Alison Kelly - The Baby Deal

He sounded so sincere, so caring, it took Amanda-Jayne several seconds to comprehend what he was driving at. When she did waves of panic began crashing through her.

‘Don’t be ridiculous! I’m not here because I want to discuss anything with you,’ she told him. ‘I’ve made my decisions and your opinion on the subject isn’t and never was an issue for me. I certainly don’t need your financial support.’

Reb didn’t mind her disregarding his financial assistance—heck, her family could buy and sell most people ten times over—but if she was carrying his child he’d be damned if he’d have her ride roughshod over his right to express an opinion of how to deal with the situation!

‘Now just a—’ he started.

‘This is my address, in Sydney,’ she said, holding out a business card to him.

Reb took the peach business card and scanned it. Apart from her name, embossed in a delicate gold script, it revealed nothing other than her box number at an Eastern Suburbs post office.

‘You live at a post office?’

She ignored his facetiousness. ‘My doctor wants details of any medical problems the baby might inherit from you. I need to know if there’s a history of things like asthma or diabetes or…er…congenital birth defects.’ Her voice cracked a fraction, but she quickly recovered herself. ‘When you get the relevant information you can mail it to me at that address. And that will be the end of it.’

At the sight of a huge motorbike speeding into the driveway Amanda-Jayne’s heart almost lurched out of her chest. Desperate to avoid being seen here and starting any possible rumours which might hint at Reb Browne and herself having had a relationship, she instantly reached for the ignition key. The noise of the bike interrupted whatever Reb had been saying and when he stepped back to shoot an annoyed look at the rider Amanda-Jayne snapped off the parking brake and flattened the accelerator. The car gave a tricky little slide as she hit the loose gravel at the side of the road at speed, but mercifully, despite her supposed bald tyres, once onto the bitumen she again found traction. A quick look in the rear-view mirror revealed an angry-looking Reb Browne staring after her as a black-clad biker stopped alongside him.

The image was a graphic reminder of exactly who and what the father of her child was, and reassured her she was doing the right thing in excluding him from her child’s future. It might have been different if he’d been a lawyer or an accountant or…even just an ordinary mechanic. But Bad Boy Browne was a hellraiser from the tips of his biker boots to his unruly raven hair and no child should have to pay for one act of bad judgment on the part of its mother.

CHAPTER TWO

THOUGH the coolness of the marble entrance foyer provided respite from the early evening’s heat, it did little to stem the nausea, which had hit Amanda-Jayne at the garage. Feeling that at any moment she might join the ranks of the generations of deceased Vaughans, who peered down at her from the walls, she hurried towards the staircase, desperately swallowing back the acid bile rising in her throat and hoping to reach her bedroom without throwing up.

‘There you are!’ Amanda-Jayne stifled a groan as her stepmother’s gleeful disapproval caught her at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Where on earth have you been?’

‘Out,’ she responded, continuing up the stairs without turning.

‘Don’t be smart with me, Amanda-Jayne. Have you forgotten we’re expected at the mayoral ball in a little over an hour?’

Amanda-Jayne had, but it was a moot point now since it was eminently feasible that within the hour she’d be dead from terminal morning sickness. ‘I’m not going, Patricia. I’ll call Mayor Bur—’

‘What do you mean, you won’t be going? You most certainly will be!’

Since dealing with her stepmother could turn her stomach even on its good days Amanda-Jayne had no intention of lingering for a lecture now, so with her mouth firmly shut she continued on up the stairs, dogged by dizziness, nausea and, worst of all, Patricia.

‘I expect you to be ready in forty-five minutes. I also expect that you’ll show more style in your choice of evening wear than you did when you chose your current attire.’

‘Patricia,’ she said wearily. ‘The only evening wear I’ll be putting on are my pyjamas.’

‘Now you listen here, Amanda-Jayne… This family has a tradition of being guests of honour at the New Year’s ball and I will not tolerate you snubbing your nose at it. You hear me? You always attended when your father was head of this family so don’t think you can embarrass me by not going now I hold that position.’

‘I don’t need to embarrass you, Patricia; Joshua is managing to do that on his own.’

‘You leave my son out of this. He’s only a child.’

The sheer absurdity of that remark couldn’t go unchallenged. ‘He’s eighteen—hardly a child. Although given the way he almost ploughed down an elderly couple outside the post office a few minutes ago then hurled four-letter words at them, the term juvenile delinquent would be pretty accurate.’

‘Telling tales again, sis?’ Her half-brother’s amused voice rose from the foyer.

‘Darling, you’re home!’

Patricia’s singsong delight at her son’s appearance was the last straw for Amanda-Jayne’s stomach. With one hand sealing her mouth she sprinted down the hall to her room, where she used the other to defy Patricia’s, ‘Don’t you dare lock that door, Amanda-Jayne! I want to speak with you.’ Then, with the bedroom swirling around her, she dashed to her private bathroom.

She was dimly aware of her stepmother thumping on the bedroom door, but she had no idea what she was shouting at her. Considering Patricia’s vocal-amplification abilities, she could only assume that hearing impairment was a side effect of heaving one’s heart out.

Dear God, how much longer would this last?

For over a week now she’d been getting up close and personal with the commode at varying and multiple times each day. Morning sickness? Ha! She hoped whatever idiot had named it that had been exiled in disgrace from the world of medical science and was at this minute eyeballing Satan!

‘My doctor wants details of any medical problems the baby might inherit from you… When you get the relevant information you can mail it to me… And that will be the end of it.’

For the thousandth time, Reb’s mind replayed the scene at the garage.

‘Like hell that’ll be the end of it,’ he said, rolling the beer bottle he’d emptied nearly an hour ago between his palms. ‘If I’ve fathered a kid, Ms I-didn’t-need-your-financial-assistance Vaughan, I’m sure as hell going to contribute more than just a medical report to its future.’

Reb wasn’t yet sure what exactly he was going to say or precisely what demands he was going to lay on Amanda-Jayne when he fronted up at the Vaughan house tomorrow morning, but one thing was sure: she wouldn’t want to count on her New Year getting off to the start she’d planned. He might have been too shell-shocked to entirely comprehend what she’d said prior to speeding out of the garage earlier this evening, but he wasn’t giving her the satisfaction of thinking she was calling all the shots for much longer. First thing tomorrow morning he was going to be on her doorstep ready to set a few ground rules of his own and she’d better be ready to listen.

‘Hoy, Reb! Since when have you got so antisocial?’

At the wry question, Reb lowered his gaze from the inky sky and watched the approach of the woman who’d delivered it. Wearing ratty sneakers, cut-off jeans and a skimpy midriff top, the pint-size blonde looked barely old enough to be in high school, much less the mother of his two-year-old goddaughter. It was an illusion that vanished the moment she was close enough for anyone to see her eyes. At a glance they were a startling green…on closer inspection they were more jaded than green, making Debbie Jenkins seem decades older than the twenty-one Reb knew her to be.