants to try to work things out, for the boys’ sake.” I still couldn’t believe Jack was hoping for a reconciliation. He’d been pushing hard for a face-to-face meeting, which I’d told my lawyer to do everything she could to prevent.
“Do you want to do that?” he asked, his expression suddenly uneasy.
“No.” I shook my head. “It’s not going to work. We want different things.” Actually, the problem was we wanted the same thing: a man in our bed. “But you…you were with all those other women. I can’t trust you not to do it again.”
“But I didn’t, not on my own time. It was only for work,” he insisted. “Do you know how many jobs I turned down so that I’d be free to fly over here to see you every few weeks? I would do anything for you. If you’re happy to be poor with me, I’ll give up acting and become…a waiter. They don’t have to kiss other women to get paid.”
I held his face in my hands and shook my head. I was never one that needed romantic declarations, but he was saying everything I wanted to hear, and it was like a balm on my rubbed-raw heart. I didn’t want to ask, but I had to know. “I don’t understand, though. You meet and get intimate every day with such perfect, beautiful women as your job, how do I even compete?”
“You’re smart and beautiful and real. You make me feel things, good things. Other women are place-fillers. I wouldn’t know or care whether they were there or not. And I know you want me for me, not to enhance your career.”
“No, I guess not. It would probably be better for your career if you were dating one of those girls.”
“I’ve done that before, but it’s horrible. I never wanted to be magazine fodder and harassed by the paparazzi like that.” He shuddered slightly. “You stole my heart and ran away with it. I had no choice but to follow you. These last few months have been hell, thinking of you with him instead of with me. When I found out you were pregnant…” He breathed out heavily “…and that it could be mine, I didn’t know whether to be happy or kill someone. You are finally free, and there’s no way I’ll accept anything less than you being completely mine, in every way.”
It was so caveman, but in an utterly delicious way that made me swoon just a little. I wasn’t going to doubt it and look for ulterior motives like I usually would. I could let him finish the healing I needed to function again properly; all I had to do was trust him. Take a leap, I said to myself with wry humor. Only this time, it was less of a leap. I’d already lost what I had previously been hesitant to gamble.
“No, I know you love what you do. I get it, really I do, but it caught me by surprise. I can handle it, as long as you let me know when it’s going to happen before I see it on the Internet.”
“So, can we make this work? Will you move to LA with me?” He smiled widely, showing a lot of white teeth. Like a wolf who’s going to eat me up, I thought, distracted yet again by his mouth and the things he could do with it. Forcing myself away from my hormonally-charged thoughts and back to the very serious conversation we were having was hard.
“I don’t know. The boys are at school here, and I can’t leave them here on their own.”
“Could they move to the States?”
“No, it’s not fair to upheave their entire lives. My life is in England, yours is in the States, and that’s not going to change for at least the next five years until the boys leave school.”
“But they’re at boarding school! It’s not like you have to be there every day to make them lunch. They can come to us in the holidays. I’m sure they’d like the heat and sunshine.”
“That’s true, I guess,” I said doubtfully, but seeing the truth of the argument. I wasn’t required to be here every day. It would take a bit longer to get to them if anything happened, though. “I don’t know anybody there, and you’ll be away so much. It’s a huge decision, and we really don’t know each other that well.”
“We have something between us that’s special. We both know it,” he urged. “And we’re having a baby! I’m not really away that much, just a few weeks here and there, and you can come with me. They have kitchens there, big ones, and lots of people to feed too,” he teased. “You can write your cookbooks there just as well as here. The sun will also do you good. You look pale.”
I smiled despite myself. He pulled me up so he could wrap his arms around me. My arms willingly encircled his hips, holding onto the hard muscles of his back.
“Imagine relaxing by the pool in the warm air during the day, cuddling up to me at night, not having to rush off home or hide anything. Just us, as much as we want.” His voice deepened and went husky. The picture of life with Anders sounded good. “I want to come home to you and the baby every day,” he said softly and more seriously. “I don’t want to be a stranger that sees it once or twice a month.”
“I know what we’re having. Do you want to know?”
He nodded.
“It’s a girl.” I told him.
He grabbed me tighter in an exuberant bear hug. Being held by him felt so good. I breathed in the distinctive sunshine smell of him, with a slightly woody note, feeling something tight inside me relax.
“We’ll make it work. I’m not going to let you go again, even if I have to tie you to my bed and make you come so much you can’t walk straight enough to get out the door.” I could feel his smile against my forehead. “You can’t leave me again, not now,” he whispered against my hair. He lifted my face with his large hands and kissed me like he was trying to drink me down and absorb me into himself. “Promise me.”
“I love you, Anders.” I sighed and pushed back against him, so that we touched along the length of our bodies. I could feel the round hardness of our baby in between us, sharing in the love. I could finally admit to myself that despite the improbability of it, with Anders, I had come home too.
Was he my happy ending after all? No, this was not the end, and we had no way of knowing what was in our future, but more importantly, he gave me hope that we could have a new beginning that would overwrite the mistakes of the past. I had a lot to look forward to.
Epilogue
JACK LOOKED AT THE SMILING PICTURE of his ex-wife as she sat on a picnic rug in the sunshine, a plump blond child on her lap, the big man next to her looking at her with clear adoration as he cradled the newborn. He knew he should be happy for her, but he couldn’t. The darkness within him wouldn’t let him.
In the beginning, she had pushed it back, but over time even her light had been unable to prevent its return. Nothing could. It was passed down their family like a cursed inheritance. His family. What a joke. His mother was in denial, as usual, but it was clear to everyone else that Crispin would be going to jail this time. His father had all but disappeared now, his silence and withdrawal almost complete. With work and running the estate as well, at least Jack was too busy to think.
He ripped the page from Caroline’s magazine, knowing she had deliberately left it open on that page for him to find. Her revenges were petty but still cut him deeply. Slowly he tore the page into tiny pieces, leaving a trail to the bathroom, where he closed and locked the door. He turned on the shower and undressed quickly, bracing under the punishingly cold water. Only then did he let the tears fall, the loud torrent of water muffling the deep hacking sobs of his loss.
If he’d been the type, he would have ended it all. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t. He just retreated inward and did the best he could. Adam had broken up with him not long after Kate left, tired of waiting for a commitment that would never come. He understood, but it was yet another piece of him lost that would never be recovered. What he had left to give would never be enough for his girlfriend, but if she left, he would be alone, and that was intolerable. So, he put up w
ith her jealously and cruelty—it was what he deserved—and locked away his heart, which still and would always belong to Kate.
Acknowledgments
Thank you also to Anna, for giving me insight on how celebrities are managed and not even letting me buy her lunch. Also to Jess and Emma, who shared their experiences living in London.
Thank you also to all the amazing people in the UK who opened up their lives and homes for me to peer into and steal details to make this book at bit more real: Eden, Tory, Will, Evanna, Alice and Gillian.
To Fiona especially, who took me under her wing and shared her love of Chelsea and its surrounds. Hopefully I have used the information wisely!
About the Author
L.C. Fenton lives in Sydney, Australia, with her husband and two children. In addition to her cake-making business, she works as a freelance copywriter and pens occasional articles for various online magazines.
Not being one of those people who had a burning desire to be anything in particular, L.C. worked her way alphabetically backward through the available degrees at Sydney University. Surprisingly, given the amount of fun she had at school, L.C. finally managed to graduate with a completely unemployable degree in philosophy. A law degree soon followed, however, simply to make it possible for some organization to hire her.
After ten soul-destroying years, lost and wandering aimlessly in the corporate wilderness, L.C. threw it all in and reassessed. Deciding to bring the “one day I will write a book” idea to the present, she started and hasn’t stopped. As a huge fan of the romance genre, she writes the kinds of books that she enjoys to read.
In her spare time, L.C. Fenton…actually she has no spare time. She either sleeps or reads copious amounts of romance novels instead of sleeping. One day she hopes to have nothing to do and to take up reading full time, after completing all the levels of Candy Crush. Not likely to happen any time soon, but everyone needs a dream.
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