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Suspicion became certainty the very next morning when she was struck by a sudden wave of nausea on rising. She made it to the bathroom just in time, viewing her pale face and lack-lustre eyes through the mirror in wry acceptance. Zac had already gone down, which was some relief. She was going to need to come to terms with this herself before telling him. Not that his reaction was likely to be a bad one with his grandfather still pulling the strings.
Women were at something of an advantage when not looking on top form in having the use of make-up. Jessica applied a light foundation, and took extra care with her eyes to combat the lack of sparkle. The result wasn’t perfect, but she doubted if Zac would notice any difference.
Breakfast finished, he was on his second cup of coffee by the time she got downstairs, his attention concentrated on the morning newspaper.
‘I was beginning to think you’d decided to go back to bed,’ he commented without looking up. ‘You’d better get a move on if you want a lift in. I’ve an early appointment. The coffee’s fresh, and there’s bread already in the toaster.’
Jessica fancied neither, but crying off breakfast altogether was hardly likely to go unnoticed. She made the toast, and spread a little marmalade, unable to face even the thought of butter. One sip of coffee was enough to convince her that drinking the rest would be tantamount to announcing the condition she was already taking as definite. She was glad she’d only half filled the cup to start with.
‘Are you likely to be going away again in the near future?’ she asked.
‘There’s nothing on the immediate agenda,’ he said. There was a slight drawing together of the dark brows as he looked across at her, but if he noted anything untoward in her appearance, he made no comment. ‘Why?’
Jessica shrugged. ‘I just wondered.’
‘Thinking about that proper honeymoon I promised you, by any chance?’ he queried. ‘Unfortunately, this isn’t the best time to go to the Maldives. It’s the start of their rainy season. Plenty of other places, though.’
Jessica stirred herself, shaking her head emphatically. ‘I didn’t mean that at all. In fact, I’d forgotten all about it!’
Regard enigmatic, he said, ‘So think about it. I like to keep my promises. Just name the place, or places, you most fancy seeing.’
‘I can’t!’ Her tone was too abrupt; she took steps to soften the rejection. ‘I mean, I can’t take time off now after just starting the job.’
‘You don’t have to do the damned job at all!’ he declared with sudden force.
Jessica firmed her jaw. ‘I know that. I want to do it.’ For as long as possible, she tagged on mentally. She swallowed as nausea stirred again, pushing back her chair. ‘We’d better get moving if you want to make that appointment.’
Zac made no further reference to the subject. He didn’t speak much at all on the way to Holbourn. He’d pick her up at five-thirty if nothing cropped up in the meantime, he said on dropping her off.
The day was fraught. Jessica wasn’t sick again, but she felt decidedly queasy. It could take as long as three months for the hormones to sort themselves out, she’d read somewhere. The nausea could apparently be relieved by medication, which called for a visit to a doctor. Zac would have one, of course, but she wasn’t ready yet to give him the news. Not while there was still the slightest chance that it was a false alarm.
She slipped out at lunchtime and bought a pregnancy testing kit, then spent fifteen minutes in the cloakroom nerving herself to do the test. The result proved positive, removing the last doubt from her mind.
Standing there, gazing at the strip, Jessica was aware of a stirring deep down in the very centre of her being. Emotional, not physical, she realised. New life was already growing inside her, minuscule at present, but destined to become a fully developed human being. Whatever else happened, this child was going to be loved and protected, she vowed.
Having resolved to tell Zac on the way home, she was dashed when he phoned to say he was going to be late. He didn’t say why, and she didn’t ask, unwilling to give any leeway to the thought that had sprung in the back of her mind. The news would keep. In fact, a little more time to assimilate it properly herself wouldn’t go amiss.
Zac took it for granted that she called for a taxi to transport her to and from the office on the occasions he was unable to do it himself. At peak times, Jessica found the tube just as quick. She had never suffered from claustrophobia in her life, but tonight, strap hanging on the packed train, she felt everything closing in on her. Hormonal again, she reckoned, thankful to emerge. Taxis might be preferable after all.
The time was going to come when she had to give the job up altogether, of course. Sitting behind a desk with a front the size Sarah’s had been would prove impossible. Whether Zac would still find her desirable when she looked like that was open to question.
She made herself a snack when he hadn’t turned up by eight o’clock. Not because she felt like eating, but because she had a responsibility towards the life growing inside her. By nine she was beginning to doubt, by ten to definitely suspect. When he finally arrived at half-past, she was ready to let fly.
‘Where do you think I’ve been?’ he responded curtly. ‘With another woman?’
The directness of it took her aback for a moment, but only for a moment. Attack had always been the best means of defence.
‘Why not?’ she challenged. ‘We’ve been married a whole six and a half weeks! A long time for a man as used as you are to playing the field!’
One dark brow lifted sardonically. ‘If I’ve given the impression I’m bored with you, I must try to do better. If you want the truth, I’ve been seeing an old friend. Male, as it happens. In town for the one night before heading back to New York.’
Jessica rallied her waning forces. ‘So why didn’t you tell me that when you phoned?’
‘Because I was already late for a meeting. I could have got my secretary to phone you with more detail, of course, but I didn’t think that would go down too well. Was I wrong?’
‘No,’ she said after a moment.
Zac eyed her dispassionately. ‘You look tired. You should have gone to bed.’
‘I’m fine.’ It was an effort to keep her tone from reflecting her feelings. She tried a new track. ‘I phoned Sarah this morning. They’re both still doing well. She wants us to go over when she’s home.’
‘She might, Brady certainly won’t.’
The anger returned full force. ‘It’s about time the two of you started pulling together!’ she snapped. ‘You’re like dogs fighting over a bone—with your grandfather on the sideline urging you on! You’re cousins, for God’s sake!’
‘Even closer than that.’ Zac was angry himself, his eyes like cold steel. ‘My father had an affair with Brady’s mother. He was the result. That makes him my half brother.’
Jessica gazed at him in shock for several seconds before she found her voice again. ‘Does he know?’
‘Yes, he knows. His mother told him the truth after our fathers were killed, and he told me.’
Mind whirling, Jessica said slowly, ‘Your mother had no idea?’
‘Oh, yes. She’d been aware of it from the start.’
‘But she stayed with him? Your father, I mean.’
‘She stayed for my sake. I was about six months old when Brady was born.’
Green eyes widened. ‘Your father had the affair while your mother was pregnant with you?’
‘So it would appear.’ Zac looked as if he was beginning to regret having begun this. ‘Some men find pregnancy a sexual turn-off. And no, I’m not finding excuses for him, but his sister-in-law—my aunt—obviously made herself readily available.’
Jessica’s head was lowered, the lump in her throat hard to swallow. If his father had found pregnancy a sexual turn-off, then it was likely that he might too. Not a brilliant outlook for a marriage lacking anything else to hold it together—apart from those damned shares!
‘Lousy situation though it is, I don’t think you and Brady should allow it to colour your lives to the extent you do,’ she said thickly. ‘Your grandfather doesn’t help.’ She looked up as the thought struck her. ‘He did know?’
Zac gave a short laugh. ‘He didn’t at the time. If he had, he’d have cut Dad off pronto. Brady told him within days of hearing it himself. Hence the added pressure on me to make good.’
‘You can’t possibly be blamed for what your father did!’
‘As his son, I’m expected to atone for it.’
‘That’s unfair!’
‘That’s life,’ Zac returned drily. ‘We’ve been asked to make another visit, by the way.’
‘Asked,’ she flashed, ‘or commanded?’
The shrug was brief. ‘Tell it the way you see it. Whatever his faults, I’m fond of the old devil. Even more so of my grandmother. She’s devoted a lifetime to him. The least I can do is spend the occasional weekend.’ He paused, eyes veiled now as he regarded her. ‘I can’t force you to come with me, of course. That has to be up to you.’
‘But it will hardly do your image any good if I don’t.’
The sarcasm left him unmoved. ‘Probably not. Anyway, it’s been a long day. I’m going to bed. Don’t stay up too long. You look a bit washed out yourself.’
He was gone before she could comment. Not that there was a great deal she could have said other than to tell him the reason she looked washed out, as he so tactfully put it. Her pregnancy would certainly enhance his stature in Henry Prescott’s eyes, but how would he regard it himself? A baby was going to alter their whole way of living.
He was asleep when she finally went up, lying on his back, his breathing deep and even. Many men snored in that position, she’d heard, but she didn’t even have that much to find fault with.
The night was warm, and he’d pushed the duvet aside. Nude, as always in bed, his body gleamed like bronze in the soft light from the bedside lamp he’d left burning. Jessica studied the strong, clean lines, eyes traversing a route downwards over the broad chest with its tapering V of hair to the hard-packed midriff and narrowed hipline, the firmly muscled thighs enclosing the very essence of his masculinity.
Even dormant, he was well-endowed. She touched her tongue to lips gone dry at the image in her mind’s eye of how he looked when he was fully aroused. She wanted him desperately, but she wasn’t prepared to waken him. Not the way things were. He would have to know eventually, of course, but not yet. It was hardly as if she was going to give birth tomorrow.
Chapter Nine
CONCEALING the nausea which struck her every morning over the following couple of weeks wasn’t easy. Fortunately, it didn’t last long, and she was able to eat breakfast as normal. Zac appeared to notice nothing untoward, at any rate.
The doctor she finally signed on with confirmed the pregnancy, and arranged for her to start ante-natal clinic at twelve weeks. If he wondered why her husband hadn’t accompanied her, he kept the thought to himself. It was even possible, Jessica supposed, that he took the ‘Mrs’ as a self-bestowed title.
Zac hadn’t mentioned his grandparents again, and she had no intention of bringing the subject up. Her blood boiled whenever she thought about the way Henry Prescott had reacted to news of his son’s wrongdoing. Zac had obviously trodden a very dangerous line in holding out against the old man’s views as long as he had. As the major shareholder in the company still, his grandfather had to have been in a position to make life very difficult for him, to say the least. Some might say he could have walked away from it, but why should he land everything in his half-brother’s lap?
Life went on apace. They ate out most evenings, twice by invitation. While coping quite adequately on the surface with the hormonal changes taking place in her body, Jessica found the very thought of giving a dinner party of their own stressful. The dining room wasn’t big enough to hold more than six round the table in any real comfort, she protested when Zac said it was time they returned the hospitality, and she doubted her ability to prepare a meal of the standard expected anyway.
Zac shot down the first objection by saying they could split it into two parties, the second by suggesting a catering company could supply a meal all ready to serve on both occasions.
‘As a married man, it’s time I started returning the hospitality I’ve enjoyed as a bachelor,’ he said. ‘If you’re finding this place a bit too compact for comfort, we can always move somewhere larger.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ Jessica denied. ‘I love it here! All right,’ she added on a sudden reckless surge, ‘Make it next Saturday, and I’ll even do the cooking myself!’
It was a Saturday today. They were lazing over coffee in the sitting room with the weekend newspapers and magazines. Zac studied her reflectively where she sat with feet curled up under her on the sofa.
‘Not all it’s cracked up to be, is it?’ he said on a wry note.
The green eyes lifted to his were cautious. ‘What isn’t?’
‘Marriage.’
Jessica felt her heart take a plunge. It was all she could do to keep her voice steady. ‘It depends on the expectations, I suppose. Ours wasn’t exactly what you might call a match made in heaven to start with.’
The expression that flitted across the firm masculine features was come and gone too quickly for definition. His voice was equally steady. ‘Maybe not. Still, it has its compensations. Although those are in pretty short supply at present. Nature’s way, I know,’ he added before she could voice the reply he obviously heard coming, ‘but no less frustrating for the average male.’
He returned to his paper, his face closed against her. Jessica resisted the urge to apologise for the dig. He was the one who’d started it, she excused herself.
The realisation that he’d taken her lack of response to him these last few nights to be due to her period was something of a surprise considering how far past her due date she was. Yet how many men kept an actual tally, if it came to that? If it had crossed his mind at all, he would probably have taken it that she had an irregular cycle.
Her failure to feel any degree of desire for him at present was explained in the book she’d bought on pregnancy. Some women suffered a lowering of libido in the initial stages, it seemed. In a normal marriage, with love to fall back on, it wouldn’t matter as much, but deprived of the only consolation he had for his loss of freedom, a healthy, virile man like Zac might find the temptation to look elsewhere for solace too great to resist.
So tell him the truth, her inner voice urged. He was hardly going to look on the news with disfavour, taking his grandfather’s views into account. Except that she hated the mere thought of those views having any kind of bearing on his reaction, she admitted wryly.
At least his assumption gave her a few days’ breathing space. If her urges failed to return to normal, she would just have to put on an act. As Zac himself had pointed out, women had no physical evidence of arousal to produce.
Despite their differences, the day passed pleasantly enough. Zac had booked theatre tickets for the evening, followed by a late supper at Quaglino’s. The last thing Jessica felt like was eating at that hour, but she made a valiant effort. The least she could do, she considered, when he’d gone to such trouble to arrange things.
‘This time last year, I’d have thought myself lucky to be treated to supper at the local fish bar,’ she commented, not entirely in jest. ‘I certainly never imagined myself in a place like this. You’re used to it, of course.’
Zac gave a light shrug. ‘I wouldn’t call it one of my regular haunts. Left to my own devices, I’d plump for a good pub meal washed down with a pint of best bitter.’
‘Were you often?’ she asked. ‘Left to your own devices, I mean.’
The shrug came again. ‘You can’t burn the candle at both ends every night of the week, and still turn in an adequate performance during the day. Anyway, I’m past dancing the night away. Vertically, at any rate,’ he tagged on with the wicked sparkle Jessica had so missed these past weeks.
‘Do men ever think of anything else?’ she teased, responding to the sudden uplift in her own spirits as she looked into the grey eyes lit by the soft glow from the table lamp.
He studied her for a moment before answering, taking in the peach-skinned oval of her face within its frame of chestnut spirals. His smile played havoc on her heart strings.
‘Depends on the incentive. I’d defy any man to look at you and think about cricket scores.’
Desire rocketed through her: all the stronger, it seemed, for the hiatus. It brought both relief and dismay. The former because she’d been afraid of never regaining the feeling, the latter because she’d led him to believe her unavailable for the present.
‘Look at me like that, and I’m liable to forget where we are,’ he said softly. ‘I think I’d better call for the bill. And no, I haven’t forgotten,’ he added.
Jessica fought a battle with herself in the taxi going back to the mews. All she had to do was admit the truth. The baby wasn’t going to go away; she wouldn’t want it to go away! Tell him now and get it over with, then they could continue from there. The marriage might not be perfect, but how many were?
The words just wouldn’t come. Even when he took her by the hand and led her straight upstairs on reaching the house, she found it impossible. She clung to him as he kissed her, blotting out everything but the here and now.
They undressed each other, one garment at a time. Jessica pressed her legs together instinctively when he slid his hands down over her smooth curves, but he made no attempt to touch her there, caressing the rounded hemispheres of her behind as his lips followed the line of her jaw to reach the tender lobe of her ear.
The shudder running through her was no pretence. She closed a hand about him, seeking to give him the same pleasure he was giving her. He said something guttural under his breath as she began the movement, his whole body rigid with tension.
‘Not yet,’ he murmured against her skin.
She desisted at once in recognition of how close to climaxing he’d come at her mere touch. Her hands slid behind the dark head as he moved on down the line of her throat to find her breast, her fingers curling into the thickness of his hair at the exquisite sensation engendered by his flickering tongue. She was taking everything and giving nothing—and all because of her reluctance to tell him what he had a right to know. She should do it now. This moment!
She didn’t, because her mouth still refused to form the words. The thought itself faded as Zac laid her on the bed and began kissing his way down the full length of her body. Jessica had never realised just how many erogenous zones the body possessed until now, and he knew them all. By the time he finished with her she couldn’t have found the strength to lift a finger.
It took his disappearance into the bathroom to bring her back to life. Lying there in the darkness, she tried to sort out her tangled emotions. Tonight Zac had proved himself capable of a selflessness that stirred her to the depths. For a man to sublimate his own needs that way, there surely had to be some feeling other than just the physical on his part. Whether it was enough to survive the realisation that his altruism had been unnecessary was something else.
She turned out the bedside lights before he came back to bed, steeling herself when he slid in beside her. She’d tried out a dozen ways of saying it over the last few minutes, but when it came to the crunch she found herself tongue-tied still.
Zac drew her to him to kiss the tip of her nose. The brush of silk against her lower body proclaimed his use of pyjamas trousers.
‘A temporary measure only,’ he said on a humorous note.
Leaving an arm about her, he turned onto his back. Jessica yearned to press her lips to his bare chest, to feel the flat hard muscle beneath the wiry curl of hair and fill her nostrils with his clean masculine scent. She didn’t because it wouldn’t be fair. Not while he was still labouring under the same illusion.
It was a long time before she slept.
Sarah’s call on the Sunday morning was answered by Zac. His response to her greeting was easy enough, his reaction to the invitation that Jessica gathered was being issued surprisingly lacking in reticence.
