by Trish Morey; Day Leclaire; Natalie Anderson; Brenda Jackson; Ann Voss Peterson
Instantly her face lit up, and she shoved a bag in the direction of the customers she’d just put through the register so they could pack their purchases themselves. He didn’t need to jump the queue. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, all bright-eyed and breathless in her eagerness to please.
‘I need your help,’ Dominic said in that ultra-deep voice, and the woman’s eyes told them he could have whatever he wanted. ‘You see, I’m having this baby and I don’t have the first clue what I need. And all this…’ he swept his arm in an arc around the showroom ‘… I have no time for this. Do you have some kind of consultancy service who can assist?’
Angie almost felt sorry for her. The woman was almost hyperventilating as he explained. He’s not that special, she thought, and then she looked around at all the people in the store. There were a fair share of those who looked kind of normal, a few more who looked even better, and then, she had to concede, there was Dominic.
He was in a class of his own here. No wonder the woman was falling all over him.
‘I can help,’ she said, calling an assistant to take over her register. She stood to one side and smiled wanly at the next person waiting in line to check out their purchases, feeling guilty when she realised just how long the queue was.
Apparently they would all remain waiting until Dominic Pirelli’s every need was satisfied. Strangely it was only the men who looked resentful. The women just looked hungry and, when they glanced her way, openly envious.
They’d look even more envious if they had any idea what they’d just been doing in the car. Angie trembled at the memories, remembering the way he had cradled her, comforting her, remembering how comfort had so quickly turned to something else. His lips had been surprisingly gentle, his taste had been addictive and there had been no way she’d been going to stop him.
What a fool. He’d kissed her because he felt sorry for her and she’d stupidly kissed him back as if he really meant it.
God, she was a fool!
She knew what he thought of her. She was the lowest of the low, from the back blocks of western Sydney, while he was a billionaire with a mansion on the sea. She’d seen his lip curl when they’d first met. She remembered the look on his face when he’d stepped inside her home, as if he was slumming it. She did not belong in his world and there was only one reason why she was here and it was not to be kissed by him or to kiss him, or to imagine this was some kind of fairy tale where they might all end up happily ever after.
Damn. She’d be every kind of fool if she thought that!
The consultant led the way, a clipboard on her arm with a list at least twice as long as Angie’s. ‘Your first baby?’ she asked, and Angie had no doubt the woman didn’t really care, she just wanted him to keep talking and enjoy the sensation of Dominic’s deep voice rumbling through her bones again.
‘It is,’ was all he offered.
She sighed wistfully as she looked over her shoulder. ‘I dare say it’ll be a beautiful baby then, if it takes after you two.’
Dominic scowled and Angie squirmed. The woman was right, the baby would be beautiful, but it had nothing to do with her.
Thankfully, they arrived at the nursery decor section and the consultant got distracted. For the next hour they got lost in displays and colour schemes. Angie forced herself to think of it as a job, as Dominic had insisted it was. It had nothing to do with her. Not really. She was merely an onlooker here. She had to think of what this baby needed functionality wise—and not think of it as the baby growing inside her at all. The baby she wouldn’t ever know…
She clamped down on the pointless pang of regret. She couldn’t afford to think that way. She’d done the right thing, hadn’t she? She’d reunited this child with its rightful father. She couldn’t afford to have regrets.
Though it was getting harder and harder not to.
She looked around this massive baby warehouse, looked at all the people shopping for their child, for their baby. Envied them. For she’d never realised it would be this hard. She’d imagined handing the baby over would be easy. She’d never realised this stranger growing inside her would be so interesting or demand so much of her attention. She’d never realised it would make her feel as if it was truly part of her.
That it was hers…
Just for a moment she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like if things were different, if this baby were truly hers and she was shopping now with the most devastatingly handsome man in the store, if not in the whole of Sydney, for their child. How would that feel?
But no. She shook her head to clear the wayward thoughts away. There was no point going there. The reality was cold and hard and stared her in the face every time she remembered how he had treated her because of who she was and where she had come from. There was no place for fantasy here. She was merely a means to an end. An incubator for his baby. A temporary inconvenience.
‘What do you think of this one?’ Dominic interrupted her thoughts with a picture of a brightly coloured themed room, filled with stuffed beanbags and a drum set and a red bed shaped like a Ferrari.
She blinked up at him. ‘It’s just a baby, Dominic. It might actually be a way off fast cars. And have you ever stopped to consider it might be a girl?’
He stared at her as if she were mad. ‘Of course it’s a boy.’
And he was so earnest she had to laugh. Finally, after poring over dozens of design books, they settled on a colour scheme. Walls of misty blue up to an animal frieze with the colour changing from blue to creamy clouds. White furniture, they decided, with accessories that would do for either boy or girl. After the baby arrived there would be plenty of time to add hints of colour.
Once the colour scheme was chosen, it was relatively easy. Furniture was selected to match the colour scheme and the existing decor of the house and meanwhile the list the consultant kept was getting longer and longer.
Dominic was having the time of his life. They’d covered bassinets and cots and bedding, made a brief foray into prams and strollers, and now they were looking at baths and changing tables. If this wasn’t bonding with his baby, he didn’t know what was. He lingered over a changing table that doubled as a baby bath and had drawers underneath for storage. The consultant assured him it was the epitome of efficiency. Efficiency he could relate to. He looked around to show Angelina but she was nowhere to be seen.
For a moment his gut clenched in fear. Where was she? How could he have lost her? And then he saw her in the clothing section a few metres away.
The tiny suit looked as if it had been made for a doll rather than any baby she’d ever seen. Softer than velvet, the white fabric felt like a butterfly’s kiss upon her skin. She smiled. The baby was bound to have its parents’ colouring, bound to be born with a shock of dark hair and dark features.
Boy or girl, his baby would look gorgeous in white.
Not that she would ever know.
The knowledge sliced through her like a knife and she hung the suit back on the rack. Now she was getting maudlin! It was pointless looking at clothes. Pointless thinking about how the baby might look. Pointless and painful. She swiped away a tear. She should never have come. She should never have let him make her. It was enough that she would be able to picture this baby’s surroundings after it was born—its grand house, the seaside where it would grow up exploring the rocky shore. It was enough that she could already see Rosa feeding the toddler in a high chair in her massive kitchen. It was enough that she could see the baby being cradled against its father’s chest…
‘Did you find something?’
‘No,’ she said, sniffing back tears, moving away. ‘Just looking.’
‘Are you all right?’ He looked at his watch. ‘God, we’ve been here hours. You must be exhausted.’
The consultant watched on, concerned. ‘I’ve got all your details. I can have this all delivered during the week if you like.’
It was exactly what he wanted to hear. ‘Come back when you’ve had the baby,’
the consultant called after he’d left his credit card details. ‘We love seeing our happy families return.’
He was still scowling from that last comment when he opened her car door. ‘What did you expect her to assume?’ Angie said, relieved to be finished with the place, slipping her feet from her flats and pointing her toes. ‘Of course they think we’re a couple. Who else goes shopping in baby stores but pregnant women and their partners?’
Dominic said nothing. Just started the engine and turned on the air conditioning.
‘Mind you, she was right about one thing.’
This time she got a bite. ‘What do you mean?’
‘This will be one beautiful baby. Carla was beautiful, Dominic. It’s so unfair she didn’t live to see her child.’
He didn’t reply as he set the car in motion and she wished she’d said nothing too. He’d already be regretting that earlier kiss and now she’d gone and mentioned his wife. Not that he would need reminding of her. Did he feel he’d betrayed Carla, by kissing the woman carrying her child? Did he wish it was Carla sitting alongside him now? Did he wish it was Carla he’d been kissing?
Of course he would.
Instead he was stuck with her. But at least it was only for a few short months. And then he’d have Carla’s baby and she would be free of pregnancy hormones and the crazy thoughts and fantasies they spawned that had no place in reality.
She could hardly wait.
He didn’t go straight home as she’d expected. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked when she realised they were heading in the wrong direction.
‘Do you have to rush back?’ he asked enigmatically. ‘I thought it might be nice to go for a drive now that the showers seem to have passed.’
She shrugged, surprised. There was nothing she had to get back for. But after that kiss she was sure he’d want to get her home and out of his hair as quickly as possible. Then again, he’d probably already forgotten about it. ‘Sure.’
He pulled over and activated a switch that took the top down in a whirr of motor and click of machinery and soon the sports car was heading towards the city. Sydney almost sparkled in the sunlight as they crossed the Harbour Bridge, fresh from its earlier showers, a light on-shore breeze countering the humidity.
He seemed to know where he was going so she didn’t bother him with questions. Just enjoyed the sensation of being in the passenger seat alongside him as they bypassed the city. She saw the looks of envy from the cars they passed, the men lusting after the car, the women lusting after Dominic.
He wasn’t hers in any way, shape or form. A kiss did not bestow ownership by any means, especially one given in pity, and having his child in her belly did not make him hers, but she was the one sitting in this seat right now and she was going to enjoy it. She sat back and ate up the envy. Things would be different after the baby was born. Very different.
Already her former life seemed almost foreign. The little house she still didn’t know if she would get to keep. The dusty streets and the baking heat. She would miss the clean smell of the ocean and the blazing sunrise as night turned to day.
But return she must. She’d signed an agreement to that effect, she’d sworn she’d leave as soon as the baby was born. It wasn’t as if she had a choice.
And she didn’t want to stay. Not really. Just like she’d never really wanted a baby…
The wind whipped over the windscreen, swirling over their heads, playing with the ends of her hair while reason tugged at the fraying ends of her mind. No, that wasn’t quite right. She had wanted it—had thought that if she could give Shayne the baby he so desperately wanted that their marriage would finally become what her mother had wanted for her, what her mother had never had.
And for a moment, for just a few short weeks, she’d imagined her wishes had been answered and her hopes had been blessed. She hadn’t known then that her marriage was already over.
And then they’d discovered the truth and relief had taken over. Massive relief. For it wasn’t Shayne’s baby she was carrying. It was Shayne’s baby she didn’t want.
But could she afford to want this one?
No. She’d never wanted this child. Never. And as long as she kept telling herself that, everything would be fine.
The car threaded its way through the inner suburbs, past the Sydney Cricket Ground and further on, past Randwick Racecourse. The car felt good in his hands and he felt good in it. It had been a while since he’d allowed himself the simple pleasure of taking one of his cars for a spin.
It had been a while since he’d wanted to show someone the simple delights of driving through the city streets with the top down.
He noticed the men he passed looking at them from their city-bound SUVs, enjoying their looks of envy when they saw the woman alongside him, the ends of her hair flicking in the breeze.
He couldn’t blame them. She looked so different now from when he’d first met her. She’d gained weight in all the right places, her cheeks filled out now to balance that wide mouth and her long limbs toned from swimming and honey-gold from the sun. And he wondered how he could ever have taken her for anorexic.
He’d misjudged her in so many ways. She wasn’t what he’d expected at all. She was—more.
At least she could be more. He remembered her reluctance to shop for the nursery. He remembered how upset she’d been in the store, as if it had all been such a chore and she couldn’t wait to get away.
And none of it made sense because he also remembered how she’d felt in his arms, warm and yielding and womanly, her taste like a drug in his system…
He didn’t like things not making sense. He didn’t like it at all. Wondering what he was even doing here, he pulled the car into a just vacated space in the car park.
‘This is it,’ he announced, raising the top. ‘Welcome to Coogee Beach.’ Manicured lawns lined with Norfolk Island Pines on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other spread out before them. ‘Do you fancy a walk?’
She nodded, enjoying this rare chance for an outing despite the mess of conflicting thoughts in her head.
They wandered through the park, between the beach that was heaving with swimmers and the picnickers enjoying sizzling barbecues that sent delicious aromas into the air. They stopped for gelati before heading slowly up the path to the cliff walk. They paused at a lookout, gazing out at the surf and the ocean and the cruise ships and container vessels that ventured along the shipping lanes far out to sea.
‘My mother used to bring me here,’ he said, looking out towards the horizon, ‘when I was just a child.’ She looked up at him, at his tight expression, and she could see how much this cost him. ‘My nonna and poppa—my grandparents—would come too. We would have picnics at the beach. Swim in the sea pools at first, and then in the surf when I was older. After a picnic we’d wander along the cliff walks and think how good it would be to live so close to the sea.’
And now he did. Their lives had been so different, she thought, gazing out over the magnificent stretch of coastline for the very first time. Cliffs and beach and tumbled rocks and salt-toughened bushes bursting with colour.
They gazed silently out to sea, watching the waves crash mightily on the rocks below, the white water spray going metres into the air, before the wave’s energy dissipated, turning it to meek, foaming wash.
‘When my grandparents died, it killed me,’ he said, and she looked around to see his face so tight with pain it hurt her too. ‘We didn’t have much but we were a family. We had each other. Until a train collided with the bus they were in. They should have survived. I knew in my heart that my love for them should be enough to save them. If they’d been able to afford a car…’
She listened in silence, awed by the power and the pain of his words, fighting the urge to reach out and comfort him with his anguished face and his tightly bunched hands.
‘For a while there was just my mother and me. We had each other. For a while—until once again I learned that love was nowhere near enough. Th
at it was money you needed if you wanted things to happen. Money you needed in this world if you wanted to save and protect the ones you loved.’ He turned to her then and it was all she could do not to reel away; his eyes were as black and bleak and empty of life as a bushfire-ravaged forest.
‘Your mother died of cancer,’ he said. ‘Mine too. A brain tumour that sucked her of her life. And because we didn’t have the money to pay for private treatment, we had to wait in line for months for her to have scans. Months to see a specialist. And by that time it was too late. There was nothing they could do. And I learned—by God I learned—that it is only money that can get you what you want, when you need it.’
His voice trailed off, carried away by the wind and the waves, and she thought he was spent until his voice came back, gravel-rich and thick with anguish as his gaze stayed firmly fixed on the shifting sea.
‘Except I couldn’t save Carla. All the money in the world, all the doctors and treatments and private hospitals and I couldn’t save her. Nothing could save Carla.’ He dragged in air. ‘When you arrived, it was like the fates were laughing in my face, taunting me. And why if not to remind me how powerless I really was?
‘I hated you then, hated what you represented, hated that you should turn up like you did and yet be claiming to carry my child.’
Waves crashed on the rocks below, seagulls wheeled in the sky and logic told her the world kept turning. But Angie could barely breathe for the tight bands wound around her heart and lungs.
‘I was wrong, though. You’re nothing like she was. I just thought you should know that. I was wrong and I’m sorry.’
He dropped his head onto his chest and dragged in a breath and finally turned his head towards her, his face devoid of expression. ‘Let’s go home.’
And he looked so defeated, so weary, that she didn’t dare ask him the questions uppermost in her mind—questions about how Carla had died—couldn’t put him through the agony of digging deeper into an obviously painful past. But as they made their way back to the car and through the streets of Sydney she absorbed what he had told her, not knowing why he had felt compelled today to tell her these things, but knowing that it helped her so much to make sense of the man—why he was driven the way he was. Why he needed so much to succeed in order to protect the ones he loved. What would that do to you, she wondered, if love had never worked in saving the people you loved, and then the money you’d thought would protect them hadn’t either?
