‘Actually, the traffic was fine. I just… left my house later than I expected…’
‘Woman’s prerogative.’
‘I’m never late, James. I hate it.’
‘Well, you’re here now. At least you haven’t bailed on me because your house mate was feeling down and needed a shoulder to cry on.’
Jennifer flushed. Little did he know that her occasional cancellations had been carefully orchestrated. A sense of self-preservation had made her instil a small amount of distance and she was very glad of that now.
She fiddled with her hair, made a few polite noises about the restaurant, told him that there was no need to bring her to such an expensive place, that she was more than happy with cheap and cheerful.
‘I’ve never been out with a woman who hasn’t appreciated being taken to somewhere grand.’
‘I’m not impressed by what money can buy, James. How many times have I told you that?’ She heard the sharp edge in her voice and she watched as he frowned and narrowed his deep blue eyes on her.
‘Are we going to have an argument?’ He sat back and folded his arms. ‘I should warn you that I have no intention of participating.’
Now that he mentioned it, an argument was just what Jennifer wanted, something to release the sick tension that had been building over the past few hours. An argument would be a solid staging post for what had to follow.
‘I’m not having an argument with you. I’m saying that I’m not impressed by. all this. I mean, it’s just one of the things that reveal how different you and I are. Fundamentally.’
‘Come again?’ James sat forward and this time the navy eyes were sharp. ‘I thought you would like to be treated to a meal out somewhere fancy. I hadn’t realised that you see it as a direct attack on your moral code and I certainly hadn’t thought that I would be accused of… what is it exactly? That you’re accusing me of…?’
‘I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just saying that this isn’t the sort of place I would choose to eat. Waiters bowing and scraping, food that doesn’t look like food—’
‘Fine. We’ll leave.’ He made to stand up and Jennifer tugged him back down.
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing. Nothing’s going on. Well… ‘
‘Well… what?’
‘I’ve been thinking…’ She drew in a gulp of air and had to fight a sudden attack of giddiness. Did he have to look at her like that? As though he could see straight into her head? Her heart was beating fast, a painful drum roll that added to the vertigo.
‘Never a good idea.’ His unease was growing by the second. ‘My advice to you? Don’t think. Just enjoy.’
‘You don’t know what I’ve been thinking.’
‘I don’t need to know. I can see from your face that whatever it is, I won’t want to hear.’
‘I just want you to know that I stick to what I’ve said all along, James. You and I aren’t suited. We have fun together but, in the long run, we’re like oil and water. We just don’t have personalities that blend together. I mean, not in the long term.’ She stared down at the swirling patterns of her dress.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about and if you’re going to say something, then I suggest you actually look me in the face when you say it.’
‘This…’ She looked at him. ‘All of this… has been fun, really great and I appreciated every second of it, but I think… I think it might be time we call it a day.’
‘I’m not hearing this.’ He kept his voice very low and very even. If he gave in to what he was feeling, he thought he might end up doing untold damage to the exquisite, mind-blowingly expensive decor in the restaurant. ‘You’re breaking up with me. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘What the hell does that mean? I don’t know what’s going on here, but this is not the place for this conversation. We’re going back to my apartment.’
‘No!’ Jennifer could think of nothing worse. The familiarity… the kitchen where they had prepared meals together reminding her of how much she was going to lose… the coffee table where they had sat only a couple of days ago playing Scrabble… which she had brought from the house with her and which she had forced him to play as a relaxation technique, although that had gone through the window when he had decided that there were other, more enjoyable ways of relaxing… the bedroom with the king-sized bed, which she would no longer occupy…
It would all be too much.
James held up both hands in surrender but his eyes were cool and questioning when they rested on her face.
‘Look.’ She splayed her fingers on the table and stared intently at them. ‘There’s something I need to tell you but, first of all, we need to get this whole relationship straight. We need to admit that it was never going to stay the course. We need to break up.’
James raked his fingers through his hair and found that his hands were shaking. ‘Between last night and tonight, you’ve suddenly decided that we need to break up… and you expect me to go along with you? I’m not admitting anything of the sort.’
‘This isn’t how I meant this conversation to be, James. This isn’t where I thought I’d find myself, but something’s… something’s cropped up…’
‘What?’ With something to focus on, his mind went into free fall. It was a weird sensation, a feeling of utterly and completely losing all self-control. ‘You’ve found someone else. Is that it?’ His voice was incredulous. Break up? How long had she been contemplating that? Had there been some other man lurking in the background? One of those fictitious sensitive, emotionally savvy guys she had once told him made ideal partner material? He could think of no other reason for her to be sitting opposite him now telling him that it had been fun but…
‘Don’t be crazy. I haven’t found anyone else. When would I have had time to go out looking?’
‘Are you telling me that you think I’ve monopolised your life? Is that it? Because I’m perfectly happy to take things at a slower pace.’ He could scarcely credit the levels to which he was willing to accommodate her.
Jennifer was sure that he would be. He hadn’t emotionally invested. He could always tame his rampant libido until such time as it was no longer rampant.
‘No, it’s not that.’
‘Let me get this straight. For no particular reason, you’ve suddenly decided that we can’t go on. There’s no one else on the scene, we’ve both been having fun and yet it’s no longer enough. Am I missing something here? Because it feels as if I am.’
‘There’s no easy way of telling you this, James, so I’m just going to come right out and say it. I’m pregnant.’
She couldn’t look him in the face when she said it so she stared down at her lap instead while the silence thickened around them like treacle.
‘You can’t be. You’re using contraception. I’ve seen that little packet of pills in the bathroom. Are you telling me that you’ve been pretending to take them?’ At some point, the wires in his brain appeared to have disconnected. In possession of one huge, life-changing fact, he found that he could only fall back on the pointless details around it. ‘I can’t talk to you here, Jennifer.’
‘I’m not going to your apartment.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘Because I want to deal with this situation in neutral territory.’
‘Your choice of words is astounding.’
‘How else do you want me to phrase it, James? Shall I start by telling you that I’m sorry? Well, I am. And before you even think of accusing me of getting pregnant on purpose, then I’m warning you not to go there because that’s the very last thing on earth I would do.’
‘Message received loud and clear!’
‘I have been on the pill. I can only think that that first time…’
‘We used a condom. We were protected. We were always protected. This is madness. I can’t believe I’m hearing any of this.�
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‘Because you signed up for a life you could control!’
‘It’s not going to get either of us anywhere if we start arguing with one another!’
‘You’re right,’ Jennifer whispered. ‘And I didn’t come here to argue with you. I’m happy to take the blame. The first time we made love, I used a condom that I’d had for absolutely ages…’ Four years to be precise. How ironic that the condom she had bought to enjoy sex with him all those years ago had become the condom that allowed her to fall pregnant. ‘It may have perished. They can.’ Salt water seeping through the foil would do that, she thought, and if not salt water when her bag had dropped into the sea, then an infinitesimal puncture with the sharp edge of a key, or nail clipper or tweezers or any of the hundred and one items she had flung in her bag next to it over the years.
She had gone on the pill the second they had returned to London because he had laughed and told her that he would be a pauper at the rate they went through condoms, little knowing that by then it had been too late.
‘I did go on the pill when we got back here so I never noticed that I hardly had any kind of period at all and nothing a couple of weeks ago, so I decided to go and see the doctor just to make sure that I was on the right dosage. Anyway—’
‘You’re pregnant.’ It was finally sinking in. ‘You’re going to have a baby.’
‘I’m sorry.’ His face was ashen. ‘You’re in shock. You must be. I understand that and I’m sorry that I’ve spoilt the meal but it’s been on my mind all day and I just wanted to get it out of the way. And now that I have, I think the sensible thing to do would be for me to leave and for you to take a little time out to adjust to the idea, so…’
He was going to be a father!
‘But why didn’t I notice?’ he asked, dazed.
‘We never notice things we aren’t expecting. Not really. And I’m not one of those rake-thin types who show every ounce of weight they put on. Apparently someone with a fuller figure can hide a pregnancy for a lot longer.’ Part of her wished that he would be open with his displeasure. Instead, he looked like someone who had been punched in the stomach and, instead of reacting, decided to lie on the ground and curl up instead. It wasn’t him! That in itself was proof of how thrown he was and of course he would be! She had had a head start in the shock stakes. She had had several hours in which to absorb the news. The accusations would come when it really and truly sank in, the reality, the consequences, the potential to throw his neatly ordered life out of sync for ever. The waiter came and was waved away.
‘You’re going to have my baby and you greet me with the opening words that you want out of the relationship?’
‘We don’t have a relationship.’ Jennifer tensed as she sensed the shift in the atmosphere. He had looked glazed but now his eyes were sharpening and focusing on her. ‘We have… had… a passing physical interest in each other. And don’t look at me like that. You know that I’m just being honest.’ Was he aware of the fleeting pause she allowed, a window in which he could contradict her, tell her that things had changed, that he might not have entered their relationship with a future in mind but had found commitment along the way? The brief silence went unfilled. ‘Neither of us counted on this,’ she said abruptly.
‘You’re going to have my baby and the only way you can think of dealing with the problem is by breaking up…’
Jennifer stiffened at his use of the word problem.
‘It seems the best solution,’ she said coolly. ‘You didn’t ask for this to arise and I’m not going to punish you, or me for that matter, by putting you in a position of having to stand by me whether you like it or not.’
‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this. We’re lovers but have you forgotten that we also happen to be friends?’
She had forgotten neither but how could she explain that a baby needed more than a couple united by passion? Or even, for that matter, friendship?
‘So tell me,’ James said with increasing cool, ‘how do you see this panning out? Perhaps you’d like me to walk away from you and leave you to get on with it?’
‘If that’s what you want to do, then I’ll accept it.’
‘If you really think that that would be an option I would consider, then you don’t know me very well, do you?’
Which was why, of course, she had pre-empted any reaction by breaking up with him. She had known that he wouldn’t walk away from the situation. She could never have fallen head over heels in love with a man capable of doing that, and that in itself was the problem. James would want involvement. He would want to do the right thing but his heart wouldn’t be in it. Any affection he felt for her would eventually wither away under the strain of having to deal with a child he hadn’t asked for and being stuck with a woman he had never envisaged as long term.
‘We’ll have to get married.’ Something powerful stirred inside him, something he could scarcely identify.
‘And that’s exactly why I opened this conversation by telling you that it’s over between us,’ Jennifer said quietly. ‘I know you want to do the right thing, but it wouldn’t be fair on either of us to be shackled to each other for the sake of a child.’
They both broke off while the waiter came to take their orders. James didn’t bother to consult the menu. He ordered fish and she followed suit, not caring what she ate. Her appetite had deserted her.
‘And marriage!’ She leaned forward to continue where she had left off. ‘I bet you’ve never given a passing thought to the idea of getting married, have you?’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘It’s exactly the point,’ Jennifer cried. ‘Marriage is something serious. A commitment between two people who see their lives united for ever.’
‘At least that’s the romantic interpretation of it.’
‘What other interpretation could there possibly be?’
‘Something more pragmatic. Think about it. One in every three marriages ends in the divorce courts and all of those bitter, sad, divorced couples probably sat across each other at a dinner table holding hands and waxing lyrical about growing old together.’
‘But for two out of those three, the holding hands and waxing lyrical works. They end up together.’
‘You’re an eternal optimist. Experience has taught me to be a little more cautious. But none of that matters and we could argue about it for the remainder of the evening. The fact is, we’re in a situation where there’s no choice.’
Jennifer’s heart sank. If she didn’t love him, maybe it would have been easier to settle for the solution that made sense, but if she married him, she would be torn apart.
‘I’m sorry, James,’ she said shakily, ‘but the answer has to be no. I can’t marry you because you think it makes sense. When I get married, I want it to be for all the right reasons. I don’t want to settle for a reluctant husband who would rather be with someone else but finds himself stuck with me. How healthy would that be for our child, anyway?’
How could life be suddenly turned on its head in the space of a few short hours? Very easily was the conclusion he was reaching as he looked at her stubborn, closed expression.
Rage at her blinding intransigence rushed through him in a tidal wave. ‘And tell me this. How healthy would it be for our child to grow up without both parents there? Because that’s something you need to consider! This isn’t about you and your romantic notions of fairy-tale endings! ‘
Jennifer flinched and looked away. ‘You’re not going to make me change my mind,’ she said, gathering all the strength at her disposal.
‘No? Then let me provide you with an alternative scenario. Our child grows up in a split family and in due course finds out that both of us could have been there but you wouldn’t have it because you were determined to look for Mr Right, who may or may not come along. And if he does coming along… well, I’m telling you right now that he won’t be involved in bringing up my child because I’ll fight for custody.’
Battle lines had
been drawn but Jennifer could scarcely think so far ahead.
‘And your father. What do you intend to tell him?’ This before she had had time to digest his previous statement.
‘I haven’t thought—’
‘Because don’t even think about insinuating to your father that I haven’t offered to do the decent thing. I intend to make it perfectly clear to my mother and to John that I’ve proposed to you and that you have in your wisdom decided that the best course of action is to go it alone. We can see what they make of that.’
‘I don’t want to fall out over this—’
‘Then maybe you should have thought about broaching this bombshell in a slightly different way!’
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference. The result would have been the same and I’m sorry about that. Look, I can’t eat any more. I’ve lost my appetite. I think I should go back home now.’ She half stood, swayed and sat back down. In an instant, James was at her side, all thoughts of pursuing his argument forgotten.
Jennifer was barely aware of him settling the bill, leaving a more than generous tip for the waiter, who had sensed an atmosphere and had patiently left them alone. She had her head in her hands.
‘Honestly, I’m fine, James,’ she protested weakly as soon as they were out of the restaurant.
‘How long have these giddy spells been going on?’
‘I get them now and again. It’s nothing to worry about…’ But it was comforting to have his arms around her, supporting her as he hailed a black cab and settled her inside as though she were a piece of porcelain.
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘I didn’t mention them. I was too shocked at finding out I was pregnant!’
‘You should go back. Have a complete check-up. What’s with these people? Don’t they know how to do their jobs?’
‘Don’t worry. It’s nothing!’
For the first time since finding out about the pregnancy, she wondered whether she was making the right decision in turning down his proposal. Whether he loved her or not, he was a source of strength and when would she need that strength more than right now? When she was facing motherhood? He wanted to do the right thing. Was it selfish of her to hold tight to her principles? Or in the big scheme of things, was he right? Could his suggestion of a loveless marriage be the right one?
The Girl He'd Overlooked Page 13
