Her Nine Month Confession

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘It is not a question of wanting. It has happened.’

  Lily found the awful grim tone of acceptance in his voice was a million times worse than his anger. ‘I didn’t do it on my own!’ she quivered back.

  He reacted defensively to the guilt that felt like a stomach punch. ‘I took precautions!’

  ‘Well, they didn’t work!’

  Something in her expression made him pause. He’d been so caught up with his own feelings...for the first time he found himself wondering how an unplanned pregnancy had made her feel. Had she been scared...angry...? Had she hated him?

  Was keeping him in the dark her way of punishing him?

  Why the hell was he feeling guilty? Maybe being irrational was contagious...

  ‘Well, you’ve got me there.’ His drawled response drew a wary look of suspicion from her gold-shot green eyes.

  ‘I don’t want to have you...’

  He raised a sardonic brow.

  ‘Anywhere?’ She closed her eyes and thought, Shut up, Lily. ‘I need to get indoors.’ Half turning, she dropped her voice to an indistinctive mumble. ‘The sun... I burn.’ Her eyes lifted and connected with his. The searing heat from his blue stare was several thousand degrees more scorching than the morning sun beating down on her bare shoulders.

  ‘You think I’ll be an awful father.’ He hid his very real fear that this was the case under a casual shrug. ‘Maybe you’re right, but the fact is we’re going to find out.’

  ‘But you don’t want—’

  Roughened with impatience, his deep voice drowned out the rest of her protest. ‘Don’t tell me what I want and don’t make this a fight, Lily, because you’ll lose. Save the mutual recriminations. The situation exists so let’s deal with it and move on.’

  Where? ‘I can’t!’ she yelled wildly and began to run along the beach, the tears streaming down her face.

  By the time she reached the bungalow Lily was out of breath. Chest heaving, she sat down on the bottom step covered by the shade of the canopy and waited.

  There was nowhere to run.

  A few moments later she heard his approach. She carried on staring at the sand until his feet appeared, the handmade leather dusted with sand. Her gaze travelled upwards until she reached his face. Despite everything her pulse leapt. She pressed her lips together to stop them quivering and held his gaze.

  ‘That was childish, sorry.’

  Ben tried to hold on to his anger but the glimmer of tears in her big green eyes made it slip away. She looked so vulnerable that he had to fight down the urge to offer her words of comfort. Instead he dropped down onto the wooden step beside her and waited. None of this was turning out the way he’d imagined.

  Lily stiffened as the painted wood creaked slightly. Though she stared straight ahead, in the periphery of her vision she was aware of him brushing sand from his trousers before resting his hands on his thighs.

  ‘I know we need to talk,’ she finally conceded, turning her head and angling a pleading look at his face. ‘But can it wait until later?’

  There was no receptive softening in his face to her appeal. ‘I think I’ve waited long enough, don’t you? I haven’t been there for my kid because I didn’t know she existed.’ He dealt her a grim, twisted smile. ‘What’s your excuse?’

  Her chin lifted as her cheeks heated with a combination of lust and guilt. She surged to her feet bristling with hostility as she stared down at him. ‘What do you mean by that?’ she tossed back in a low, throbbing voice.

  He shrugged. ‘I’m not the one who dumped her baby on her mother to cavort half naked on a tropical beach.’ And she’s not the one who is struggling to focus past half-naked.

  ‘I didn’t dump... I’ve never spent a night away from Emmy before...’ A suspicious furrow appeared between her feathery brows. ‘Are you trying to make me out to be a bad mother? Are you trying to take Emmy away from me?’ Breathing hard, she pushed away, a paralysing stab of visceral fear hitting her. If he wanted a battle she would give him one, but she would never give him Emmy.

  ‘Don’t go paranoid on me.’ Ben roughed out his annoyance, giving way to admiration as he got to his feet and stood looking down at her.

  Her determination to regard him as a threat continued to be maddening and frustrating, but her tigress-like reaction to a perceived threat to her child...he couldn’t help but admire that.

  ‘You love her,’ he conceded with a shrug.

  ‘Of course I do! I’m her mother!’

  Ben found himself almost envying the fact that she took this as a given. What would Lily make of a mother who had no problem with her baby calling his nanny Mummy? A situation that his own mother had been quite happy with until the nanny had been caught in bed with her husband.

  ‘I can see that. And because you love her I’m assuming you agree that she needs stability.’

  ‘She has stability.’

  ‘So what happens when in the future—’ A future that would include men... His jaw clenched as he imagined a procession of faceless lovers drifting in and out of his daughter’s life—and Lily’s bed.

  ‘When what?’

  ‘My child—’

  Lily felt something inside her snap. ‘Your child. Where were you when your child had colic or when she...?’ Closing her eyes for the count of ten, she dug deep for calm, which she claimed after huffing out several breaths.

  ‘Sorry, that wasn’t fair, but neither were you.’ She flashed him a look of simmering reproach through her long curling lashes. ‘I may not be a perfect mother.’ It was a steep learning curve. ‘But I’m the best one I know and my mum is backup if I need it. Right now I’m going into my room to take a shower. It might not be a bad idea if you did the same—you look pretty awful,’ she lied.

  Dragging a hand across his stubble-roughened jaw, he regarded her with an expression of stark incredulity. ‘You can’t close the door on this or me.’

  ‘I know that, I just... Why did you come here like this—for me to apologise for having Emmy?’ She lifted her chin and shook her head. ‘It’s never going to happen, and even if I had told you I’d have never let you convince me to have a termination.’

  ‘Is that what you think I’d have done?’ A look of stark incredulity spread across his lean face as her comment sank in. ‘Is that why you didn’t tell me?’

  ‘I had enough to contend with without having to fight with you too.’ She closed her eyes, a brief respite from the intensity of his cobalt stare. She tightened the hold on her towel before continuing in a slow, carefully controlled voice. ‘I know you don’t want children. It’s not like it’s a secret. That’s your choice. Mine was to have Emmy.’ There had been enough voices that suggested she shouldn’t, without adding another.

  ‘You think I would have coerced you?’ He struggled to hide how much the idea shocked him.

  ‘It was not your choice to make,’ she said evenly. ‘But don’t try and tell me you’d have been happy if you’d known about Emmy. We had casual sex and I got pregnant. Everything that happened after that was my choice, my responsibility.’

  ‘What world do you live in that you think my child is not my responsibility? I could have walked past my own daughter on the street and not known who she was...’ He closed his eyes and let the pent-up breath in his chest escape before fixing her with a steady look of intent and warning. ‘If you think I’m going to walk away now, forget it. It’s not going to happen and all the talk and protests and blame-laying is not going to change that.’

  Lily’s chin lifted. ‘I might have been wrong not to tell you about Emmy—’

  ‘Might?’

  ‘You’re looking for a reason to be mad with me!’ she charged.

  His pressed the heels of his hands to his brow and shook his head slowly.

  ‘It’s true! Bu
t you have no right to—’

  His hands fell away and landed on her shoulders. Enough was enough. ‘Look at me...’

  She struggled with all her might to resist his demand, but the compulsion was too strong. ‘I have rights. You may wish it otherwise, but I am the child’s father and I intend to play a part in her life.’

  His hands fell away and Lily’s slender shoulders sagged in defeat. ‘So what happens now?’

  Good question. ‘We talk. I’ll pick you up at...’ he glanced at his watch and thought a moment before adding ‘...seven. In the hotel foyer?’

  Too drained to argue, she watched him go before turning and entering her bungalow.

  She flung herself face down on the sofa and, feeling emotionally battered, cried herself to sleep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SHE WAS STILL lying there several hours later when the maid brought her some afternoon tea.

  ‘Are you all right, miss?’

  Lily pulled herself upright and pressed a hand to her head. ‘I had a headache, Mathilde.’ It was no lie; her head was pounding.

  The maid made sympathetic noises and carried on chatting as Lily went off in search of an aspirin for her pounding head. Finding some in her flight bag, she swallowed them down. The scene from earlier replayed in her head as she washed her face and smoothed down her hair with a hand before returning.

  The maid was still there emanating an air of barely suppressed excitement, which was explained when she tipped her glossy head towards the tray. ‘You have an important message, miss, right there.’

  Lily opened the blank envelope that lay on the plate beside the basket of bite-sized savoury scones and sandwiches. Aware of the curious eyes trained on her face, she slid out the single sheet of hotel headed notepaper inside and unfolded it, and read it.

  Six-thirty.

  A man of few words and none of them please, she thought, experiencing a stab of rebellion, before reality kicked in and she thought, What’s the point? Save your energy for the battles that matter. A change of schedule was not one of them.

  ‘The man who left it at Reception is the rich Englishman,’ the maid explained, her eyes alive with curiosity.

  ‘Not all Englishmen are rich, Mathilde.’

  ‘He is,’ the girl insisted. ‘He arrived on a private plane this morning and it’s still sitting on the runway. The flight crew are staying on the other side of the island. I know because my cousin works at the hotel. The Englishman pays their wages while they sunbathe and eat their heads off. That,’ she said firmly, ‘is rich.’

  Lily could not argue. And being that rich was usually equated with power, she reminded herself. A fact she had been in danger of forgetting, not that it was exactly news. The family at the big house were not exactly poor, but since he had first appeared in the Top 100 Rich List five years ago Benedict Warrender’s name had been climbing, while his number of visits to the estate had fallen.

  ‘So is he your boyfriend?’

  It wasn’t hard to laugh at the description or ignore the dish-the-dirt invitation.

  ‘No, he isn’t.’ She felt almost guilty when the other girl’s face fell. ‘We really don’t live in the same world. My mother works for his family, my father used to as well.’ Lily felt a wistful stab of nostalgia for the time when their connection had been that simple and straightforward. But at least, fingers crossed, she had killed off any rumours that might be circulating on the island.

  She kept the maid talking, delaying the moment when she would be alone with her own thoughts and fears. But inevitably it came.

  Lily spent the rest of the day in a state of nervous anticipation. She would obviously have to compromise, but how much...?

  She was ready early, too early. Luckily her holiday wardrobe was limited so by the time she took a last look in the mirror she had only changed outfit three times. Then she was almost late when, halfway to the main hotel building, she realised she’d forgotten her shoes. By the time she finally entered the main hotel building carrying a pair of pretty sparkly sandals, she felt hot and breathless.

  Her eyes went to the clock on the wall: still early. Why does it matter if you’re late? she asked herself as she dusted the sand off her feet and slipped on the sandals. What she would have given to have had a pair of confidence-boosting killer heels with her. Chasing round after a two-year-old meant that heels were things of the past for Lily and, as she’d been coming on this holiday alone, it hadn’t occurred to her to pack anything other than beach footwear.

  ‘Miss Gray.’

  Lily straightened up to face the girl who had emerged from behind Reception.

  ‘Mr Warrender said to tell you he will be outside at six-thirty.’

  In case I couldn’t read. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Can I get you a cocktail?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lily said, feeling in desperate need of some Dutch courage for the unknown road that lay ahead.

  * * *

  She was outside waiting when he drew up in an open-topped, luxury four-wheel drive. Sitting in the driver’s seat, his short hair ruffled by the wind, he looked casual and elegant in an open-necked white shirt and pale biscuit linen trousers; a matching jacket lay folded on the back seat.

  A hotel doorman hurried over to open the door for her. The high step into the vehicle meant she was glad of his helping hand.

  As she got in beside him the nervous tension he had picked up on from a distance was more pronounced. Not the first thing he noticed about her, of course. He felt heat slither through his body leaving a molten trail that pooled hotly in his groin before he looked away.

  ‘Sorry if you were expecting a limo—’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ she said in a voice that lacked all intonation. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Someone recommended a place close by, but apparently the roads this side of the island require a four-wheel drive so—’ He left the sentence incomplete and looked at her hard for longer than was polite. She didn’t turn her head but she could feel his stare.

  She was taken aback when he said, almost accusingly, ‘You smell of something...flowers...?’

  She raised her arm to her face and held the inner aspect of her wrist to her nose, only getting the faintest suggestion of rose. He must have an ultra-sensitive nose or maybe he just hated the light citrusy perfume. Her slender shoulders lifted. ‘My soap.’ It was one she had used since she was a little girl.

  She had used it that night and left the scent on the pillow, Ben thought.

  As she struggled with her seat belt he turned his head, his hungry glance taking in the tumble of her glorious burnished loose hair swept over one shoulder. She was wearing a green dress that exposed her beautiful collarbones, shoulders and the delicate curve of her upper spine. As she leaned a little more forward adjusting her seat belt, her silky hair slithered around her face, revealing her neck. He turned his head sharply. When he began to fantasise about the back of a woman’s neck it was time to—to what exactly? He shook himself. He was here to negotiate custody terms, not sex.

  It was not going to be easy and Ben knew he could not afford to blur the lines or allow himself to be distracted. It was basic logic in the art of negotiation.

  ‘Sorry I’m early.’ He glanced in the rear-view mirror and pulled out between the palms.

  ‘You weren’t. I got the note and the message.’

  The tetchy note raised a lopsided grin. ‘I don’t like to be kept waiting.’

  ‘Now there’s a surprise.’

  ‘I suggest you hang on.’

  She ignored the comment but a couple of minutes later decided to put safety above pride and grabbed hold of the handrail.

  ‘I’m told there won’t be enough room outside the place to park,’ Ben explained as he pulled the car up a short while later within sight of a magic
ally pretty harbour. ‘Can your heels cope with the cobbles?’

  Struggling not to react as she felt his eyes on her legs, Lily brushed her hand up and down the skirt of the green halter-necked dress she wore before she uncrossed her ankles.

  ‘I’m not wearing heels. I’ll be fine,’ she said, thinking, This was such a bad idea. ‘I wasn’t expecting dinner or—’

  ‘Neutral territory seemed like a good idea,’ he returned smoothly. ‘And we have to eat. Relax, it’s not a date.’

  ‘I never thought it was.’ She jumped down unaided before he made it around to her side. He held out a hand to help her regain her balance after her foot caught in a pothole. The road was littered with them. That was what had made the journey so bumpy—the last half-mile had been on a dirt track.

  Lily conspicuously avoided his hand and eased her spine straight. She felt as though she had been riding a bucking bronco, but on the plus side negotiating the road with its hair-pin bends and the occasional oncoming vehicle on the wrong side of the road had meant he wasn’t inclined to make conversation. All that had changed: now she faced an evening of careful negotiation, of compromise.

  She couldn’t afford to relax her guard for an instant, Lily reminded herself as she lifted her chin. She would not be bullied; this was going to be on her terms.

  As they began to walk down the hill there was a loud blast of laughter from the harbour area. Lily turned her head in response to the sound. In the moonlight her delicate cut-glass profile made Ben catch his breath as, slim and graceful, she stepped ahead.

  He lengthened his stride and, conscious of his presence beside her, Lily lost the fight against the compulsion to look up at him. In the darkness his face was all angles and planes. She looked away quickly, afraid that he’d see the shameful ache of hunger she felt when she looked at him.

  ‘Careful, this bit is steep.’ He caught her elbow, seeing her eyes widen revealingly at the contact that sent an electric thrill through his body too. ‘So how was it?’