Melanie Milburne - The Blackmail Pregnancy

Trevor gave a whoop of delight.

‘That’s my girl!’ he crowed. ‘We’re not going under!’

No, she thought. You’re not going under—just me. And she closed her office door on his carefree smiling face.

Byron was right on time when he pulled up in front of her small rented apartment on Sunday evening. Cara had been watching from the window and now stood in the hall, waiting for his knock.

She opened the door and felt her stomach tilt at the sight of his tall frame before her. He was wearing dark trousers and a lightweight knit top that highlighted the breadth of his shoulders.

She had chosen to go casual as well. Her camel coloured pants teamed nicely with her black top, and her hair was loose for a change. She saw his eyes flick over her as she stood before him, his expression giving nothing away. She wanted to say hello, but instead reached for her bag, trying to cover her unease.

‘I thought we might go somewhere quiet and discuss your decision over dinner,’ he said as she followed him out to his car.

‘Fine.’

One-word answers were all she could manage on the way to a little Italian restaurant in Glebe. Cara sat twisting the strap of her bag and wondered what he was thinking. Was he anticipating resuming their relationship tonight? Or would he wait until she’d finished the house?

They were seated with drinks and menus in front of them when Byron asked, ‘Have you come to a decision?’

She looked up at him in alarm. Couldn’t he at least wait until their food had been ordered?

‘I meant about the food,’ he added with a small tilt of his mouth as he noticed her troubled expression. ‘You don’t need to panic just yet.’

‘I’m not panicking.’

‘Yes, you are. I can feel your tension from here.’

‘I’m not tense, I’m…I’m concentrating.’

‘On what?’

‘The menu.’

‘What do you feel like?’ he asked.

‘What?’

He gave her another frustrated look.

‘I’m still talking about the food.’

‘I haven’t had time to look,’ she replied coolly. ‘You keep badgering me with questions.’

‘Sorry.’ His apology was gruff as he returned to his own menu. ‘I realise this isn’t easy for you.’

‘Are we still talking about food?’ she asked.

His mouth twisted as he met her eyes across the table.

‘No, not this time.’

The waiter appeared and asked for their order. Cara rattled off the first thing she’d seen under main courses and sat back and waited for Byron to relay his own preference. Once the waiter had bustled away she felt the full heat of Byron’s gaze.

‘So, what have you decided, Cara?’

‘I’d hardly call it a decision,’ she said with some resentment. ‘You’ve made it very difficult for me to do anything else.’

‘I made it difficult?’ he asked with heavy irony. ‘I wasn’t the one who didn’t take a decent look at the business end of things until it was too late to do anything. What world are you living in, Cara? You can’t blame other people for your own mistakes—even if they were innocently made.’

She gave him a tight-lipped cold stare.

‘Trevor is not an ideal business partner,’ he continued.

‘Why?’ She threw the question at him crossly. ‘Just because he’s gay?’

‘No,’ he answered evenly. ‘It has nothing to do with that. He hasn’t got what it takes to run a business.’

‘And neither do I?’

He reached for his glass of red wine and twirled it in his hand before responding.

‘No. Your heart’s not in the books—it’s in the design end of things. I could see it in your eyes when you saw my house.’

He was right, but she wasn’t going to let him enjoy that little victory.

‘We can’t all be highfliers like you, Byron,’ she said. ‘Trevor and I weren’t educated in one of Victoria’s most prestigious fee-paying schools. We don’t have family money to back us.’

‘You had my money. The divorce money.’

‘It’s expensive setting up an office,’ she said. ‘The computers and so on.’

He seemed to accept her answer and she inwardly sighed with relief.

‘How soon can you get the house ready to live in?’ he asked, unsettling her again.

‘I…I’ve got a few ideas about furniture, but it could be weeks.’

‘I told you a month—that’s all.’

‘It’s not long enough.’

‘Surely we can live in the house with the bare essentials?’ he said. ‘All we need is a bed and—’

‘You expect me to live with you?’ she asked in alarm.

‘Of course. I thought you understood that.’

‘But what about my apartment?’

‘You call that shoebox an apartment?’

She gave him another cold, resentful glare.

‘I would’ve thought you’d have the most sensational home after all those years in the business. Or is this yet another case of the plumber with a leaky tap?’ he added when she didn’t respond.

‘I had other priorities. I’m hardly home, so it didn’t seem important,’ she said.

‘Well, you can sell it, or rent it out for the time being. I want you to live with me at the Cremorne house and I want you to start tomorrow—furniture or no furniture.’

‘Tomorrow?’ Her eyes widened in panic.

‘I’m signing on the dotted line tomorrow with your financial people. I expect you to fulfil your part of the contract.’

‘I hardly call it a contract,’ she ground out bitterly. ‘More like a dictatorship.’

‘Call it what you like. It’s immaterial to me. I’m putting a lot of money in your business and I want some immediate returns on my investment.’

‘You’re sick,’ she fired at him. ‘How can you sit there and discuss this…this farce, so clinically?’

‘Quite frankly, Cara, I don’t really care what you think about me personally. I have a goal in mind, and this time not even you are going to stand in my way.’

‘You definitely need help,’ she muttered as she savaged her bread roll. ‘I’ve never met anyone with such a big ego.’

‘And I’ve never met anyone with a lesser one,’ he countered neatly.

Cara’s butter knife clattered against her plate as she looked away from his penetrating gaze. Fortunately the waiter appeared just then, with their food, and she was spared the right of reply. Not that she could think of one; he was right—she had no self-esteem, never had. Her mother had seen to that, right up to the very day she died.

She forced herself to eat at least some of the food set before her, even though her appetite had completely disappeared.

‘You don’t seem to be enjoying that,’ Byron observed some minutes later. ‘Would you like something else instead?’

She shook her head and forced another mouthful down.

‘You look as if you’re going to face a firing squad at dawn,’ he said after another minute or two had elapsed. ‘Relax, Cara. You might even enjoy it.’

A vision of their passion-locked bodies flitted unbidden into her mind and she lowered her head to her plate to disguise the heat she could feel coursing across her cheeks.

After a few painful minutes she pushed her plate away in defeat. She wiped her mouth on her napkin and caught the hard glint in his eyes.

‘You’d do anything but talk to me, wouldn’t you, Cara? Even force-feed yourself a meal you don’t want so you don’t have to speak to me.’

‘I have nothing to say to you.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘What about, How was it for you that day I left? Were you upset? That would be a good place to start.’

Her hands tightened in her lap but she didn’t answer him.

‘Or what about, Did you know I was pregnant when I left? That would make for a very interesting conversation, now, don’t you think?’