‘I’ll see.’
‘As you wish.’ He stooped to drop a quick kiss on her pouting mouth. ‘Let me know what you decide. I’ve got to rush. Be good.’
She humphed and rolled over on her side, pulling the sheets back over her head.
After she heard his car leave she pushed the hair out of her eyes and swung her legs out of bed. That was when it hit her like a truck coming at full force down the highway. The nausea was so sudden and so vile she only just made it to the en suite bathroom before gasping out the meagre contents of her stomach. She clutched at the basin, glancing at her pale features in the mirror. Another wave hit her, making her lurch over the basin once more in desperation.
After a while it eased slightly, and she washed her face and returned to the bed to lie down until the light-headedness dissipated. She lay there in increasing panic. How could her body have betrayed her like this, falling pregnant without her permission? She wanted to blame Damien but knew it was really her own fault. She shouldn’t have stopped taking the Pill in the first place. She’d just got lazy.
She dragged herself out of bed and back to the bathroom. She had to have it confirmed first—it could be a false alarm, she reassured herself vainly.
‘Oh, God!’ she cried at her reflection in the fogged mirror. ‘What am I going to do?’
Emily stared at the dipstick in her hand, waves of panic sweeping through her at the confirmation of the pregnancy she dreaded. She’d rushed to the pharmacy and bought a double testing kit and both of the tests told her the same truth. She was having a baby—Damien’s baby.
She wished she could tell somebody, somebody who would reassure her it was all going to work out, but there was no one. She thought of calling Rose but decided against it at the last minute. Her friendship with her was still developing; she didn’t want to jeopardise it by burdening her with problems that were largely insurmountable.
She’d have to face it alone—she didn’t have any other choice. It wasn’t as if she could tell Damien, at least not yet. Perhaps she could simply disappear from his life, pretend she’d found somebody else and move on. Her heart quaked at the thought of his reaction. He liked to be the one calling the shots; that much she had learned in the few short weeks they’d been married.
Emily caught a bus to Centennial Park and walked for two hours, thinking about her dilemma. The cooling shade of the old trees calmed her enough to make her realise she had to take better care of herself from now on. No more scanty meals and irregular exercise.
She checked her watch and, seeing it was close to twelve, wondered if she should take up Damien’s offer of lunch after all. She hadn’t thought to bring her mobile with her, nor did she have his number on her, but she knew where his office block was and decided to go there in person.
She wasn’t sure what made her stop at the flashing pedestrian signal across the street from his building. Normally she would have raced across, just like everyone else, weaving her way through the bustling crowd, but this time she didn’t.
She saw Damien first. He was outside the front entrance, bending down to speak through a car window to someone sitting in the driver’s seat of a sports car. Several horns tooted behind the shiny Mercedes and Emily watched in horror as Linda Janssen leaned out of the window to kiss him, her hand grasping his, holding it to the ridge of the car’s open window. A cab driver tailgated Linda’s car and Damien stepped back and waved her off with a warm smile.
Emily turned and sped in the opposite direction, her heart thumping painfully in her chest. She almost fell to her knees in her haste to get away before Damien looked across the street. She checked over her shoulder once and was relieved when a line of buses blocked the intersection, giving her a lengthy reprieve.
She stumbled on to the first bus that sidled to a stop beside her, not caring where it was going. She paid her fare and huddled in a seat next to an old gentleman who smelt of mothballs and whisky. She sat and willed herself not to be sick, all the time wondering how she was going to face Damien later that day.
The bus took her to Waringah Mall, where she spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly around the shops, filling in time with cups of tea or glasses of juice from the various cafés. She was sitting staring at the uneaten raisin toast in front of her when she felt a shadow pass over her.
‘Emily!’ Danny Margate pulled out the chair opposite. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I…’ Emily gaped at him in shock. ‘I’m…I’m shopping.’
Danny looked at the floor near her feet, noting the absence of any parcels.
‘Not very successfully, I’d say.’
‘I’m not in the mood for buying today.’
‘How’s Damien? Keeping you busy?’
Emily didn’t care for his insolent tone. ‘He’s fine.’
‘You don’t seem very happy to see me,’ he observed. ‘Especially when I have something in my possession I’m sure you’ll want very badly.’
She watched him closely, trying to gauge his mood. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s a diary,’ he said, picking up a slice of her abandoned raisin toast and biting into it.
‘Whose?’
He paused for effect. Emily felt like a trout being lured by a colourful but totally fake fly.
‘Rose’s.’
She stared at him incredulously. ‘You’d give me Rose’s diary?’
His smile didn’t quite reach his cold light-blue eyes. ‘For a price.’
‘Of course,’ she said cynically.
‘If you don’t want it I can offer it to someone else. I already have someone in mind.’
‘Who?’
‘Marsha Montford.’
Emily was familiar with the biographer’s work. Her last book had caused an even bigger scandal than her own. She felt sick at the thought of Damien and his aunt being subjected to the sort of ruthless tactics someone like Marsha employed to write a bestseller.
‘How much?’ she asked.
‘How much can you afford?’
Emily took her time replying. She didn’t want to commit herself, but neither did she want to give him free rein to destroy his brother and aunt in so despicable a fashion.
‘I’ll have to think about it,’ she hedged. ‘I’ll call you on Monday.’
His eyes glinted with triumph. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’ He got to his feet and handed her a business card. ‘I’ve got a new apartment in Bondi. Come and see me there on Monday afternoon, say two o’clock? We can finalise the terms then.’
Emily took the card, immediately feeling tainted by its presence in her hand. She felt as if she’d just stepped into a carefully laid snare, but it was too late to step back out of it now.
Danny waved a hand and was gone, disappearing into the crowd of Friday afternoon shoppers. She sat and stared at the card in her hand and wondered if today was going to get any worse. It hardly seemed likely, but she was wrong.
The bus she caught back to the city got swallowed up by a nasty traffic snarl approaching the Harbour Bridge. Emily sat clammily in the late-afternoon heat, her brow beading with perspiration in spite of the air-conditioning. The bus moved by millimetres every five minutes or so, as impatient drivers fought for their turn to merge into the already crowded lanes.
Emily began to think it would be quicker to walk, and was even considering asking the driver to open the door for her when all of a sudden the traffic started to flow. Relief seemed to spread through the bus as each of the other passengers settled back in their seats for the remainder of the journey.
She was exhausted by the time she walked up the path towards Damien’s front door. A raging thirst had given her a headache and her right foot had developed a blister on the heel. It was close to seven p.m. and she knew Damien would be wondering where she was. Before she could find her key in her bag the door opened and he stood there, all six feet four of him, his dark brown eyes raking her from head to toe.
‘I suppose it would be a complete waste of time
to ask you where you’ve been?’ he drawled.
She brushed past him, her right shoe in her hand. ‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘I was at work all day,’ he said. ‘Waiting for you to call.’
Emily turned to look at him. ‘And was it a trying day at the office—darling?’ she asked with sugar-sweet derision.
He frowned as his gaze swept over her dishevelled form. ‘You don’t seem to be in a very good mood,’ he observed. ‘Has something happened?’
She could have screamed at him. Yes, I’m having your child! She could hear the words forming in her throat and hastily swallowed them. This was definitely not the right time to drop that particular bombshell.
‘I’m hot and tired. My bus was caught in traffic and I had to sit for an hour and twenty minutes while the lanes cleared. I have a headache too,’ she added despondently. And I saw you with your mistress in the middle of town and your brother is a creep who’d sell his grandmother to make a dollar.
‘Why don’t you have a shower and I’ll bring you up some paracetamol?’
Emily sighed gratefully and carried on up the stairs.
She was towelling her hair dry after her shower when he came into the en suite bathroom with a glass of water and two white tablets. She tucked the ends of the towel across her breasts and took the glass from him. She was raising it to her mouth just as he reached down to pick up something off the floor near the vanity basin.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
She stared in horror at the scrunched up packet in his hand. It was the pregnancy test she’d used that morning.
CHAPTER TWELVE
EMILY froze.
Damien unfolded the packet and stood looking at it for a long time. He scrunched it back up and tossed it in the bin near the basin. His expression when he turned to look at her was inscrutable.
‘I was going to tell you—’ she began uncomfortably. She cleared the restriction in her throat before continuing. ‘I’m pregnant.’
‘But I thought you said you were taking the Pill?’ His eyes lasered hers.
Emily lowered her gaze.
‘I suppose it’s rather impolitic of me to ask, but is it mine?’
Her stomach churned at the contempt in his voice.
‘What do you think?’ she asked, hoping he’d see beyond the mask of pride in her tone.
He sucked in a breath that she felt all along the length of her spine.
‘I think I’m finally starting to see why you married me.’
She didn’t trust herself to speak. His eyes hardened as they bored into hers.
‘I didn’t just solve your financial problems, did I? I also provided a convenient safety net for your love-child. Does Danny know?’
She shook her head, close to tears at his ready assumption that this baby wasn’t his. Did he really think so badly of her? That she’d use him in such a way?
He gave her a scornful look when she didn’t speak.
‘I can’t believe you managed to pull it off. Here I was, thinking I had outmanoeuvred you, while all the time you had me falling neatly into a snare of your own.’
‘Damien, I never intended this to—’
He dismissed her with a carelessly flung hand. ‘Me, of all people. The irony, if only you knew, is unbelievable.’
‘It’s not what you’re thinking—’
‘Don’t try and weasel your way out of this,’ he barked. ‘I should’ve seen it coming but I didn’t. Quite frankly, I didn’t think you’d go so low, but then it proves how deluded us men really are. I should’ve known there’d be a high price to pay for the pleasure I’ve had from that delectable body of yours.’ He gave her another sweeping glance that chilled her to the bone. ‘When is it due?’
Emily was beyond the maths in her upset state. ‘I’m…I’m not sure. I don’t know how far along I am.’
He turned around and slammed his fist into the wall near the door. She shrank from the violence in his action, her eyes widening in alarm. She’d never seen him so out of control before and it frightened her.
‘Please, Damien,’ she choked. ‘Please listen to me.’
He pushed himself away from the wall and faced her, his eyes like savage pools of hatred. ‘I need to be on my own for a while,’ he said. ‘Don’t wait up.’
Emily watched him leave the bathroom, her heart breaking with each step he took away from her.
She heard the front door slam and then the roar of his Lamborghini as he sped out of the driveway as if the hounds of hell were after him. She sank to the floor and bent her head into her knees. There was nothing she could do—he’d already made up his mind. There was simply nothing she could do.
Emily crawled into bed some time later and slept fitfully until she heard the sound of Damien’s car returning. She heard him clatter about in the kitchen downstairs and then in the lounge, where she heard him switch on the television. The noise of the replay of a one-day cricket match made it impossible for her to go back to sleep. She listened to the background drone for a few minutes before she dragged herself out of the bed. She reached for her bathrobe and, giving the lounge a wide berth, headed for the kitchen for something to settle her squeamish stomach.
She was peering into the refrigerator when Damien spoke from behind her. ‘Can I get you something? Some toast or an egg?’ There was no trace of the earlier anger in his voice.
Emily shut the fridge and looked up at him. There were lines of tension around his firm mouth, but his expression remained impassive.
‘I’ll have some toast.’ She moved towards the toaster.
‘I’ll get it,’ he said, crossing the room. ‘You sit down.’
Emily sat down on the nearest kitchen stool and watched as he took bread from the freezer compartment and popped it into the toaster.
He leant back against the bench while he waited for it to cook, his arms folded across his chest. ‘I should apologise for my behaviour earlier,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She looked away, frightened she might start crying.
‘Yes, it does.’ She heard him reach for a plate and a knife. ‘I hadn’t taken into account at that stage the impact of this on you.’
‘What do you mean?’
He turned at the pop of the toaster and began spreading the toast with the margarine he’d taken from the fridge.
‘I was thinking of how your news impacted on me. I’m afraid I hadn’t given much thought to how it impacted on you.’
Emily retreated into one of her helpless silences.
‘I assume this pregnancy wasn’t planned?’
She shook her head.
‘Then what do you plan to do?’
‘I…I hadn’t thought that far.’
‘You not intending to…’ he paused as he searched for the right euphemism ‘…get rid of it?’
‘Of course not!’ She snatched at the toast he handed her and turned away. ‘This is my fault—I’m the one who has to face the consequences, not the totally innocent party.’
‘I don’t think you should tell Danny, at least not now. I don’t think he’d take it too well.’
Emily toyed with the toast on her plate with agitated fingers. Damien handed her the honey jar and a knife. Their fingers touched briefly and she pulled her hand away as if it had been burnt.
‘I hate to destroy any image you might have of your expected child’s father, but Danny’s prime motivation in life is to make money at someone else’s expense.’
‘Danny isn’t—’
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ he interrupted her. ‘I’ve heard it all before from the various girlfriends he’s had in the past. I’ve had to pay off quite a few before you came along.’
Emily’s stomach hollowed.
‘I wasn’t really his—’
‘Quite frankly, I’m not too interested in the details.’ He cut across her denial. ‘Danny is somewhat of a law unto himself. You’d be wise to give him a wide berth. Why not pass
this child off as mine? No one will question it.’
No one but you! she thought despairingly.
‘But—’
He stalled her protest with a raised hand.
‘No, I insist. It will do me good to bring up someone else’s child. It will help me get a perspective on some old issues that keep cropping up.’
Emily pushed away her toast. ‘Damien, I need to explain—’
‘Please.’ He grasped her hand, stalling her confession. ‘I insist. We’re both adults. We can deal with this.’
‘But you don’t understand!’ she cried.
‘Oh, but I do,’ he said. ‘More than you’ll ever know.’
She gave up at that point. Her head was still pounding and the toast he’d made was lying untouched in front of her.
‘I’m so tired,’ she said in defeat.
‘Come on.’ He took her by the arm, helping her to her feet. ‘Let’s get you into bed where you belong.’
Emily leant on him gratefully, too exhausted to say the things she needed to say. Her mind was scrambled with a host of erratic thoughts. How could she prove this was Damien’s child? Would he consent to a DNA test? What would he say when he finally found out the truth, or would it be too late? Hadn’t they already said and done too much?
She slipped in between the cool sheets and closed her eyes. Damien drew the covers over her and stood by the bedside for a moment, thinking.
‘We should call a doctor,’ he said after a moment or two. ‘Have you checked out.’
‘I’m fine, really.’
‘You don’t eat properly,’ he said. ‘You’ve lost even more weight since we’ve been married. You’ve got to think about the baby.’
‘I know,’ she said into the pillow. ‘I’ll try.’
She sighed and closed her eyes, her body insisting on sleep even though her mind was tortured with the anguish of her situation. Her body won. Within minutes she was asleep, oblivious to the dark, concerned gaze of her husband, who was standing looking down at her.
The nausea hit her hard the next morning. As she dry-retched over the basin she was aware of Damien listening on the other side of the en suite bathroom door.
His Inconvenient Wife Page 14
