Diana Hamilton - The Unexpected Baby

‘And now, because my books took off in a big way, I have everything. A successful career and pride in my work, a beautiful home in a lovely part of the world, a wonderful circle of friends—more financial security than I ever dreamed of having. Everything except a child, and sometimes that hurts. I guess I hear my biological clock chiming out yet another passing hour. But as I have no intention of ever marrying again...’

She shrugged wryly, sipping her wine to deaden the ache of her empty womb, her empty arms. Liam had adamantly refused to contemplate fatherhood. He’d wanted a glamorous wife on his arm, not a worn-out rag of a woman, stuck at home tied to a bunch of grizzling kids.

‘We have a lot in common, you and L’ Sam levered himself out of the comfy leather-upholstered armchair on the opposite side of the crackling log fire and opened the last of the three bottles of wine he’d brought when he’d invited himself for supper earlier. ‘You want a child, but you can’t stomach the idea of a husband to go with it—once badly bitten and all that.’ He withdrew the cork with a satisfying plop, and although Elena knew she’d already had more than was wise, she allowed him to refill her glass.

Over the two years he’d been coming to this corner of Spain, to snatch a few days’ relaxation between assignments for one of the more erudite broadsheets, he had become her dear friend. There was something driven about him that she could relate to, and nothing remotely sexual so she was doubly comfortable with him.

She smiled at him with affection. Too right, she didn’t want or need a husband. Never again—the one she’d had had turned out to be a disaster.

Sam kicked a log back into place with a booted foot and stood staring into the flames, his glass loosely held in his hands. ‘I’m dead against marriage, too, but for different reasons. With my dodgy lifestyle, it’s not on. Besides—and I wouldn’t admit this to just anyone—I’ve a fairly low sex drive. Unlike my brother.’

Jed. Sam often talked about him. He lived in the family home, somewhere old and impressive in the shires, and headed the family business—gobbling up any opposition, sitting on a fat portfolio. And now, it appeared, he was a womaniser too.

But Sam was telling her, ‘Since his late teens he’s always had women making a play for him—nubile, dewy-eyed daughters of the landed gentry, women who lunch, tough career cookies, the lot. But, to give him his due, he’s picky and very discreet. Mind you, he’ll marry some day, to get an heir. He wouldn’t want the family business to die out with him. But not me. All my emotional, mental and physical energies go into my job. I only feel properly alive when facing danger, grabbing photographs and copy from volatile situations.’

Elena hated it when he talked like that; it made her feel edgy. She watched him drain his glass, heard him say, ‘Like you, the only regret I have is knowing how unlikely I am to ever have a child of my own. To my way of thinking, passing on one’s genes is the only type of immortality any of us can ever hope for.’ He turned to watch her then, his lean, wiry frame tense. ‘There is an answer, though, for both of us. I’d be more than happy to offer myself as a donor. I can think of no other woman better to carry my child. I’d make no demands, other than the right to visit with you both when possible. Never interfere. Think about it.’

He put his empty glass on a side table and bent to kiss her lightly on the forehead. ‘You would never have to lose your freedom and independence to a husband; you wouldn’t have to go through the messy business of sleeping around to get the child you’re beginning to crave. No risk of nasty diseases! And I’d get my single claim to immortality.’ He smiled into her. shell-shocked eyes. ‘Sleep on it, why don’t you? I’ll call you in the morning. If you want to go for it, we can get straight back to London and start things moving. There’s a private clinic headed by a professor of gynaecology who owes me a favour—it’s useful, sometimes, to have friends in high places! Night, Elena—I’ll let myself out.’

At first she’d dismissed his idea as utterly preposterous, but the longer she’d sat over the dying embers the more deeply she’d thought about it, and the less outlandish it had become.

He’d talked about her craving for a child, and he was right. Sometimes, the need to hold her own baby in her arms was an actual physical pain, a deep, regretful sorrow that wouldn’t go away. And when that happened—with increasing regularity—everything she had achieved for herself seemed suddenly worthless.

She would never marry again, and the thought of sleeping around in order to get pregnant was deeply repugnant. And she liked and respected Sam Nolan, didn’t she? Admired him. The child who carried his genes would be blessed.

When he called the following morning her answer was an affirmative.

She’d made the necessary trip to the London clinic with Sam, never once imagining that almost six weeks later she would be at his funeral. Deeply saddened by the loss of a talented young life to a stray sniper’s bullet in a war-torn East African state, and more than devastated because only that morning after a month of hope, she’d discovered that his idea hadn’t worked. Sam hadn’t achieved his claim to immortality and she would never have a child to hold and love.

She’d met Jed at that simple, heart-wrenching ceremony, and from that moment on everything had changed. For both of them.

It was dark when Jed finally returned. Elena, pacing the courtyard, heard the sound of the approaching car and panicked.

Would he view her pregnancy differently when he learned how the baby had been conceived? Would he believe she and his younger brother had never been lovers? Accept the fact that they had been merely good friends who’d found themselves in a similar frustrating situation and had gone for a rational solution?

The dim outside lights were on—soft golden light reflecting from the surrounding whitened stone walls of her sprawling home, tendrils of soft mist trailing gently around terracotta planters burgeoning with foliage and sweetly scented flowers.

The silence when the engine cut out was immense, the night air sultry. Perspiration beaded her face as she waited, tension tying her in knots. She had to make him listen to her, believe her. Surely their love for each other entitled her to a fair hearing?

He appeared at last in the arched doorway to the courtyard, his big body taut, very still. The softly diffused lights, black shadows and trails of mist made him look desperately forbidding. Elena grasped the back of one of the cast-iron two-seaters that flanked the outdoor table. Her spine felt as if it had turned to water; she needed some support.

‘Where were you?’ she asked thickly as the minutes of fraught silence ticked away. He didn’t appear to be in any hurry to break the ice. Someone had to do it.

‘Seville.’ The short answer was clipped. But at least he began to walk over the cobbles towards her. ‘As you know, Nolan’s are to acquire a retail outlet in Seville. I was due to meet our architect in a fortnight’s time, to decide which of two suitable properties to go for.’ He stopped, feet away from her, almost as if, she thought hysterically, the air surrounding her might contaminate him. ‘For reasons I’m sure you’ll understand, I thought today might be as good as any to get back in harness.’

Elena flinched. They’d planned on a three-week honeymoon, here at her home, Las Rocas, then to spend a week in Seville together to meet with the architect and explore the lovely city. Plainly, the honeymoon was over. But after her bombshell what else could she have expected?

She made a small, one-handed gesture towards him, her throat thick with sudden tears. But if he noticed the way she reached out to him he didn’t respond, and she let her hand drop defeatedly back to her side and said raggedly, ‘Can we talk?’