She began to write a book.
‘You’re the only person I’ve told!’ she said on the phone to her mother one night.
‘What, not even Finn?’
‘No. It’s a surprise,’ said Catherine truthfully. Or was she scared of trying and failing in his eyes?
‘And when am I going to meet this husband of yours?’ asked her mother. ‘Everybody’s asking me what he’s like and I have to tell them that I don’t know!’
This was a difficult one—more than difficult. Catherine had the means to fly her mother out—and knew how much she wanted to see her and how much her mother would enjoy life in the small Irish village. But—and it was a monumental but—how did she begin to explain the situation?
If her mother came she would either have to tell the truth or she would have to pretend, and she didn’t know how long she could keep that up in front of the person who knew her so well.
For a start she and Finn would be expected to share a bedroom, and she knew for a fact that she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t sleep with him and not be climbing the walls with a terrible yearning to have him close to her in a way he did not want to be. It was bad enough on her nights alone, and the ones when he was sleeping just along the corridor—being in an enclosed space with a bed in it would be almost impossible.
‘Soon, Mum,’ she said lamely.
‘If you leave it much longer, then I’ll be a grandmother!’
And that might be the best solution all round. Wait until the baby was born and the disruption he or she would cause would detract from what was actually going on in Finn and Catherine’s so-called relationship. And besides, no one expected a new mother to be energetically making love to her husband every night!
Having another person in the house would mean that Finn would be able to focus on the best thing to do. And so would she. They could come to an amicable agreement about access, and all the other things people had to discuss when they were no longer together.
Not that she and Finn had ever been together. Not really. Not in the true sense of the word, anyway.
But it was funny how you could grow close to someone, even though your head was telling you that it was sheer madness to do so. She didn’t want to find him funny and sexy and engaging. She wanted to be able to pick holes in his character, to tell herself that actually he was a cold and power-hungry maniac and that she would never have been happy with him anyway.
But she couldn’t.
She told herself that it was easy to get on well with someone over the course of a weekend—that if they lived together all the time they would irritate the hell out of each other. But she couldn’t quite believe that, either.
Energy flowed through her like lifeblood. She wrote throughout the day, sometimes well into the evening, and when Finn rang she would tell him how her day had been. They would talk with an ease and familiarity which was poignant in itself.
One night she told him how she’d been over and helped Aisling with her baking, and that Aunt Finola had taken her to a bingo session at the church hall and Catherine had won an ironing board!
‘What are you going to do with it?’
‘I gave it to the priest’s housekeeper. It seems silly to have two.’
‘Could come in useful,’ he said gravely.
‘As an extra table, perhaps?’ she suggested helpfully.
She told herself that of course it was easy to talk to someone on the phone, because you couldn’t see the expression on their face or the look in their eyes. She told herself that it was important they remained on good terms because she would need to be in touch with Finn for the rest of her life. The baby would always connect them.
And she told herself that she would be okay when the day came—perhaps sooner than she would hope for—when he would tell her gently that the time had come for the parting of the ways. That they had done their best for the baby and now they were both free.
But she didn’t want to be free. Or was that simply sneaky Mother Nature again—tying her emotionally to the biological father of her child?
It didn’t seem to matter how much logic warned her that she mustn’t embrace her new-wife role too enthusiastically, because try as she might she couldn’t help herself.
Every Friday night she felt like a woman whose husband was coming home like a conquering hero. She would see the city-strain etched on his face as he opened the front door and she would pour him a gin and tonic—just like a real wife.
Finn found he couldn’t wait to be out of the city on Friday nights, tying up his work as early as possible so that he could be roaring out of Dublin and heading for the sea.
His apartment now seemed very empty in a way that the cottage never did. But Catherine did girly things; maybe that was why. She put flowers in vases and she baked cakes. Any day now he was fully expecting her to have acquired a new puppy!
She’s just playing another role—a domestic role this time, he told himself, as the glitter of the distant sea told him he was almost home. But surely she wouldn’t be able to keep it up for ever?
He walked into the cottage one night and frowned. Something was different, and it took a moment or two to figure out what it was.
‘You’ve painted the walls!’
‘So I have.’ She gave a serene smile as she walked over to the drinks tray, pleased with the soft-peach wash which had transformed the dingy room. ‘Do you like it?’
He looked around, his expression closed yet edgy, trying to distract himself from the pink V-necked sweater she wore, which showed far too much of the heavy swell of her breasts and seemed far too provocative for a cold Friday night in Wicklow!
‘You should have asked me first!’ he ground out.
The smile died on her lips. ‘I’m sorry, Finn,’ she said stiffly. ‘I was mistakenly using the place as my home, perhaps fooling myself a little too convincingly that we were a married couple!’
‘Even if we were,’ he came back bitingly, ‘surely decorating is something a couple would discuss together?’
‘I wanted to surprise you—’
‘Well, you’ve certainly done that, Catherine!’
And then he turned on her, his blue eyes blazing with an anger which was surely disproportionate to the crime of painting a room.
‘Don’t you think that if I’d wanted it decorated I’d have done so before, myself? Don’t you think I’d have had the best decorators in the damned country working for me?’
She slammed his gin and tonic down so hard that it slopped all over the sideboard, but she was too angry to care and Finn didn’t seem to notice.
‘Oh, I’m sorry! The best money can buy? Is that what you mean?’ she questioned witheringly. ‘Is that why you’re so mad? Because I was stupid enough to do it myself? Because I picked up the paintbrush instead of snapping my fingers to get someone else to do it for me? Well, don’t you worry, Finn Delaney—I happened to be very careful. And if I say so myself I did a bloody good job—even if you’re too stupid and too arrogant to see it!’
And she stormed out of the room and up the stairs.
‘Catherine, just you come right back here!’
‘Go to hell! Except they’d probably turn you away!’ she yelled back.
He took the stairs two at a time and reached her just as she was about to close the bathroom door, puffing and out of breath. She saw him coming and tried to slam it, but he stuck his foot in it.
‘Get your foot out!’
‘Not until you open it!’
‘I want a bath!’
‘And I want to talk to you!’
‘Well, tough! If you want to complain about the wretched walls again, then don’t worry—we’ll go out in the morning and get some peat and rub it in. Then they’ll look as dingy as before.’
He started to laugh, and she took the opportunity to push at the door again.
‘Open the door, Catherine.’
‘Open it yourself!’ But she let go and he stepped inside, dwarfing the room with
his powerful presence.
He saw the defiant yet defeated droop of her shoulders and something inside him melted. ‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that!’
‘You should have thought before you opened your stupid mouth! But you never do!’
‘Yes, I should. And, no, I don’t.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘But I think we’ve already established that my thinking goes out of the window whenever you’re around, Catherine!’
‘Then maybe we should reconsider this whole stupid scheme!’
‘You think it’s stupid?’
‘I think that we must be out of our minds to think we can go through with it, yes!’
‘But I thought you were enjoying life down here—’
‘Oh, you stupid man!’
He burst out laughing. ‘You know, for a journalist, you’re having terrible trouble with your command of the English language, Catherine. That’s three times you’ve used the word “stupid” in as many—’
Her hand flew up to slap his face, but he caught it, using it to pull her right up close to him, and she saw that he was having difficulty controlling his breathing, that his blue eyes had suddenly darkened like the night.
‘My, my, my, but you’ve a temper on you like a witch sometimes!’
‘And is it any wonder, living with you?’
They stared at one another and the air was suddenly tight with tension.
‘Do you know we’re arguing like an old married couple?’ he said unsteadily. ‘You realise that we’re getting all the worst bits out of marriage with none of the best bits?’
Something in his eyes was making her feel very dizzy. ‘Finn?’ she whispered.
‘Catherine?’ he answered unsteadily.
She knew that he was about to kiss her even before he moved. She could read it in the blue blaze of his eyes. And she opened her lips to greet his, not caring about the wisdom of it, only knowing that she had prayed for this moment ever since he had slipped that gold wedding band on her finger.
They kissed as if it was the first time, and in a way maybe it was the first time. This time they were not strangers, drawn together by a hunger which could not be denied. The hunger clamoured as ever before, but now they had a history—past and present and future all fusing together—made flesh by the baby which kicked in her belly.
He drew his mouth away and looked down into her hectic green eyes, shaken by the power of that kiss. ‘God, Catherine,’ he said unsteadily.
Rocked by emotions she scarcely recognised, she shook her head. ‘Just shut up and kiss me again.’
‘Impatient woman,’ he said, almost tenderly.
‘Impatient?’ she demanded incredulously.
‘Shut up, Catherine.’
And their lips met again.
He ran his hand down over the fullness of her breast, alighting with possessive greed on the tight curve of her belly, and groaned against her lips as he felt the seeking urgency of her own.
‘Catherine—sweet, beautiful, swollen Catherine—let me make love to you now.’
‘Swollen’ should not have sounded so erotic to her ears, but it did. More than erotic. But she was so aroused at that moment that if he had started reciting the telephone directory to her then it would have sounded like poetry.
She tore her mouth away with difficulty. ‘Sweet heavens, Finn—I thought you’d never ask!’
Shakily, his hand traced the outline of her face. He cupped it between his hands and dropped soft kisses onto the pale silk of her skin. He wanted long, slow lovemaking, and he knew that he must be gentle with her, but—dear heaven—he felt so hard, so exquisitely hard, that if she had not been pregnant with his child then he might very well have pushed her to the floor and…
That particular memory drew him up with a jolt, and he allowed himself one fleeting and bitter regret that their child had not been conceived in love but in anger. But that did not matter now. What was done was done, and he now had the opportunity to make the kind of long, slow love which a woman like Catherine deserved.
‘Come with me, sweetheart.’
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Somewhere I should have taken you weeks ago.’ It was a bed he wanted, and the nearest would do—which just happened to be Catherine’s room. He spotted a filmy little thong protruding from the top drawer and gave a little shudder as he drew her into the circle of his arms. Could she still wear skimpy underwear like that, even though she was pregnant? He guessed that he was about to find out.
Still holding her with his hands, he pushed her away. ‘I’ve never undressed a pregnant woman before,’ he murmured.
‘I should hope not!’
‘I’ll be very careful,’ he promised, as he peeled her sweater over her head.
She looped her arms around his neck and followed with the nuzzle of her lips. ‘Not too careful, I hope. And besides, it doesn’t matter now!’
He smiled. ‘That wasn’t what I was talking about, and you know it. I meant because you’re pregnant.’
‘Pregnant women are very resilient—or hadn’t you noticed?’
Oh, yes—he’d noticed all right. She wasn’t one of those women who lay around like an invalid, expecting to be waited on. Why, just the other day he had had to forcibly remove a spade from her hand and tell her that it was too cold to be digging. She had become huffy and stomped off, and told him that it was a crime not to foster love on such a beautiful garden.
He sucked in a breath as her body was revealed to him. Her breasts were glorious, ripe and bursting as they pushed against ivory-coloured lace. And the matching lacy thong left very little to the imagination.
‘God,’ he moaned. ‘I’d no idea that a pregnant woman could look so sexy!’
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ she offered drily.
He unclipped her bra and the heavy breasts came spilling out. He bent his head and his tongue licked luxuriantly against one hard, dark nipple. Catherine clutched at him, dizzy with the sheer sensation of it.
‘Finn,’ she said weakly.
‘Mmm?’
He tugged at the little lacy thong, sliding it down over her thighs, and laid his hand softly on the dark fuzz of hair which concealed the very core of her femininity. He felt her jerk with pleasure. Wanted to give her yet more pleasure.
He knelt in front of her as if in homage, then dipped his tongue to delve into her honeyed warmth. She clutched his head to her, catching sight of their reflected image in the mirror. The sight of it turned her on even more. It seemed outrageously provocative to see her naked, pregnant body and the dark-haired man working such magic with his mouth.
‘I’d better get horizontal,’ she groaned. ‘Before I fall over.’
He lifted his head and saw the smoky look in her eyes. ‘Yeah. I think you’d better.’
He carried her, protesting, but only half-heartedly.
‘Finn, stop it—I’m much too heavy these days.’
‘But I like it. I like carrying you.’
‘I’d noticed!’
‘And you’re still light enough not to trouble me.’
‘You’re a very strong man, Finn Delaney,’ she sighed.
‘I know I am,’ he teased.
But he felt as weak as a pussycat as he tore his clothes off and lost himself in the warmth of her embrace.
He kissed her long and hard, smoothing his hand reverentially over her belly, and was just about to move it along, down to the inviting softness of her thighs, when she shook her head.
‘Wait,’ she whispered.
‘I don’t think I can—’
‘Your baby, Finn. He’s going to kick.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘I just can—ouch!’
Finn felt the hefty swipe of a small heel as it connected with the flat of his hand, and he stared down into Catherine’s eyes, more shaken than he would have imagined.
‘You think it’s a boy?’ he questioned thickly.
‘I think
so.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know…I just… Oh, Finn!’
‘Do you like that?’
He wasn’t feeling the baby any more. ‘Mmm.’ She slipped her hand down luxuriously, to capture the silken-steel of him, exultant to feel him shudder helplessly beneath her caress. ‘Do you like that?’
‘It’s not me I’m thinking of right now—I don’t want to hurt you, Catherine.’
For a moment she closed her eyes. If only he knew that the only way he was going to hurt her was by leaving her. And this is only going to make it harder, whispered the voice of reason. You should stop it right now.
But how could she possibly stop him when she wanted him so badly?
‘What shall we do?’ he whispered.
For a moment she thought he was asking about their future—but his fingers were playing with her breasts, sending little shivers of exquisite sensation rippling like warm sun across her skin. ‘You mean how shall we…?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Use your imagination, Finn—I’m as much of a novice at this kind of thing as you are. I—oh, Finn!’ She gave an expectant wriggle as Finn turned her onto her side and began to stroke her bottom, the other hand sliding up around her waist and from there to cup a swollen breast. She felt him pressing against her, so hard and so ready.
He felt her heat, sensed her urgency. He would never normally have asked a woman if she was ready, but he needed to be sure. And not just because she was pregnant.
‘Catherine?’ he questioned unsteadily.
‘Oh, yes, Finn. Yes!’
Her senses seemed more highly tuned than they had ever been, and she was not sure whether that was down to abstinence or pregnancy. But as he entered her Catherine’s mind cleared and she identified the emotion she had not before dared analyse.
For it was love, pure and simple. She loved this man. This man who could never truly be hers. She closed her eyes tightly. Stopped thinking and started feeling. Less pain that way.
Afterwards they lay exactly as they were, like sweat-sheened spoons, their heartbeats gradually slowing along with their breathing.
He looped a careless arm around her belly and felt another kick. He smiled against her shoulder. ‘Ouch, again!’
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