Caroline Anderson - Double Trouble - Pregnancy Surprise

‘Home?’

She smiled at him wryly. ‘Yes, home. This is home for us—for now, anyway.’ She didn’t tell him that John was returning soon and she’d have to find somewhere else. Let him think everything was all right and there was no pressure on her, or he’d use it to push her into some kind of reconciliation, and she wasn’t buying that until she was sure he was ready for it. If ever.

‘That’s when my phone was stolen, in the hospital, and I reported it and had the card blocked. But Jane gave me her old pay-as-you-go to use for emergencies, so I cancelled the contract. There didn’t seem to be any point in paying an expensive tariff when most of the time I’m at home with the babies and I’ve got the landline.’

‘And you didn’t think to give me either of those numbers?’

She laughed a little bitterly. ‘What, because you’d phoned me so regularly over the previous six months?’

His jaw clenched. ‘It wasn’t that. I told myself you’d contact me if you wanted me. I made myself give you space, give you time to sort out what you wanted. You said you needed time to think, but then I wondered how much time it could possibly take. If you needed that much, then we probably didn’t have anything worth saving in your eyes, and I was damned if I was going to weaken and call you. But then when I couldn’t get hold of you I got a PI on the job—’

‘A PI!’ she exclaimed, her guilt and sympathy brushed aside in an instant as her anger resurrected itself. ‘You’ve had someone spying on me?’

‘Because I was worried sick about you! And, anyway, how the hell do you think I found you? Not by accident, all the way out here.’

‘Well, not by trawling round yourself, that’s for sure,’ she said drily, ignoring yet another twinge of guilt. ‘You’d be too busy to do that kind of thing yourself. I’m surprised you’re here now, actually. Shouldn’t you be somewhere more important?’

He gave her a sharp look. ‘If it was more important, I’d be in New York now,’ he growled, and she shook her head, the guilt retreating.

‘I might have known. So when did you find out I was here?’

‘Today. This afternoon—two-thirty or so.’

‘Today?’ she said, astonished. She’d thought, when he said about the PI, that he’d known where she was for ages. ‘So you came straight here?’

He shrugged. ‘What was I supposed to do? Wait for you to disappear again? Of course I came straight here—because I wanted answers.’

‘You haven’t asked me any questions yet—apart from why didn’t I contact you, which I’ve told you.’

‘And who’s the father.’

She sat up straighter and glared at him. ‘You knew they were yours! You weren’t the slightest bit surprised. I expect your private eye took photos!’

He held her furious glare, but there was a flicker of something that might—just might—have been guilt. She ignored it and ploughed on.

‘Anyway, why would you care? You told me so many times you didn’t want children. So what’s changed, Max? What’s brought you all the way up to sleepy old Suffolk in the depths of winter to ask me that?’

He was still looking her straight in the eye, but for the first time she felt she could really see past the mask, and her traitorous heart softened at the pain she saw there. ‘You have,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ve missed you, Jules. Come back to me.’

Oh no, Jane had been right, he was going to do the sweet-talking thing, but she’d been warned, and she wasn’t falling for it. ‘It’s not that easy.’

‘Oh, you’re going to start the lifestyle thing again, aren’t you?’ he said, rolling his eyes and letting out his breath on a huff.

‘Well—yes. You obviously haven’t changed; you look dreadful, Max. How much sleep did you have last night?’

‘Four hours,’ he admitted grudgingly, looking a little uncomfortable.

‘Four hours of sleep, or four hours in the apartment?’

‘Sleep,’ he said, but he looked uncomfortable again, and she had a feeling he was hiding something, and she had a feeling she knew what.

‘Max, how many hours are you working at the moment, on average? Fifteen? Eighteen? Twenty?’ she added, watching him carefully, and she saw the slight movement when she hit the nail on the head. ‘Max, you idiot, you can’t do that! You need more than four hours’ sleep! And where are you sleeping? The apartment, or in the office?’

‘Why do you care?’ he asked, his voice suddenly bitter, and he lifted his head and seared her with his eyes. ‘What the hell is it to you if I burn myself out trying to—?’

‘Trying to?’ she coaxed, but then wished she hadn’t because, his voice raw, he answered her with an honesty that flayed her heart.

‘Trying to forget you. Trying to stay awake long enough that I fall asleep through sheer exhaustion and don’t just lie there wondering if you’re alive or dead.’

She sucked in her breath. ‘Max—why would you think I was dead?’

‘Because I heard nothing from you!’ he grated, thrusting himself up out of the chair and prowling round the kitchen, the suppressed emotion making his body vibrate almost visibly. ‘What was I supposed to think, Julia? That you were OK and everything was fine in La-La Land? Don’t be so bloody naïve. You weren’t spending anything, your phone wasn’t working—you could have been lying in a ditch! I’ve spent the days searching for you, phoning everyone I could think of, nagging the backside off the PI, getting through PAs like a hot knife through butter, working myself to a standstill so I could fall over at the end of the day so tired I didn’t have the energy or emotion left to—’

He broke off and turned away, spinning on his heel and slamming his hand against the wall while she stared at him, aghast at the pain in his words—pain that she’d caused.

Didn’t have the energy or emotion left to—what? Cry himself to sleep, as she did?

No. Not Max.

Surely not?

She got up and crossed over to him, her socks silent on the stone-flagged floor, and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Max, I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, and he turned and dropped his shoulders against the wall and stared down at her.

‘Why, Jules?’ he asked, his voice like gravel. ‘Why? What did I ever do to you that was so bad that you could treat me like that? How could you not have told me that I was going to be a father?’

‘I wanted to, but you were always so anti-children—’

‘Because you couldn’t have any, and because—’

‘Because?’

He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant now, but we were talking theory, there, not practice. When you found out you were pregnant—When did you find out, by the way?’

She swallowed. ‘While you were on your way to Tokyo. Jane took one look at me and gave me her spare pregnancy test.’

His eyes widened. ‘All that time? Right from the very first minute you knew, and you kept it from me? Jules—how? Why?’

‘I didn’t think you’d want to know. I wanted to tell you—I wanted so much for you to be there with me, to share it.’

‘I would have been,’ he said gruffly, his eyes tormented. ‘I would have been with you every step of the way if you’d given me the chance.’

‘But only when you weren’t too busy.’

He looked away. ‘I wouldn’t have been too busy for that.’

‘Of course you would.’

‘No. Not for something like that. You should have given me the choice, Julia, not taken that decision away from me. You had no right to do that.’

He was right, of course. So right, and his anger and grief at the lost time cut right through her. She wanted to hold him, to put her arms round him, but she had no right to do that any more. How could she comfort him for the hurt she’d caused? And anyway there was no guarantee he wouldn’t reject her, and she couldn’t stand that.