The Bridesmaid's Baby Bump

by Kandy Shepherd

  When she’d first started studying in Sydney, cut off from any family support because she’d refused to toe her father’s line, she’d had to budget for every cent. It was a habit she’d kept. Why waste money on a business class seat for a flight of less than three hours?

  ‘Then why...?’ He gestured around him at the exclusive waiting area.

  ‘I met a friend going through Security. She invited me in here on her guest pass. She went out on an earlier flight.’

  ‘Lucky for me—otherwise I might have missed you.’

  She made a humph kind of sound at that, which drew a half-smile from him.

  ‘Contrary to what you might think, I’m very glad to see you,’ he said, in that deep, strong voice she found so very appealing.

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ she said, somewhat mollified. Of course she was glad to see him too—in spite of her better judgement. How could she deny even to herself that her every sense was zinging with awareness of him? She would have to be very careful not to be taken in by him again.

  ‘Are you going to Port Douglas on business or pleasure?’

  ‘Pleasure,’ she said, without thinking. Then regretted her response as a flush reddened on her cheeks.

  She had fantasised over pleasure with him. When it came to Jake Marlowe it wasn’t so easy to switch off the attraction that had been ignited at their very first meeting. She would have to fight very hard against it.

  It had taken some time to get her life to a steady state after her divorce, and she didn’t want it tipping over again. When she’d seen the media reports of Jake’s divorce, but hadn’t heard from him, she’d been flung back to a kind of angst she didn’t welcome. She cringed when she thought about how often she’d checked her phone for a call that had never come. It wasn’t a situation where she might have called him. And she hated not being in control—of her life, her emotions. Never did she want to give a man that kind of power over her.

  ‘I mean relaxation,’ she added hastily. ‘Yes, relaxation.’

  ‘Party Queens keeping you busy?’

  ‘Party Queens always keeps me busy. Too busy right now. That’s why I’m grabbing the chance for a break. I desperately need some time away from the office.’

  ‘Have you solved the Gemma problem?’

  ‘No. I need to give it more thought. Gemma will always be a director of Party Queens, for as long as the company exists. It’s just that—’

  ‘Can passengers Dunne and Marlowe please make their way to Gate Eleven, where their flight is ready for departure?’

  The voice boomed over the intercom.

  Eliza sat up abruptly, her newspaper falling in a flurry of pages to the floor. Hissed a swearword under her breath. ‘We’ve got to get going. I don’t want to miss that plane.’

  ‘How about I meet you at the other end and drive you to Port Douglas?’

  Eliza hated being late. For anything. Flustered, she hardly heard him. ‘Uh...okay,’ she said, not fully aware of what she might be letting herself in for. ‘Let’s go!’

  She grabbed her wheel-on cabin bag—her only luggage—and half-walked, half-ran towards the exit of the lounge.

  Jake quickly caught up and led the way to the gate. Eliza had to make a real effort to keep up with his long stride. They made the flight with only seconds to spare. There was no time to say anything else as she breathlessly boarded the plane through the cattle class entrance while Jake headed to the pointy end up front.

  * * *

  Jake had a suspicion that Eliza might try to avoid him at Cairns airport. As soon as the flight landed he called through to the garage where he kept his car to have it brought round. Having had the advantage of being the first to disembark, he was there at the gate to head Eliza off.

  She soon appeared, head down, intent, so didn’t see him as he waited for her. The last time he’d seen her she’d been resplendent in a ballgown. Now she looked just as good, in cut-off skinny pants that showed off her pert rear end and slim legs, topped with a form-fitting jacket. Deep blue again. She must like that colour. Her dark hair was pulled back in a high ponytail. She might travel Economy but she would look right at home in First Class.

  For a moment he regretted the decision he’d made to keep her out of his life. Three months wasted in an Eliza-free zone. But the aftermath of his divorce had made him unfit for female company. Unfit for any company, if truth be told.

  He’d been thrown so badly by the first big failure of his life that he’d gone completely out of kilter. Drunk too much. Made bad business decisions that had had serious repercussions to his bottom line. Mistakes he’d had to do everything in his power to fix. He had wealth, but it would never be enough to blot out the poverty of his childhood, to assuage the hunger for more that had got him into such trouble. He had buried himself in his work, determined to reverse the wrong turns he’d made. But he hadn’t been able to forget Eliza.

  ‘Eliza!’ he called now.

  She started, looked up, was unable to mask a quick flash of guilt.

  ‘Jake. Hi.’

  Her voice was higher than usual. Just as sweet, but strained. She was not a good liar. He stored that information up for later, as he did in his assessments of clients. He’d learned young that knowledge of people’s weaknesses was a useful tool. Back then it had been for survival. Now it was to give him a competitive advantage and keep him at the top. He could not let himself slide again.

  ‘I suspected you might try and avoid me, so I decided to head you off at the pass,’ he said.

  Eliza frowned unconvincingly. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Because you obviously think I’m a jerk for not calling you after the divorce. I’m determined to change your mind.’ He didn’t want to leave things the way they were. Not when thoughts of her had intruded, despite his best efforts to forget her.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, after a long pause. ‘You could do that over coffee. Not during an hour’s drive to Port Douglas.’

  So she’d been mulling over the enforced intimacy of a journey in his car. So had he. But to different effect.

  ‘How do you know I won’t need an hour with you?’

  She shrugged slender shoulders. ‘I guess I don’t. But I’ve booked the shuttle bus. The driver is expecting me.’

  ‘Call them and cancel.’ He didn’t want to appear too high-handed. But no way was she going to get on that shuttle bus. ‘Come on, Eliza. It will be much more comfortable in my car.’

  ‘Your rental car?’

  ‘I have a house in Port Douglas. And a car.’

  ‘I thought you lived in Brisbane?’

  ‘I do. The house in Port Douglas is an escape house.’

  He took hold of her wheeled bag. ‘Do you need to pick up more luggage?’

  She shook her head. ‘This is all I have. A few bikinis and sundresses is all I need for four days.’

  Jake forced himself not to think how Eliza would look in a bikini. She was wearing flat shoes and he realised how petite she was. Petite, slim, but with curves in all the right places. She would look sensational in a bikini.

  ‘My car is out front. Let’s go.’

  Still she hesitated. ‘So you’ll drop me at my resort hotel?’

  Did she think he was about to abduct her? It wasn’t such a bad idea, if that was what it took to get her to listen to him. ‘Your private driver—at your service,’ he said with a mock bow.

  She smiled that curving smile he found so delightful. The combination of astute businesswoman and quick-to-laughter Party Queen was part of her appeal.

  ‘Okay, I accept the offer,’ she said.

  The warm midday air hit him as they left the air-conditioning of the terminal. Eliza shrugged off her jacket to reveal a simple white top that emphasised the curves of her breasts. She stretched out her slim,
toned arms in a movement he found incredibly sensual, as if she were welcoming the sun to her in an embrace.

  ‘Nice and hot,’ she said with a sigh of pleasure. ‘Just what I want. Four days of relaxing and swimming and eating great food.’

  ‘April is a good time of year here,’ he said. ‘Less chance of cyclone and perfect conditions for diving on the Great Barrier Reef.’

  The garage attendant had brought Jake’s new-model four-by-four to the front of the airport. It was a luxury to keep a car for infrequent use. Just as it was to keep a house up here that was rarely used. But he liked being able to come and go whenever he wanted. It had been his bolthole through the unhappiest times of his marriage.

  ‘Nice car,’ Eliza said.

  Jake remembered they’d talked about cars at their first meeting. He’d been impressed by how knowledgeable she was. Face it—he’d been impressed by her. Period. No wonder she’d been such a difficult woman to forget.

  He put her bag into the back, went to help her up into the passenger’s seat, but she had already swung herself effortlessly up. He noticed the sleek muscles in her arms and legs. Exercise was a non-negotiable part of her day, he suspected. Everything about her spoke of discipline and control. He wondered how it would be to see her come to pieces with pleasure in his arms.

  Jake settled himself into the driver’s seat. ‘Have you been to Port Douglas before?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, but not for some time,’ she said. ‘I loved it and always wanted to come back. But there’s been no time for vacations. As you know, Party Queens took off quickly. It’s an intense, people-driven business. I can’t be away from it for long. But I need to free my head to think about how we can make it work with Gemma not on the ground.’

  Can’t or didn’t want to be away from her job? Jake had recognised a fellow workaholic when he’d first met her.

  ‘So you’re familiar with the drive from Cairns to Port Douglas?’

  With rainforest on one side and the sea on the other, it was considered one of the most scenic drives in Australia.

  ‘I planned the timing of my flight to make sure I saw it in daylight.’

  ‘I get the feeling very little is left to chance with you, Eliza.’

  ‘You’ve got it,’ she said with a click of her fingers. ‘I plan, schedule, timetable and organise my life to the minute.’

  She was the total opposite of his ex-wife. In looks, in personality, in attitude. The two women could not be more different.

  ‘You don’t like surprises?’ he asked.

  ‘Surprises have a habit of derailing one’s life.’

  She stilled, almost imperceptibly, and there was a slight hitch to her voice that made him wonder about the kind of surprises that had hit her.

  ‘I like things to be on track. For me to be at the wheel.’

  ‘So by hijacking you I’ve ruined your plans for today?’

  His unwilling passenger shrugged slender shoulders.

  ‘Just a deviation. I’m still heading for my resort. It will take the same amount of time. Just a different mode of transportation.’ She turned her head to face him. ‘Besides. I’m on vacation. From schedules and routine as much as from anything else.’

  Eliza reached back and undid the tie from her ponytail, shook out her hair so it fell in a silky mass to her shoulders. With her hair down she looked even lovelier. Younger than her twenty-nine years. More relaxed. He’d like to run his hands through that hair, bunch it back from her face to kiss her. Instead he tightened his hands on the steering wheel as she settled back in her seat.

  ‘When you’re ready to tell me why I had to read about your divorce in the gossip columns rather than hear it from you,’ she said, ‘I’m all ears.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  JAKE WAS VERY good at speaking the language of computers and coding. At talking the talk when it came to commercial success. While still at university he had come up with a concept for ground-breaking software tools to streamline the digital workflow of large businesses. His friend Dominic Hunt had backed him. The resulting success had made a great deal of money for both young men. And Jake had continued on a winning streak that had made him a billionaire.

  But for all his formidable skills Jake wasn’t great at talking about emotions. At admitting that he had fears and doubts. Or conceding to any kind of failure. It was one of the reasons he’d got into such trouble when he was younger. Why he’d fallen apart after the divorce. No matter how much he worked on it, he still considered it a character flaw.

  He hoped he’d be able to make a good fist of explaining to Eliza why he hadn’t got in touch until now.

  He put the four-by-four into gear and headed for the Captain Cook Highway to Port Douglas. Why they called it a highway, he’d never know—it was a narrow two-lane road in most places. To the left was dense vegetation, right back to the distant hills. To the right was the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, its turquoise sea bounded by narrow, deserted beaches, broken by small islands. In places the road ran almost next to the sand. He’d driven along this road many times, but never failed to be impressed by the grandeur of the view.

  He didn’t look at Eliza but kept his eyes on the road. ‘I’ll cut straight to it,’ he said. ‘I want to apologise for not getting in touch when I said I would. I owe you an explanation.’

  ‘Fire away,’ Eliza said.

  Her voice was cool. The implication? This had better be good.

  He swallowed hard. ‘The divorce eventually came through three months ago.’

  ‘I heard. Congratulations.’

  He couldn’t keep the cynical note from his voice. ‘You congratulate me. Lots of people congratulated me. A divorce party was even suggested. To celebrate my freedom from the ball and chain.’

  ‘Party Queens has organised a few divorce parties. They’re quite a thing these days.’

  ‘Not my thing,’ he said vehemently. ‘I didn’t want congratulations. Or parties to celebrate what I saw as a failure. The end of something that didn’t work.’

  ‘Was that because you were still...still in love with your wife?’

  A quick glance showed Eliza had a tight grip on the red handbag she held on her lap. He hated talking about stuff like this. Even after all he’d worked on in the last months.

  ‘No. There hadn’t been any love there for a long time. It ended with no anger or animosity. Just indifference. Which was almost worse.’

  He’d met his ex when they were both teenagers. They’d dated on and off over the early years. Marriage had felt inevitable. He’d changed a lot; she hadn’t wanted change. Then she’d betrayed him. He’d loved her. It had hurt.

  ‘That must have been traumatic in its own way.’ Eliza’s reply sounded studiously neutral.

  ‘More traumatic than I could have imagined. The process dragged on for too long.’

  ‘It must have been a relief when it was all settled.’

  Again he read the subtext to her sentence: All settled, but you didn’t call me. It hinted at a hurt she couldn’t mask. Hurt caused by him. He had to make amends.

  ‘I didn’t feel relief. I felt like I’d been turned upside down and wasn’t sure where I’d landed. Couldn’t find my feet. My ex and I had been together off and on for years, married for seven. Then I was on my own. It wasn’t just her I’d lost. It was a way of life.’

  ‘I understand that,’ she said.

  The shadow that passed across her face hinted at unspoken pain. She’d gone through divorce too. Though she hadn’t talked much about it on the previous occasions when they had met.

  He dragged in a deep breath. Spit it out. Get this over and done with. ‘It took a few wipe-out weeks at work for me to realise going out and drinking wasn’t the way to deal with it.’

  ‘It usually isn’t,’ she said.

>   He was a guy. A tough, successful guy. To him, being unable to cope with loss was a sign of weakness. Weakness he wasn’t genetically programmed to admit to. But the way he’d fallen to pieces had lost him money. That couldn’t be allowed to happen again.

  ‘Surely you had counselling?’ she said. ‘I did after my divorce. It helped.’

  ‘Guys like me don’t do counselling.’

  ‘You bottle it all up inside you instead?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘That’s not healthy—it festers,’ she said. ‘Not that it’s any of my business.’

  The definitive turning point in his life had not been his divorce. That had come much earlier, when he’d been aged fifteen, angry and rebellious. He’d been forced to face up to the way his life was going, the choices he would have to make. To take one path or another.

  Jake didn’t know how much Eliza knew about Dominic’s charity—The Underground Help Centre in Brisbane for homeless young people—or Jake’s involvement in it. A social worker with whom both Dominic and Jake had crossed paths headed the charity. Jim Hill had helped Jake at a time when he’d most needed it. He had become a friend. Without poking or prying, he had noticed Jake’s unexpected devastation after his marriage break-up, and pointed him in the right direction for confidential help.

  ‘Someone told me about a support group for divorced guys,’ Jake said, with a quick, sideways glance to Eliza and in a tone that did not invite further questions.

  ‘That’s good,’ she said with an affirmative nod.

  He appreciated that she didn’t push it. He still choked at the thought he’d had to seek help.

  The support group had been exclusive, secret, limited to a small number of elite men rich enough to pay the stratospheric fees. Men who wanted to protect their wealth in the event of remarriage, who needed strategies to avoid the pitfalls of dating after divorce. Jake had wanted to know how to barricade his heart as well as his bank balance.

  The men and the counsellors had gone into lockdown for a weekend at a luxury retreat deep in the rainforest. It had been on a first-name-only basis, but Jake had immediately recognised some of the high-profile men. No doubt they had recognised him too. But they had proved to be discreet.