Rebecca Winters - Baby's On The Way!

‘Did you just expect me to go along with everything you’d decided?’

Well, it wasn’t as if he’d made any suggestions—it had been all down to her.

But when could he have contributed? She’d not seen him since they’d found out the news; she hadn’t given him a chance. ‘I’m sorry. I should have spoken to you first.’ Her plans were good, though, thorough. They covered myriad scenarios with timetables, budgets and schedules. And of course Leo had a say. But she was the one carrying the baby. She was the one who would have to take time off for the birth. She was the one who would have to decide whether, and how, she could return to work.

She was the one who would have to put what little she recognised of her life back together after the baby was born.

And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t considered what Leo wanted. She’d given him plenty of options, with his involvement ranging from full-time parenting to ‘financial contribution only’. Even—though nothing she’d seen of Leo so far told her that she’d need it—a ‘no involvement’ plan.

‘I thought we were going to have a coffee.’ Leo’s tone was still harsh, and he gripped his mug as if struggling to keep his temper.

‘Can’t we drink and talk?’

‘Sure, we can drink and talk. But that’s not what you’re suggesting. You want to drink and work .’

He was beyond tense now, and heading directly for angry. His body language was defensive, closed, and she could see from the lines of fear on his face that she’d stumbled into deeper waters than she’d thought. He wasn’t just angry at her for doing this without him. Her temper had lit in response to his, but she forced it down, trying to keep neutral. Trying to understand what had him so wary. If she blew up, too, they’d never talk this through.

‘We don’t have to do this all today. But I’d like to make a start, if we can. We’ve got quite a lot to get through—’

‘Get through?’ He slammed his mug onto the table, and hot coffee spilled onto the wood, creeping towards her papers. She pulled them back, eyeing Leo, suddenly realising she’d completely underestimated how badly she’d read him, how much distance there was between them. How impossible it was going to be to create a family out of this mess. ‘I’m not a project, Rachel. I’m not a client or a boss or someone you’re giving a presentation to. This isn’t going to be solved over a working lunch and a follow-up email.’

‘But—’

‘No!’

Rachel set her cup down slowly, willing herself to remain calm in the face of his raw emotion, wishing she could understand what was making him react this way. She hadn’t expected this to be easy , but she hadn’t expected such vehement opposition, either. She shut her eyes and counted to ten, hoping that when she opened them again Leo would’ve lost the frightened, cornered, angry look that twisted his features—usually so effortlessly sexy—into something ugly.

She looked up. He had calmed a little, the redness draining from his face, but there were still deep creases between his brows, and his mouth was set in a harsh line.

‘I’m sorry, but I cannot have your plan dictated to me and just go along with it.’ The clipped consonants and snappy vowels gave away the effort that near-civility was costing him. ‘I know you need this. I know you want everything decided, booked, settled. But it’s not just you now. Can’t you see that?’ He could see it, and he didn’t know how to get away from it. ‘If we decide something, we have to do it together. I will not let you plan and schedule and itemise my life just because I happened to get you pregnant. That doesn’t give you the right to come in here and tell me how it’s going to be.’

‘I’ve given you choices...options.’ Finally she couldn’t keep the anger from her own voice. With the venom contained in his, it didn’t seem optional—it was a necessity. A way to fend off his biting accusations.

‘You don’t get to give me anything. That’s not how together works.’

‘What’s made you so scared?’ she asked. ‘Tell me why my having a plan freaks you out. Because as far as I can see, with us barely knowing each other, and living hours apart, and having an actual baby together, some idea of how we’re going to cope seems like a good idea. So why is it you blanch, pretty much start shaking and bite my head off?’

He scraped his chair backwards, leaving a good couple of feet between him and the table, the space acting like a force field around him. ‘I can’t do it like this, Rachel. I won’t. I can’t sit here, backed into a corner with no way out of what you’ve decided for us. I won’t be trapped.’

And with that he headed straight out of the door, leaving her sitting at the kitchen table wondering what the hell had just happened. Her heart was hammering in her chest, tears pricked at her eyes, and her fingers shook slightly when she reached for a cloth to mop up the spilled coffee.

How had they got here? They’d gone from almost kissing when she’d arrived to the point where they couldn’t be in the same room together.

And now she was scared—because nothing he had said or done made her believe that he was in any way glad about the fact they were having a baby. In the days since she’d found out she was expecting, she’d started to look forward to being a parent. Feel joy at the prospect of meeting the new life they had created. Of course there was an enormous dose of full-body-paralysis fear, not least when she tried to think about how she could possibly spend the next eighteen—or eighty—years trying to maintain some sort of contact with Leo.

The thought of having to live with the disorder and randomness that Leo so clearly needed threated to bring on another panic attack. But when he had headed for the door just now, her stomach had dropped and her heart had felt as if it had stopped. She had been filled with an overwhelming dread that he might not come back. That he was leaving her to have this baby alone. She knew that she could do it if she had to. But in the second that she thought that Leo might be walking away, she wanted him by her side. Chaos and all. They had made this new life together, and she wanted to find a way for them to be a family.

She cleared away a few pieces from the table—for no reason other than that she didn’t want to be just sitting waiting for him when he got back. So when she heard his footsteps at the door, she had her back to him, running something under the tap and holding her breath.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually, in a shaky voice redolent of raw emotion.

She stared into the sink a little longer, gathering her thoughts, and fighting down the swell of tears that seemed to be climbing her throat. She couldn’t account for them, couldn’t reason why the croak of his voice made hers swell with sympathy.

‘I’m sorry, too.’ She turned off the tap and slumped back against the sink, relief washing through her. ‘I shouldn’t have made those plans without you.’

‘And I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I’m genuinely sorry. But there are some things we need to talk about if we’re going to make this work. I know you like to have everything all worked out, but I can’t do that.’

‘So what am I meant to do? Just wait and see if you turn up at my office again?’ She tried to laugh, to pretend she could live like that, but it sounded hollow even to her.

‘Would that be so bad? I’d make sure I was there when you—when the baby—needed me. Does everything need to be planned months in advance?’

Her spine straightened again; Leo’s presence was seemingly anathema to serenity. ‘And is that what I should tell my doctor? Oh, I’ll definitely come along at some point. An appointment? No. I’ll just arrive when I’m ready.’