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‘Broke?’ She tried to keep her voice below a screech, but wasn’t sure that she managed it. ‘What do you mean it broke?’
‘I mean the condom had a tear in it. I thought you would want to know.’
She dropped the pillow she was holding and sat down heavily on the bed. Rubbing her fists against her eye sockets, she tried to take the information in and formulate a plan for what to do next. When she finally looked up, Leo was still standing in the doorway, watching her, a concerned look on his face.
‘Are you on the pill?’
‘No,’ she said firmly, picking up her phone and jabbing at the screen. ‘I’m not. But I’ll stop at a pharmacy on my way to work and get the morning-after pill.’
She then nudged him gently out of the bathroom doorway with her hip.
‘The door’s just on the latch,’ she said, desperate to be alone to gather her thoughts, and sure that Leo must be wanting to leave by now. She hadn’t expected him to stay even this long. ‘You can just pull it closed on your way out. Last night was lovely.’ She turned and reached up to kiss him gently on the cheek then shut the door behind her.
She went about her Sunday-morning routine with meticulous precision, determined to banish the butterflies left over from her going off-plan last night with the familiarity of her routine. Shower, exfoliate, hair mask, face mask, cuticle oil. The appearance of a slightly scruffy-looking man with the ability to keep her awake half the night didn’t mean her pores or her nails had to suffer.
It served as a timely reminder that she probably should have stuck to her plan A last night. Having a plan B was all good and well, but that didn’t mean one always had to use it. Responding to change was part of her job, but a plan was meant to create order, not the chaos that threatened at the edges of her morning.
She emerged from the bathroom half an hour later with face, body and mind scrubbed smooth. And nearly dropped her towel at the sight of Leo stretched out on her unmade bed, eyes shut, breathing heavily, with two cups of coffee and a plate of toast on a tray beside him. Looking outrageously tempting. If it wasn’t for the unease that gripped her shoulders, she might have been tempted to join him for round three. Instead she closed the door loudly, trying to wake him. He didn’t stir. Clutching her towel more tightly, she walked over to the bed and reached out to shake him. But his fingers captured her wrist before she could touch him.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, too genuinely surprised to try and sugar-coat her words.
‘You asked me back here. You had a plan, remember?’ She smiled, trying to convince her shoulders there was no reason for them to tense and bunch up.
‘No, I mean, why are you still here?’
‘How about because I’m enjoying your company?’ He reached and stretched behind him, then propped himself on his elbow, watching her from the bed as if he had every right to be there.
‘I’ve not been keeping you company. I’ve been in the bathroom.’
‘For an age. I know. What were you doing in there?’
‘Grooming,’ she replied with a quick, accidental glance at his tangle of hair, the stubble on his chin, the wrinkled shirt.
‘Meow.’ He laughed as he sat up on the unmade bed and reached for a coffee. ‘Are you always this mean in the morning?’
‘Are you always this annoying?’
Her scowl cracked into a grin as she sat beside him.
‘This will help.’ She reached for the other cup of coffee and took a long gulp. ‘And then I really do have to go. I have things to do at the office.’
‘The office? You know it’s a Sunday, right? I saw your boss last night. I bet he’s not going to be racing out of bed to get to work.’
‘Quite. All the more reason why I have to. I had to put a few things on the back burner in the lead-up to the fundraiser. I want to get them moving again.’
‘They’ll still be there tomorrow. I, on the other hand...’
‘Will be long gone—you were quite adamant about that last night, I remember. And yet here you are, holding me up when I want to get to work.’
‘You work too hard.’ The deliberate change of subject wasn’t lost on her.
‘Do you work at all?’ she asked, genuinely curious, and realising now how little she knew about him. Other than that he likely had a rich benefactor, of course.
He nodded as he took a gulp of coffee. ‘Sort of.’
‘Sort of? Anyone I know who “sort of” has a job has mainly been occupied spending a trust fund.’
He winced, she noticed.
‘So when you say “sort of”, you don’t have an actual job.’
‘You could say that.’ His grin told her that he was enjoying frustrating her, refusing to spill the details of his life. Not that it mattered to her what he did or didn’t do, she reminded herself. It was just she was curious, having spent the night with a man to whom the very idea of a plan near on brought him out in hives.
‘So how do you fill your days? When you’re not attending gala dinners, that is.’
He gave her a carefully nonchalant look. ‘I spend it at the beach.’
She nearly snorted her coffee with a good-natured laugh. ‘Well, I should have guessed that,’ she said, draining the dregs.
She hunted in her drawers for underwear and grabbed a simple shift dress from the wardrobe and then headed into the bathroom. When she emerged, dressed and perfectly coiffured, Leo was leaning against the kitchen counter, jacket and shoes on, the smile gone from his eyes.
* * *
‘I didn’t want to just disappear. I could walk you to the train? I have to get going.’ He hoped his voice sounded less conflicted than he felt. That he wasn’t giving away his battle between regret and impatience. Leo Fairfax didn’t do regrets. He was walking away because it was the only way to be safe. The only way to ensure he didn’t find himself in a situation that was intolerable, as he had at school. As much as last night and this morning had been exhilarating, wonderful, this had to end now.
He’d been perfectly frank last night that she shouldn’t expect anything lasting from him.
‘A walk to the station would be good. Are you ready to go?’
Leo reached for her hand as they walked along the leafy street, and wound his fingers with hers. It was only when he felt her hesitation, the tension in her muscles, that he realised what he’d done. He didn’t do holding hands. He didn’t do Shall I walk you to the station? because that led to expectation, and that was the very last thing that he wanted.
One morning like this led to another and another, until it became impossible to escape. But her hand felt right in his, her delicate, smooth palm lost in his huge, calloused, weather-worn grip. This was a choice, a pleasure, and he couldn’t make himself take it back or regret it. He let go briefly as they passed through the ticket barrier, and had to stop himself from wrapping an arm around her waist as they walked through the station.
‘I go north here,’ she said eventually, when they reached the stairs. ‘You want the southbound train, right?’
‘Right.’ He hesitated, no more willing to walk away from her now than he had been earlier in the morning. He tightened his hand around hers for a moment, the thought of waving her off causing an unexpected and unfamiliar pang. How could he want to keep hold of her and yet fear being tied to her at the same time?
Rachel wouldn’t settle for someone drifting in and out of her life on a whim or desire. Whoever she decided to share her life with, she’d want him as predictable as the tide—she’d never stake her luck on waves and weather.
If he wanted more of her, it would mean dates and calendars and plans. And contingency plans and comparing schedules and an itinerary agreed months in advance. The thought of those constrictions, of being tied into someone else’s expectations, demands...suddenly it was hard to breathe.
Since the day he’d left school, he hadn’t encountered anything, whether it was a woman, a job, or the thought of family, that had made him want to tie himself down, to trap himself into any situation where he didn’t have a clear and easy way out. He’d spent too many years in a hell he couldn’t escape, trapped in a boarding house with his bullies, and no one to listen to him, to believe him. And all the time, the person he should have been able to go to for help, the person who should have been unquestionably on his side, had been the ringleader.
He’d counted down the days until he could leave school on his calendar, and then had never used one again. He’d sworn that he would never allow himself to be trapped as he was at school. Never find himself in a situation where someone had the power to hurt him, and he couldn’t get away. So why was he gripping Rachel’s hand as if she were a life buoy to a drowning man?
When he looked over at her fidgeting on her heels, all the reasons he knew he should walk away seemed to fade. He knew the dangers, knew that he couldn’t hold on and expect to live untethered. He couldn’t want a future with her in it, but his body refused to accept it. He turned to her, until they were shoulder to shoulder and toe to toe, just millimetres separating their bodies. He could feel the draw of her skin, pulling him towards her, and his fingertips brushed against her cheekbones of their own accord. As his hands moved to cup her face, to turn her lips up to meet his, a screech of brakes broke into his thoughts. He glanced across and saw the train pull up to the southbound platform.
‘I have to go.’ The words came from his lips, though he couldn’t make himself believe them. But the train doors were closing, and with every piercing electronic beep he felt the walls of the station draw closer, his escape window closing.
With a wrench that he felt deep in his gut, he swept his lips across hers, pulled his hands away and then jogged down the stairs and through the doors of the train before either of them had a chance to say another word.
* * *
Rachel stood at the top of the stairs, watching as the train, and Leo, left the station. It was what she had wanted—him gone, and everything back to normal. But watching his train pull out of the station, she recognised the panicky feeling in her chest. He was gone, and she had no way of getting in touch with him. Despite everything, all the reasons she’d given herself that letting him into her life was a bad idea, despite the sense of panic that the thought of that man in her life caused, she wanted more of it. More of him.
Something caught her attention from the corner of her eye, and she started when she realised her train had already pulled up to the platform. She raced down the stairs, but the doors shut and locked with her on the wrong side. Even on his way out of her life Leo was disrupting her schedule. On second thought, she mused, maybe it was a good thing she wasn’t in touch with him. He’d caused quite enough chaos in the one night she’d known him. She glanced up at the information screen, wondering how long the next train would be. Typical Sunday service. She’d be stuck on the platform for an hour.
But maybe she could do something useful with the time. A quick search on her phone showed a pharmacy just around the corner that should be open. Walking quickly, she headed to the chemist—a few minutes and several rather personal questions later, she had emergency contraception and a bottle of water. She read quickly through the information on the packet as she waited in a quiet corner of the station. Ninety-five per cent effective. Not ideal—but in the circumstances, the best she was going to get. She swallowed the pill then forced the issue from her mind, and looked through both hers and Will’s schedules for the next week.
There were a couple of things she’d need to look into once she got to the office. Meetings that had been added at the last minute, when she was too busy with organising the fundraiser to pull together all the research and paperwork that she knew Will would need in order to prepare.
She worked through a few of her emails, making adjustments to her plan for the week as she went and slotting in new items for her Monday morning meeting with Will.
After the meeting she’d be able to plan out the rest of her week almost to the last minute. And her regular ‘contingency’ and ‘AOB’ slots meant that even the unexpected would have to bend to her plans and not the other way around.
She’d come to rely on that order, needed those careful plans to make her feel safe. Because without them what else was there?
It had been the only way for years that she’d been able to quiet her feelings of chaos and panic. The men who’d broken into her childhood home hadn’t planned to hurt anyone, the court had heard: they’d thought the house would be empty, had no idea that a fourteen-year-old Rachel was home alone. So when she’d startled one of them as he’d been rifling through the video collection, he’d panicked and lashed out at her. It was a pretty unpleasant knock to her head, but nothing serious. And eventually the nightmares she’d suffered had stopped, but that hadn’t stopped her parents’ guilt at leaving her at home. They’d fussed and smothered and, on occasion, wailed, insisting that Rachel inform them of her whereabouts at all times. Curfews were to be observed to the minute, unless she wanted to afflict a full-on panic-attack meltdown on her parents.
So she could be flexible if she had to be. ‘AOB’ and ‘unexpected’ had their own places in her plans, and that was all last night had been. But perhaps she shouldn’t do it again. Those slots should be kept strictly for emergencies. Not for blonds who were hard to forget in the morning.
CHAPTER THREE (#u3ec29d86-2a96-533f-8baf-44201965afb9)
RACHEL SCROLLED THROUGH the next two weeks of Will’s schedule, looking for a half-hour slot. She knew that she’d pencilled it in somewhere, knowing that this phone call would come at some point. Ah, there it was. The seventeenth. How could she have forgotten that? She put the details into the calendar, added links to the relevant paperwork on the servers, made sure that everyone involved in the project was copied into the invitation and saved everything. She smiled to herself, satisfied with her work. She’d been an executive assistant at Appleby and Associates, a financial services company in the city, for more than five years and prided herself on always knowing what Will needed before he did. If only everything was that easy, she thought, glancing again at the date. It won’t change, she told herself. It doesn’t matter how many times you look at it. She sat still and shut her eyes for a moment, concentrating on her body, not sure what she hoped, or even wanted to feel. Anything other than the hint of queasiness in her stomach and tiredness in her bones that had started to feel permanent. For the past week, seven full days since her period should have arrived, every day had been a whole load of nothing. And this after a half-hearted, barely-there appearance last month.
How long did she wait? she wondered. A week wasn’t that big a deal, was it? She’d been busier than ever since that night—with Will’s eye somewhat off the ball now he actually had a personal life. And then he and Maya had started coming up with more and more fundraising ideas to support the charity, and it felt as if she hadn’t had a moment to herself since then. It was just the stress. Except she wasn’t stressed. She’d just worked the new projects into their routine and it had been fine. She wasn’t stressed; she was just late. And it seemed like a little too much of a coincidence that the first time she’d ever been late coincided with her first ever sexual wardrobe malfunction. That ninety-five-per-cent figure had been haunting her thoughts for six days now.
She should probably talk to Leo, she thought. But she hadn’t asked for his number that night—could she face calling his father, whose gala invitation he had taken, to try and get hold of him?
At least at the moment she had nothing to tell. But she couldn’t leave it that way for long. She needed to know what she was dealing with. If—and it was still a big one—but if she was pregnant, then the sooner she knew, the sooner she could formulate a plan. It was twelve-thirty now, which gave her enough time to nip to the chemist’s around the corner, grab a pregnancy test and a sandwich, and be back at her desk well before Will’s two o’clock meeting. She locked her computer and grabbed her bag from her drawer, then headed out of the building.
Twenty minutes later she locked the cubicle door and sat on the lid of the toilet, reading through the packet instructions.
Pee, wait, read. And then she’d know.
She peed. She waited. The seconds on her phone stopwatch ticked by slowly, as if the whole universe wanted to put this off as much as she did.
At twelve fifty-nine she took a deep breath, closed her eyes for that last, long second, and then looked at the stick.
Pregnant.
She could barely see as she walked—dazed—out of the bathroom. She stopped at the coffee machine, as was her habit after lunch, and as she was about to select her usual order she stopped herself, blinked a couple of times, and selected decaf instead. She reached for the cup and took a sip, and felt the relief and comfort of her routine in place of the caffeine rush.
‘Got the jitters?’
She whipped around at the sound of that familiar voice and felt the blood drain from her face.
‘Leo, what a—’
She couldn’t finish the word, never mind the sentence. What was he doing here? Why today? Why right now? Why did he have to look even better than she remembered? Sun-bleached, tanned and twinkling with humour.
He was watching her with careful eyes. And he reached out and took the cup from her shaking hands. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. But you looked as if you were in a world of your own.’
‘No, it’s... It’s... Leo?’
He gave her a smug grin, and that helped her regain her senses somewhat. He wouldn’t be looking at me like that if he knew what I knew, she thought. If he knew that in a few short months he’d be dad to a bouncing baby boy or...
She felt her blood drain lower still, and had to lean back against the counter in the small kitchen to keep her balance. Leo took a step closer and set the coffee down beside her, before taking her hand and looking closely at her face.
‘You’re white as a sheet,’ he said. ‘I’d love to take the credit for you swooning and all, but I’m worried. Are you ill? Should I call someone?’
‘No, no,’ she said, trying to regain composure amid the rush of her thoughts and the swirl of sensation from his fingertips. ‘I’m surprised, that’s all. And in need of a coffee.’
‘So why are you drinking decaf?’
Great, she thought. Walked straight into that one. ‘Because I’ve already drunk too much today, and know that I’ll need a proper one before this afternoon’s over.’ Hopefully that would allay any more questions. She moved forwards tentatively, moving her weight from the counter to her feet, and almost smiled before she felt herself sway slightly. She really should have eaten that sandwich before taking the test, she thought. Because right now, despite her achingly empty stomach, and rather light head, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to keep even a mouthful down.
‘That’s it, you’re not well,’ Leo declared, eyeing her carefully. ‘You need to take the afternoon off.’ She gave a shaky laugh, tensing slightly at this reminder of Leo’s cavalier attitude to a nine-to-five.
‘I’m fine, honestly. I’ve just not had lunch yet.’
‘Then let me walk you to your desk, at least.’
‘Leo, please, just leave it.’
This wasn’t fair. She was careful. She was always careful. And then when events had conspired against her, she’d gone straight to the pharmacy and taken that pill. Why did she have to be that five per cent?
She had to tell him. He had a right to know. They had a right to make any decisions that needed to be made together. But did she have to do this just now, before she’d even had a chance to get used to it herself?
Leo was standing in front of her, close, too close, and she needed space to think about this. But she couldn’t do that, because her calendar was full all afternoon. And all of tomorrow, and the day after that. Every minute of every day was accounted for. And she liked it like that; she just wished that she’d known to schedule in time to adjust to pregnancy, to becoming a mother. At that thought her knees went, and even though it was only for a second she knew that Leo had seen it. He slipped his arm around her.
‘Where’s your desk?’ he asked.
She laid her hand on his at her waist, grateful for the support, but well aware that she couldn’t be half carried through her office. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and grabbed hold of her self-control. She pushed Leo’s arm away gently and stood up, forcing her heels into the floor, and walked across to her desk. Leo followed beside her looking concerned, but not trying to touch her.
‘So what are you doing here?’ she asked when she was safely back at her desk, looking for any excuse to draw the conversation away from herself. ‘You probably should have called first—I try and keep my personal life away from work.’
He gave her an assessing look and then leant back against her desk.
‘One, I couldn’t have called because you didn’t give me your number. And two, as delightful as it’s been running into you, I’m not here to see you.’
‘Oh.’ Just when she’d thought this day couldn’t get any worse. She thanked her forethought in ordering a perfectly fitted ergonomic chair that wouldn’t allow her to slump with disappointment even if she’d wanted to. Which, she told herself strictly, she absolutely didn’t.
‘Seeing you is just a very pleasant bonus,’ he added with a hot smile that softened her disappointment, reminded her of that night and reached right to her belly. ‘And as you haven’t eaten, can I take you for lunch?’
‘I’ve...I’ve already taken my lunch break. And if you’re not here to see me, then surely you have plans.’
‘Right,’ he said slowly, as if only just remembering. ‘I have a meeting with Will.’
