The Bridesmaid's Baby Bump

by Kandy Shepherd

  He swung himself on to the top step.

  ‘I’ll see you in court.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SO IT HAD come to this. Eliza placed her hand protectively on her bump as she rode the elevator up to the twenty-third floor of the prestigious building in the heart of the central business district of Sydney, where the best law firms had their offices. She hadn’t heard from Jake for three weeks. All communication had been through their lawyers. Except for one challenging email.

  Now she was headed to a meeting with Jake and his lawyers to finalise a legal document that spelled out in detail a custody and support agreement for the unborn Baby Dunne.

  She must have paled at the thought of the confrontation to come, because her lawyer gave her arm a squeeze of support. Jake had, of course, engaged the most expensive and well-known family law attorney in Sydney to be on his side of the battle lines.

  He’d sent her an email.

  Are you sure you can afford not to marry me, Eliza? Just your lawyer’s fees alone will stop you in your tracks.

  What he didn’t realise, high up there in his billionaire world, where the almighty dollar ruled, was that not everybody could be bought. She had an older cousin who was a brilliant family lawyer. And Cousin Maree was so outraged at what Jake was doing that she was representing Eliza pro bono. Well, not quite for free. Eliza had agreed that Party Queens would organise the most spectacular twenty-first birthday party possible for Maree’s daughter.

  Now, Maree squeezed her arm reassuringly. ‘Chin up. Just let me do the talking, okay?’

  Eliza nodded, rather too numbed at the thought of what she was about to face to do anything else but keep quiet.

  She saw Jake the moment she entered the large, traditionally furnished meeting room. Her heart gave such a jolt she had to hold on for support to the back of one of the chairs that were ranged around the boardroom table. He was standing tall, in front of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on a magnificent mid-morning view of Sydney Harbour. The Bridge loomed so closely she felt she could reach out and touch it.

  Jake was wearing a deep charcoal-grey business suit, immaculately tailored to his broad shoulders and tapered to his waist. His hair—darker now, less sun-streaked—crept over his collar. No angel wings in sight—rather the forked tail and dark horns of the demon who had tormented her for the last three weeks with his demands.

  At the sound of her entering the room Jake turned. For a split second his gaze met hers. There was a flash of recognition—and something else that was gone so soon she scarcely registered it. But it could have been regret. Then the shutters came down to blank his expression.

  ‘Eliza,’ he said curtly, acknowledging her presence with a brief nod in her direction.

  ‘Jake,’ she said coolly, despite her inner turmoil.

  Her brain, so firmly in charge up until now, had been once more vanquished by her libido—she refused to entertain for even one second the thought that it might be her heart—which flamed into life at the sight of the beautiful man who had been her lover for those four, glorious days. So treacherous her libido, still to clamour for this man. Her lover who had become her enemy—the hero of her personal fairytale transformed into the villain.

  Eliza let Jake’s lawyer’s assistant pull out the chair for her. Before she sat she straightened her shoulders and stood proud. Her tailored navy dress with its large white collar was tucked and pleated to accommodate and show off her growing bump. She hoped her silent message was loud and clear—she was in possession of the prize.

  But at the same time as she displayed the ace in her hand she felt swept by a wave of inexplicable longing for Jake to be sharing the milestones of her pregnancy with her. She hadn’t counted on the loneliness factor of single motherhood. There was a vague bubbling sensation that meant the baby was starting to kick, she thought. At fifteen weeks it was too soon for her to be feeling vigorous activity; she knew that from the ‘what to expect’ pregnancy books and websites she read obsessively. But she had a sudden vision of Jake, resting his hand on her tummy, a look of expectant joy on his face as he waited to feel the kicking of their baby’s tiny feet.

  That could only happen in a parallel universe. Jake had no interest in her other than as an incubator.

  She wondered, too, if he had really thought ahead to his interaction with their son or daughter? His motivation seemed purely to be making up for the childhood he felt he’d lost because of his own despicable father. To try to right a family wrong and force a certain lifestyle on her whether she liked it or not.

  What if their child—who might be equally as smart and stubborn as his or her parents—had other ideas about how he or she wanted to live? He or she might be as fiercely independent as both her, Eliza, and the paternal grandmother—Jake’s mother.

  Would she ever get to meet his mother? Unlikely. Unless she was there when Eliza handed over their child for Jake’s court-prescribed visits.

  That was not how it was meant to be. She ached at the utter wrongness of this whole arrangement.

  Jake settled in to a chair directly opposite her, his lawyer to his right. That was his silent statement, she supposed. Confrontation, with the battlefield between them. Bring it on, she thought.

  It was fortunate that the highly polished dark wooden table was wide enough so there was no chance of his knees nudging hers, her foot brushing against his when she shifted in her seat. Because, despite all the hostility, her darn libido still longed for his touch. It was insane—and must surely be blamed on the up-and-down hormone fluctuations of pregnancy.

  Maree cleared her throat. ‘Shall we start the proceedings? This is very straightforward.’

  Maree had explained all this to her before, but Eliza listened intently as her cousin spoke, at the same time keeping her gaze firmly fixed on Jake’s face. He gave nothing away—not the merest flicker of reaction. He ran his finger along his collar and tugged at his tie—obviously uncomfortable at being ‘trussed up’. But she guessed he’d wanted to look like an intimidating billionaire businessman in front of the lawyers.

  Maree explained how legally there could not be any formal custody proceedings over an unborn child. However, the parties had agreed to prepare a document outlining joint custody to present to a judge after the event of a live birth.

  Eliza had known that particular phrase would be coming and bit her lip hard. She caught Jake’s eye, and his slight nod indicated his understanding of how difficult it was for her to hear it. Because its implication was that something could go wrong in the meantime. Her greatest fear was that she would lose this miracle baby—although her doctor had assured her the pregnancy was progressing very well.

  Jake’s hands were gripped so tightly together that his knuckles showed white—perhaps he feared it too. He had been so brilliant that day he’d taken her to hospital.

  Eliza was looking for crumbs to indicate that Jake wasn’t the enemy, that this was all a big misunderstanding. That brief show of empathy from him might be it. Then she remembered why she was here in the first place. To be coerced into signing an agreement she didn’t want to sign.

  She was being held to a threat—hinted at rather than spoken out in the open—that if she didn’t co-operate Jake would use his influence to steer wealthy clients away from Party Queens. Right at a time when her ongoing intermittent nausea and time away from work, plus the departure of their new head chef to a rival firm, meant her beloved company—and her livelihood—was tipping towards a precipice. What choice did she have?

  Maree continued in measured tones, saying that both parties acknowledged Jake Marlowe’s paternity, so there would be no need for a court-ordered genetic test once the baby was born. She listed the terms of the proposed custody agreement, starting with limited visits by the father while the child was an infant, progressing to full-on division of weekends an
d vacations. The baby’s legal name would be Baby Dunne-Marlowe—once the sex was known a first name satisfactory to both parents would be agreed upon.

  Then Jake’s lawyer took over, listing the generous support package to be provided by Mr Marlowe—all medical expenses paid, a house to be gifted in the child’s name and held in trust by Mr Marlowe, a trust fund to be set up for—

  Eliza half got up from her chair. She couldn’t endure this sham a second longer. ‘That’s enough. I know what’s in the document. Just give it to me and I’ll sign.’

  She subsided in her chair. Bent her head to take Maree’s counsel.

  ‘Are you sure?’ her cousin asked in a low voice. ‘You don’t want further clarification of the trust fund provisions? Or the—?’

  ‘No. I just want this to be over.’

  The irony of it struck her. Jake had been worried about gold-diggers. Now he was insisting she receive money she didn’t want, binding her with ties that were choking all the joyful anticipation of her pregnancy. She tried to focus on the baby. That precious little person growing safe and happy inside her. Her unborn child was all that mattered.

  She avoided looking at Jake as she signed everywhere the multiple-paged document indicated her signature was required, stabbing the pen so hard the paper tore.

  * * *

  Jake followed Eliza as she departed the conference room, apparently so eager to get away from him that she’d broken into a half-run. She was almost to the bank of elevators, her low-heeled shoes tapping on the marble floor, before he caught up with her.

  ‘Eliza,’ he called.

  She didn’t turn around, but he was close enough to hear her every word.

  ‘I have nothing to say to you, Jake. You’ve got what you wanted, so just go away.’

  Only she didn’t say go away. She used far pithier language.

  She reached the elevator and jabbed the elevator button. Once, twice, then kept on jabbing it.

  ‘That won’t get it here any faster,’ he said, and immediately regretted the words. Why had he said something so condescending? He cursed his inability to find the right words in moments of high tension and emotion.

  She turned on him, blue eyes flashing the brightest he’d seen them. Bright with threatening tears, he realised. Tears of anger—directed at him.

  ‘Of course it won’t. But I live in hope. Because the sooner I can get away from you, the better. Even a second or two would help.’ She went back to jabbing the button.

  Her baby bump had grown considerably since he’d last seen her. She looked the picture of an elegant, perfectly groomed businesswoman. The smart, feisty Eliza he had come to— Come to what? Respect? Admire? Something more than that. Something, despite all they’d gone through, he couldn’t put a name to.

  ‘You look well,’ he said. She looked more beautiful than ever.

  With a sigh of frustration she dropped her finger from the elevator button. Aimed a light kick at the elevator door. She turned to face him, her eyes narrowed with hostility.

  ‘Don’t try and engage me in polite chit-chat. Just because you’ve forced me to sign a proposed custody agreement it doesn’t mean you own me—like you’re trying to own my baby.’

  You didn’t own children—and you couldn’t force a woman to marry you. Belatedly he’d come to that realisation.

  Jake didn’t often admit to feeling ashamed. But shame was what had overwhelmed him during the meeting, as he’d watched the emotions flickering over Eliza’s face, so easy to read.

  He’d been a teenage troublemaker—the leader of a group of other angry, alienated kids like himself. Taller and more powerful than the others, he’d used his off-the-charts IQ and well-developed street-smarts to control and intimidate the gang—even those older than him.

  He’d thought he’d put all that long behind him. Then in that room, sitting opposite Eliza—proud, brave Eliza—it had struck him in the gut like a physical blow. He’d behaved as badly towards her as he had in his worst days as a teenage gang leader. Jim Hill would be ashamed of him—but not as ashamed as he was of himself.

  ‘I’m sorry, Eliza. I didn’t mean it to go this far.’

  She blinked away the threatening tears. ‘You played dirty, Jake. I wouldn’t marry you, so you brought in the big guns. I would have played fair with you. Visitation rights. Even the Dunne-Marlowe name. For the sake of our baby. I was glad you wanted to play a role in our child’s life. But I wasn’t in a space for making life-changing decisions right then. I’d just got out of hospital.’

  How had he let this get so far? ‘I was wrong. I should have—’

  ‘Now the document is signed you think you can placate me? Forget it. Don’t you see? You’re so concerned about giving this child your name, you’re bequeathing to him or her something much worse. A mother who resents her baby’s father. Who hates him for the way she’s had to fight against him imposing his will on her, riding roughshod over her feelings.’

  Now he was on the ground, being kicked from all sides. And the blows were much harder than those Eliza had given the elevator door.

  ‘Hate? That’s a strong word.’

  ‘Not strong enough for how I feel about you,’ she said, tight-lipped. ‘I reckon you’ve let the desire to win overcome all your common sense and feelings of decency.’

  Of course. He’d been guilty of over-thinking on a grand scale. ‘I just want to do the right thing by our child,’ he said. ‘To look after it and to look after you too, Eliza. You need me.’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t need you. At one stage I wanted you. And...and I...I could have cared for you. When you danced me around that ballroom in Montovia I thought I was on the brink of something momentous in my life.’

  ‘So did I,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Then there was Port Douglas. Leaving you seemed so wrong. We had something real. Only we were so darn intent on protecting ourselves from hurt we didn’t recognise it and we walked away from it. The baby gave us a second chance. To be friends. Maybe more than friends. But we blew that too.’

  ‘There must be such a thing as a third chance,’ he said.

  She shook her head so vehemently it dislodged the clip that was holding her hair off her face and she had to push it back into place with hands that trembled.

  ‘No more chances. Not after what happened in that room today. You won’t break me. I will never forgive you. For the baby’s sake, I’ll be civil. It would be wrong to pump our child’s mind with poison against his or her father. Even if I happen to think he’s a...a bullying thug.’ Her cheeks were flushed scarlet, her eyes glittered.

  Now he’d been kicked to a pulp—bruised black and blue all over. Hadn’t the judge used a similar expression when sentencing him to juvenile detention? The words bully and thug seemed to be familiar. But that had been so long ago. He’d been fifteen years of age. Why had those tendencies he’d thought left well and truly behind him in adolescence surfaced again?

  Then it hit him—the one final blow he hadn’t seen coming. It came swinging again like that sledgehammer from nowhere to slam him in the head. This wasn’t about Eliza needing him—it was about him needing her. Needing her so desperately he’d gone to crazy lengths to try to secure her.

  Just then the elevator arrived.

  ‘At last,’ Eliza said as she stepped towards it. She had to wait until a girl clutching a bunch of legal folders to her chest stepped out.

  ‘Eliza.’

  Jake went to catch her arm, to stop her leaving. There was so much he had to say to her, to explain. But she shrugged off his hand.

  ‘Please, Jake, no more. I can’t take it. I’ll let you know when the baby is born. As per our contract.’

  She stood facing him as the elevator doors started to slide slowly inward. The last thing he saw of her was a slice of her face, wi
th just one fat, glistening tear sliding down her cheek.

  Jake stood for a long time, watching the indicator marking the elevator’s progress down the twenty-three floors. He felt frozen to that marble floor, unable to step backwards or forwards.

  When the elevator reached the ground floor he turned on his heel and strode back to his meeting. He needed to rethink his strategy. Jake Marlowe was not a man who gave up easily.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE LAST PLACE Eliza expected to be a week after the lawyers’ meeting with Jake was on an executive jet flying to Europe. Despite the gravity of the reason for her flight, it was a welcome distraction.

  Gemma had called an emergency meeting of the three Party Queens directors. Eliza’s unexpected pregnancy had tipped the problem of an absentee director into crisis point. And because Gemma was Crown Princess, as well as their Food Director, she had sent the Montovian royal family’s private jet to transport Eliza and Andie from Sydney to Montovia for the meeting.

  Just because Gemma could, Eliza had mused with a smile when she’d got the summons, along with the instructions for when a limousine would pick her up to take her to the airport where she would meet Andie.

  Dominic had decided to come along for the flight, too. He and Andie’s little boy Hugo was being looked after by his doting grandma and grandpa—Andie’s parents.

  Eliza was very fond of Andie’s husband. But despite the luxury of the flight—the lounge chair comfort of leather upholstery, the crystal etched with the Montovian royal coat of arms, the restaurant-quality food, the hotel-style bathrooms—she hadn’t been able to relax because of the vaguely hostile emanations coming her way from Dominic.

  Jake was Dominic’s best male friend. The bonds between them went deep. According to the legend of the two young billionaires they went way back, to when they’d been in their first year at university. Together, they had built fortunes. Created a charitable foundation for homeless kids. And cemented that young friendship into something adult and enduring.