‘I have moved out!’ Agatha dealt with that particular misconception straightaway.
‘When? ‘ Evidence of an independence he didn’t know she had made him flush darkly. Okay, he didn’t like it.
‘It doesn’t matter. A week and a half ago. I found somewhere a bit closer to work in a nicer area.’
‘Another bedsit with a crazy landlord who thinks that mould on the walls constitutes the equivalent of patterned wallpaper?’
‘No. I can afford a proper flat.’ Which brought her mind swinging back to his accusations of wanting his money. ‘Thanks to my generous salary. And I’m not here to try and talk you into giving me money. How could you think that I would be the sort of person to do that?’
‘Most women are motivated by money.’
‘I’m not most women, and I’m really hurt that you can sling me into that category as if…as if you don’t know me at all.’
Luc scowled, on the back foot now as she looked at him with huge, hurt, accusing eyes.
‘Okay.’ He held both hands up in a gesture of defeat. ‘So you haven’t come here on a begging mission. Why, then?’
‘I won’t beat about the bush here, Luc. I know you’re a great believer in getting straight to the point: I’m pregnant.’
For a few seconds, Luc had the strange sensation that time had slowed to a standstill and his brain was trying to function in a pool of treacle. He wondered if he had heard correctly. ‘That’s impossible,’ he said at last, but he couldn’t keep still. He stood up and began prowling through the room, raking his fingers through his hair, finally halting in front of her with narrowed eyes. ‘You told me you were on the pill. I trusted you. Were you lying?’ Then, as if those questions were already giving too much credence to the unthinkable, he repeated, forcefully, ‘You can’t be.’
‘I did four tests, Luc.’ She reached into her bag with a wildly beating heart and extracted a small plastic bag in which a little piece of cream plastic with two bright blue lines glared back at him triumphantly.
‘This can’t be happening.’ He sat down heavily and regarded her with such disbelieving intensity that every syllable of the speech she had rehearsed flew out of her head with the speed of an army of rats deserting a sinking ship.
‘I know it’s a shock; it was a shock to me too.’ She had been getting backache and had eventually gone to see her local doctor. She had expected to emerge from the surgery with a prescription for some strong painkillers and maybe some advice to get a massage. Instead, she had left on wobbly legs, having been told that she was just over two months’ pregnant.
‘I was on the pill,’ she explained in a shaky undertone. ‘But not that first time. That first time, we made love without any contraception. I didn’t think anything would happen.’
‘You didn’t think…’ Luc shook his head as reality nudged past his dazed disbelief and claimed its rightful place. Life as he knew it was about to change because she hadn’t thought, although he had to share the responsibility for that as well. He should have taken precautions himself. He always had. But not with her. Things had happened fast and furious and he hadn’t stopped to consider the consequences.
‘I’m sorry.’ Agatha tried to find some strength from the fact that he wasn’t punching anything. She herself had had over a day to think about the situation and to try and come to terms with it. He, on the other hand, had not. How hard would it be for him now, fresh back home from a hot date, to discover that he was going to be a daddy in under seven months’ time by a woman he no longer wanted in his life?
‘You said there was no chance. I remember; you said it had been safe.’
His life was still in the process of crashing and burning.
‘I really thought I was. I promised that I wouldn’t stay long here, Luc. I wasn’t sure whether I should tell you or not, but of course I knew that I had to. Look, perhaps I should go now. Leave you to try and come to terms with it.’ She made a move to stand up and he ordered her to sit back down.
‘And then what?’ He stared at her, his normally vibrantly, bronzed skin ashen.
‘I haven’t come here to ask for anything. I just thought that you had to know. I don’t expect you to change your life in any way.’
‘Are you crazy? How can my life not change?’
‘I don’t need looking after, Luc. I’m more than capable and happy to be a single mother.’
‘This coming from the girl who had dreams of love and marriage?’
‘Let’s just say that I’ve grown up.’
‘And I’m supposed to do what, exactly? Fill me in here on this life of mine that’s not going to change.’
‘You carry on working, going out with women, and when the baby’s born we can start talking about visiting rights. If, that is, you want to visit.’
‘Are you on the same planet as me, Agatha?’
‘I’m trying to make this easy for you.’
‘You must fancy your chances as a magician if you think you’ve succeeded in doing that. What, for instance, do you intend to tell your mother? Do you think she’ll fall for the stork scenario?’
‘I, well, I haven’t actually crossed that bridge just yet. I’m only just getting used to the idea myself, and Mum…she’s old-fashioned. I can’t face the thought of breaking this to her right now. I have to find some courage from somewhere first.’
‘Then I suggest you do. I also suggest you don’t try and stonewall by refusing to tell her who the father is. I can’t take back what’s happened, but I assure you that I intend to take full responsibility for any child of mine. I’m not interested in secrecy.’
‘What do you mean by full responsibility?’
‘You will be looked after financially. So will the child.’ His eyes flitted to her stomach. His child! Not in a million years could he have ever foreseen his life becoming so spectacularly derailed, but he had to concede that there was something very sexy about the fact that she was carrying his baby in her stomach. ‘Where have you moved? ‘ He reluctantly dragged glittering eyes away from her stomach. ‘Your idea of appropriate accommodation doesn’t coincide with mine.’
‘You can’t just take over!’
‘I’m the other half of this equation. I have as much say where you live when you’re pregnant with my baby. Which brings us to the fundamental question of our relationship.’
‘We don’t have a relationship.’ Suddenly everything seemed to be moving at breakneck speed.
‘Like it or not, we do now, and something in me’s telling me that your cherished dream might be about to come true.’
Agatha didn’t have to ask for clarification on that statement. She knew exactly what he was talking about, in that wry, bitter voice. They had ended their brief affair on her outburst about wanting more than just a temporary liaison. Now, against his will, he had somehow been driven into a corner by a situation he hadn’t courted and wouldn’t have wanted in a million years. She had told him that his life would remain unchanged. How could she have believed that? He wasn’t the sort of man who ducked responsibility, even a responsibility he didn’t want.
‘I won’t marry you,’ she whispered. ‘That’s not why I came here. That’s not why I’ve told you that I’m pregnant.’
‘You must know that I wouldn’t be prepared to stand on the sidelines, and you must also know that no child of mine will be illegitimate. I have honour, Agatha. If you’re so willing to remind me that I must know you, and therefore must know that you would never be the sort of woman to engineer a situation like this for her own benefit, then you must surely know me as well—or at least know me well enough to realise that I’m not the sort of man who would fling money at the problem and then walk away.’
‘I don’t care whether you’re prepared to stand on the sidelines or not. I know you think that I’m a hopeless romantic who believes in stuff that you don’t, but that doesn’t mean that I’m a hopeless human being. A hopeless human being would.’ In her head a single word reverberated like
a gunshot: problem. Luc had been presented with a problem and he was dealing with it with the cold-blooded efficiency with which he dealt with all the problems he encountered in his life—the only difference being that this particular problem was growing inside her.
Luc jumped into the faltering silence. ‘A hopeless human being would…what? Put her child before herself? Provide a stable environment? Do the right thing?’
‘That’s not what we’re talking about,’ Agatha muttered in a shaken voice.
‘No? Then explain. We will be married, because it’s the only possible solution to the dilemma.’
‘It’s not a dilemma and it’s not a problem.’
‘Okay. What would you like to call it? Situation? Unexpected chance event? Fateful occurrence? Choose your description. It makes little difference to the solution.’
‘I’m really tired, Luc.’ Agatha stood up, suddenly drained by the crazy onslaught of emotions attacking her from every angle. The ground that should have felt steady under her feet began to sway. It was like being on a boat in the middle of a choppy ocean, complete with feelings of nausea and giddiness.
‘And I don’t feel very well. The doctor told me that I’m anaemic.’ Her eyelids fluttered and she was dimly aware of being caught in mid-fall and swept off her feet while she struggled to contain her sickness.
In the very split second that her face had gone from its argumentative pink colour to chalk-white, Luc had been galvanized into action, catching her before she had time to collapse in a heap on the ground.
Barely had he had time to get his head around the life-changing bombshell that had been thrown at his feet like a careless hand grenade than he was racked with guilt at having dealt with the situation in a heavy-handed manner. Heavy handed, he belatedly recognised, might work for most things but it wasn’t going to work here. He had reduced her to a fainting fit, and in her condition it was the very last thing she needed.
He carried her into his bedroom and gently laid her on the bed, propping her up on the soft pillows as she gradually blinked back to reality.
‘Did I faint? ‘ she whispered, reaching out and holding onto the collar of his shirt with one small hand. She felt vulnerable, fragile and scared and she just couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving the room. Much as she hated it, she felt anchored by his very solid presence.
‘Yes. Is it the first time it’s happened?’
Agatha nodded mutely.
‘You haven’t been eating. Shouldn’t you be bigger by now? You’re as light as a feather. ‘
‘Why are you fussing?’ Agatha pursued doggedly. ‘You don’t care about…about this. It’s just something that’s come along to disrupt your life. You like to be in control of everything, and this is the one thing you can’t control even if you think you can.’ Her eyes filled up and she looked down hurriedly, willing them away.
‘I’m calling a doctor,’ Luc told her in such a gentle voice that she had to try even harder not to cry. In full vent, Luc could be cold and intimidating and send her shooting off into realms of anger she’d hardly known she possessed. He could also be thoughtful and touchingly humane in equal measure. How had she forgotten that?
He ignored her feeble, automatic protest and half-turned away to make the call, then he spun back round to face her, sitting on the side of the bed and leaning on one hand.
‘I didn’t know you could get a doctor to make a visit just like that. Not that it’s necessary.’
‘It is necessary,’ Luc informed her. ‘And I have a hotline to the best doctor in London.’
‘Because you’re ill all the time?’ She was beginning to feel sleepy and she yawned and wriggled on the bed, surprised that she could even consider nodding off when she was full of so much unresolved, pent-up emotion. She realised that she was still clutching at his shirt and she slowly released her grip.
‘I’m not going to marry you,’ she told him, just in case.
‘I’m not going to fight with you again. You need to look after yourself and waging war with me isn’t going to help.’
‘I’m not waging war.’
‘There you go again.’
The softness in his voice made her want to smile. She was still feeling stupidly content when the doorbell rang and a middle-aged, grey-haired man with a gentle face and shrewd, black eyes was ushered into the bedroom. While he took her pulse and examined her, he told her that he had known the family for years on a personal level, and had been Luc’s doctor since Luc had moved to London to live.
‘Not that I see very much of him,’ he said, packing away his black bag and moving to the door where Luc had been impatiently waiting, having been dispatched there by an adamant Agatha.
‘So? What’s the prognosis, Roberto?’ Luc frowned at Agatha who still looked incredibly wan.
‘You need rest, my dear,’ Roberto said, turning to face Agatha, his lined face serious. ‘Your blood pressure’s up, which could lead to all sorts of problems if it doesn’t settle, and whilst the baby’s heartbeat is strong enough I don’t like those shadows under your eyes. You’re obviously stressed and probably not taking in the nutrients that you should. Of course, there is no reason to eat for two, my dear, but you do need certain vital minerals so you need to eat well. I’m going to give you a prescription for folic acid, but more importantly I’m going to insist that you rest. At least for the next month until things settle. And that’s an order!’
He smiled when he said that. Not that Agatha felt equipped to return the smile. How was it possible that she could have travelled such an enormous distance in such a compacted space of time? From utter confusion and panic to a complete inability to deal with the possible loss of the tiny, growing baby inside her that had generated the panic in the first place.
A range of frightening possibilities buzzed in her fraught brain as she watched Luc usher the doctor out of the room, talking to him rapidly in a low voice.
When he returned a few minutes later, his face was implacable, and Agatha felt a knot of fear twist in her stomach.
‘He was lying, wasn’t he?’ she whispered. ‘He was lying to be kind, but really it’s much more serious than he told me. I know it. I can see it on your face.’
‘Really? Then we need to do something about getting your eyes tested.’ He resumed his place sitting on the bed next to her.
Three weeks without her had been hellishly long. Whilst he had in no way anticipated that the chain of events between them could possibly have led to this moment in time, he was fully resolved on what he needed to do.
And, first off the bat, getting her in a lather by trying to impose his will on her was out of the question.
Under no condition, he had been told by Roberto, was she to be unduly stressed. So trying to bludgeon her into marriage because it satisfied his sense of honour was going to have to go on the back burner. But look after her he would, because the idea of having a baby with her had grown on him with astonishing ease. Maybe, he had thought as Roberto had chatted to him, because the presence of the doctor had somehow turned the abstract into the real. At any rate, he would now approach his mission to protect her with all the military efficiency at his disposal, whether she liked it or not. And no one could say that he didn’t have bags of it.
‘I may have said things that upset you,’ he began in a conciliatory voice. ‘And for that accept my apologies.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Don’t push it.’ Luc smiled crookedly and was aware of her relaxing with a sense of keen satisfaction. ‘I’m no good at apologies, as a rule.’
‘No,’ Agatha agreed distractedly, fascinated by a Luc temporarily shorn of his bold arrogance. ‘I guess you don’t get enough practice.’
‘No need. I’m usually right.’ Why understate the truth?
It was a remark so typical of him that Agatha felt her lips twitch in amusement. Lord, but she had missed him. Had missed the look of him, the sound of him, the feel of him and the glorious touch of him, and having him sitting n
ext to her on his bed was enough to make her want to swoon.
‘I won’t beat about the bush. Roberto says you need rest. So as of now you are on indefinite leave from your job.’ He held up his hand to silence the protest he could see rising to her lips. ‘There’s no argument here, Agatha. You carry on working and you jeopardise the baby. Simple as that.’
Already his mind was working and coming up with a plan of action and it was a good feeling. ‘Are you prepared for that? ‘ he asked, and nodded slightly as she shook her head. ‘Didn’t think so. I’m also guessing that you might not be too keen on going back to the family fold just yet.’
‘You know Mum.’ Agatha stared off worriedly into the distance and chewed her lip. ‘I… just need a bit of time. I only just found out,’ she spluttered and was brought back down to reality when he took her hand in his. The physical touch, reassuring and unthreatening, sent a flood of heated awareness rushing through her, which was silly when he was just being nice.
‘Understood. And, while we’re on the subject of all things family, let me just tell you that I was totally out of order when it came to dealing with this…’ Luc almost fell into the trap of calling it a ‘situation’ once again ‘…unexpected occurrence. I reacted like a caveman. Sure, family honour is important, but I’m willing to concede that we no longer live in the Dark Ages. So let’s forget about that proposal of mine and just focus on getting you fighting fit.’
Never had he been more placatory with a member of the opposite sex. But, then again, never had he been in a position of very nearly causing untold damage because of his own crass behaviour. He had learnt a valuable lesson and he wasn’t about to disregard it. He might not have wasted a second thinking about settling down, but he was in a place without option, if only she was aware of it. Agatha, as a single mother, would set about looking for her dream guy with intent. Hadn’t she already considered the Internet in her search? And there was no way that Luc was going to have his own flesh and blood brought up by another man.
But he had effectively ruled himself out of the running by turning her down flat when she had looked at him with those big, dewy eyes and started talking about romance and fairy-tale marriages. He had hurt her and his mission now was to regain her trust.
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