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‘Are you ready to order, sir?’
He closed his eyes briefly and then looked up at the pretty young waitress with what he hoped was something resembling a normal smile. ‘Um—yes. I’ll have the rib-eye steak, please—rare—and the—’ He hesitated. The pan-fried salmon, or the chicken breast stuffed with brie and pesto?
Then he remembered her saying she had chicken in the fridge. ‘I’ll have the salmon, please. And I’d like to take them away, if you can do that for me? I know you don’t usually, but we don’t have a babysitter and, well, it’s the closest we can get to going out for dinner. I’ll drop the plates back tomorrow.’ This time the smile was better, less jerky and awkward, and she coloured slightly and smiled back.
‘I’m sure we can do that for you, sir,’ she said a little breathlessly, and he hated himself for the little kick of pride that he could still make the girls go silly with a simple smile.
‘Oh, and could I have a look at the wine list? I’d like to take a couple of bottles home, if I may?’
‘Of course, sir. I’ll take this to the kitchen and bring the wine list back to you.’
She was back with it in moments, and he chose a red and a white, paid the bill and settled back to wait.
Funny. This time yesterday he would have been too busy to wait for his food. He would have had it delivered. Even if they didn’t deliver, he would have had it delivered, because everything had a price. You just had to pay enough.
But tonight, after he’d made a couple of phone calls and checked his email on his BlackBerry
Smartphone, he was glad just to sit there in the busy pub, which was more of a restaurant than a watering hole, and take time out from what had been probably the most momentous day of his life. Unless…
But he didn’t want to think about that other day, so he buried the thought and tapped his fingers and waited…
‘That was lovely. Thank you, Max. It was a really nice idea.’
‘Was it all right? My steak was good, but I knew you wouldn’t want that, and I thought the fish was safe, but I didn’t know if you’d want a pudding.’ He frowned. ‘I realised I didn’t know what you would want.’
She felt the smile coming and couldn’t stop it. ‘You aren’t alone. I often don’t know what I want.’
One brow flew up in frank disbelief. ‘Are you telling me you’ve become indecisive?’
She laughed at that. ‘I’ve always been indecisive if it affects me personally. I’ve just trained myself to remember that I’m going to eat it, not marry it, so it really doesn’t matter that much. Well, not with food, anyway. Other things—well, they’re harder,’ she admitted slowly.
His eyes turned brooding as he studied her. ‘Is that why you didn’t contact me? Because you couldn’t decide if it was the right thing to do?’
She looked down, guilt and remorse flooding her.
‘Probably. But you just wouldn’t listen, so there didn’t seem to be any point in trying to talk to you—and you hadn’t tried to talk to me, either.’
He sighed shortly. ‘Because I told you to get in touch when you wanted me.’ He paused, then added, ‘The fact that you didn’t…’
She nearly let that go, but in the end she couldn’t. There was just something in his eyes she couldn’t ignore. ‘I nearly did. So many times. But I told myself that if you were prepared to listen, to talk about it, you’d ring me. And you didn’t.’
‘I tried. I couldn’t get you. Your number was blocked and I had no idea why.’
‘My phone was stolen. But that wasn’t till June! So you didn’t try for nearly six months, at least.’
He looked away, his jaw working, so she knew before he spoke that she was right. ‘I was waiting for you to call me. I thought, if I gave you space—and when you didn’t call a bit of me thought, to hell with you, really. But then I couldn’t stand it any longer—the uncertainty. Not knowing where you were, what you were doing. It was killing me. So I called, and then I couldn’t get you. And you weren’t spending any money, you weren’t using your account.’
‘John pays my living expenses and runs the car.’
‘Very generous,’ he growled.
‘He is. He’s a nice man.’
His jaw clenched at that—at the thought of another man supporting her. Well, tough. He’d get over it. It was only a job.
‘He’s been marvellous,’ she went on, turning the screw a little further. ‘He was really understanding when the babies were born, and he got a friend to stay until I was able to come home.’
‘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.
And then he looked up and met her eyes, and she realised he wouldn’t reject her at all. She was locked in the blue fire of his gaze, unable to breath for the emotion flooding through her.
He reached out his hand and cupped her cheek tenderly, and she realised his fingers were trembling. ‘I need you,’ he said under his breath. ‘I hate you for what you’ve done to me, but, God damn you, I still need you. Come back to me. Please—come back to me; let’s make a life together. We can start again.’
She stepped back, her legs like jelly. It would be so easy…
‘I can’t. Not to that life.’
‘To what, then?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Just not that. Not the endless jetting round the world, the profit-chasing and the thrill of the stock market, the crazy takeovers, the race to the top of the rich list—I don’t want to know any more, Max, and I can’t do it, especially not with the babies. That’s why I left you, and nothing’s changed, has it? You should be in New York now, and, OK, you’re here—but I bet you’ve been on the phone while you were in the pub or on the way over, or on the drive up here, or later after I go to bed you’ll find calls you have to make. Am I right?’ she pushed, and he sighed and nodded.
‘Yes, damn it, you’re right, of course you’re right, but I have a business to run.’
‘And staff. Good staff. Some excellent people, who are more than capable of keeping things going. So let them, Max. Give them a chance to prove themselves, and take time out to get to know your children.’
‘Time?’ he asked cautiously, as if it was a foreign concept, and she would have smiled if her life hadn’t depended on it. As it was she was on the verge of tears, and she tilted her chin and put a little backbone into her voice.
‘Two weeks. Two weeks here, with me, with no phones, no news, no papers, no laptop or email or post—just us. A holiday—you know, one of those things we’ve never had? You, me and the babies, to see if there’s any way we can make a family.’
He was shaking his head. ‘I can’t take two weeks—not just like that. Not without any contact.’
‘You can contact them and tell them,’ she said. ‘I know you’ll need to do that. Look, I can’t talk about this any more. It’s been a hell of a day, and I’m shattered. I’m going to bed, and I suggest you do, too. You can have the room beyond the babies, it’s all ready. And think about what I said. If you’re really serious about us getting back together, then I want that two weeks. No compromises, no cheating, no bending the rules. Just you, me and the babies. Phone your PA and fix it first thing in the morning.’
One of those elegant, autocratic brows gave an ironic quirk. ‘That sounds very much like an order.’
‘Just laying down the ground rules. Either you’re going to engage with this or you’re not.’
‘Just give me one good reason why I should.’
She laughed softly. ‘I can give you two—and if you want to be part of their lives you’ll do this. Because I’m not subjecting them to an absentee father who can’t keep his family commitments and doesn’t know the difference between work and home.’
He stared at her searchingly for the longest moment, then, just when she thought he’d refuse, he nodded.
‘OK. I’ll call Andrea in the morning and set it up. And you can have your two weeks. But make no mistake, I’m doing this for the children, because you’re right—they deserve more than an absentee father. But it’s going to take a long while before I can forgive you for cheating me of their first months, and for keeping something so monumentally important from me. So don’t expect me to be all sweetness and light, because I’m still so angry with you I can’t even find the words for it.’
Her eyes filled, and she swallowed the tears. ‘I know. And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but, for what it’s worth, I still love you.’
‘You still love me? You can stand there and say that, and yet you walked out and didn’t come back?’ he said incredulously.
