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Creaking floorboards upstairs told him that she was awake. He gave a start, half pleased at the thought of seeing her, half dreading the discussion he knew would inevitably come. Remembering the hour she’d spent in the bathroom the night he’d stayed at her flat, he expected a little more grace before he had to face her, but then he heard her footsteps on the stairs.
For half a second, he wondered if he’d be treated to the sight of her in some sort of skimpy nightwear. The sight of her perfectly prim jeans and soft sweater reminded him she’d come here prepared for a business meeting. At least she wasn’t clutching her tablet. In fact, he couldn’t even see her phone on her. Though looking for it gave him a brilliant excuse for thoroughly checking out the pockets of her jeans.
‘Morning,’ he said, standing up from the table. Once he was on his feet, he wasn’t sure why he had done it, except that it seemed impossible not to react to her, not to want to get close. ‘Can I get you anything?’
He bit his tongue to stop the flood of questions filling his mouth. She had more colour in her cheeks than she had the previous afternoon, but he was still worried. As he reached her side, he rested a gentle hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him. ‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked, looking for any sign that she wasn’t completely recovered from yesterday. An overwhelming need to protect her swept over him, and the hand on her shoulder slipped to her waist, pulling her closer. Once her body was near enough that he felt her magnetic pull, all thoughts of protecting her flew out of his mind, and were replaced with something hotter, more urgent. He pulled the arm around her waist tight, and dipped his head. His eyes were already closing as his body remembered the feel of hers, as his lips tingled with remembered sensation.
And then he was cold, his body left bereft as Rachel turned and pulled away until his arms were empty.
‘I’ll make the coffee,’ she said, the shake in her voice at least showing that she wasn’t completely immune to him. ‘And I could murder some carbs. What is there for breakfast?’
He pulled his brain back to the real world, the one where they weren’t a lust-filled couple shacked up together for a fun weekend. To the world where an ill-thought-through night had led to a baby, a lifetime of commitment, and he was momentarily glad that her self-control had outwitted his libido. ‘Toast? Cereal?’ He tried to keep his voice level, to take her cue and pretend that his clumsy attempt at a kiss hadn’t happened. But he couldn’t forget it, couldn’t forget how it felt to be fractions of a second from bliss, and then left cold and wanting her.
She nodded, her body stiff, her smile a little forced. He threw bread into the toaster, dug around in the cupboard and put together a carb-loaded platter: muffins, crumpets, toast and cereal, anything to keep mind and body busy and away from her. They feasted on the breads, slathered in honey and jam, and conversation eventually started to flow between them almost as smooth.
He remembered the challenge he’d set himself that night. The way the sound of her laugh had so entranced him he was determined to make it happen again and again. The effect hadn’t worn off. Every smile and chuckle became a challenge to make it grow. He felt himself relax as she slouched a little more in her chair, as her words flowed easy and her smiles grew. Every chime of her laughter swelled a light in his chest, something primal and basic, something he couldn’t control, or make himself want to.
As they finished up with breakfast, he was tempted to hold his breath, to hold on to these moments of happiness, because something told him that this was borrowed contentment. That it wasn’t real. Maybe this was in her plan all along, softening him up before she started. No need to spook him by hitting him with talk about the plan the minute she was up. Instead she lulled him into a false sense of security, waiting until he entered a food coma until she made her move. With the prospect of having to make some sort of plan on the horizon, he couldn’t see what was real and what was his fear manifesting as paranoia.
She was fidgeting as they cleared the table, clearly getting more and more uncomfortable. There was tension in her shoulders and a tightness in her muscles that he didn’t like. And he knew the only thing that would get rid of it. She was still flailing after he’d ripped up her plan. Writing a new one would ease her worries, make her feel safe.
Of course he’d discovered one other way of finding the relaxed, happy, free Rachel. And he knew which of the two—drawing up a schedule for the rest of his life, or a long, languorous morning of lovemaking—he would prefer.
But he also knew which of the two Rachel needed today. So he swallowed the very tempting suggestion and did what he hoped was the right thing. ‘I think we should take a look at this plan.’ He ran his hands through his hair and left them at the back of his head. He supposed he was hoping for ‘oh, we don’t have to do that now,’ or, ‘maybe we could leave it for a bit’. Though of course what he actually got was a sigh of relief, a smile and darting glances at the stairs. ‘Grab whatever you need,’ he said, suddenly feeling distant and uncomfortable around her, with her need for control—and his fear of it—sitting between them like a threat. ‘I’ll make some more coffee.’
She hesitated at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Do you have any decaf?’
‘Sorry, I didn’t think.’
He leaned back against the kitchen counter as she went upstairs. Decaf? Another pregnancy thing, he assumed. Just one more part of this whole situation he was completely clueless about. Every good feeling he’d had when they’d shared breakfast had abandoned him, and even the house seemed darker and colder this side of the meal. Rachel re-emerged from the stairs a few moments later, clutching her bound-up papers, a notebook and her tablet.
‘Old-fashioned or new-fangled?’ she asked as she sat neatly at the table and set everything out in front of her. Death by fire or water? What did it matter?
But the smile had returned to her lips, her arms hung loosely at her sides, and she had lost the drawn, haunted look that told of a frightened woman.
‘You choose.’ He tried to keep the weighty, quavery feeling fluttering in his belly out of his voice. ‘You’re the expert here.’ He hoped it didn’t sound snarky. He didn’t mean it to. Didn’t mean to blame her for how uncomfortable he was. It didn’t make sense to be angry at her for the situation they found themselves in. It wasn’t her fault they were pregnant. It wasn’t her fault that the way she wanted to live her life was the opposite of his. They just had to find a way to make this work for both of them. All of them.
‘Old-fashioned, then.’ She opened the notebook out to a blank double spread and reached for her pen. He could tell she was itching to write her headings across the top of the page but seemed to be waiting for his okay to do so. ‘So...where do you want to start?’
He took a deep breath. She’d obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this. And to be honest her plan was probably as good as anything that they could come up with together. As he’d said—she was the expert here. But if he didn’t have his say now, then when would he? Would he find himself in ten years’ time on a path that she had chosen, and that he had never had any idea of where it was going? If he didn’t rein this in, if she couldn’t learn to live a little less rigidly, he’d find himself stifled and trapped. And if she couldn’t start compromising now, then he couldn’t see how this was ever going to work.
‘Perhaps we could start with the next few weeks,’ he said eventually, thinking that even he could manage with planning that far out, if he had to. ‘And anything that needs a specific date. Appointments, travel plans, that sort of thing.’
Rachel nodded and he could tell from the small smile on her face she already knew exactly how she expected the next few weeks to pan out. She probably had appointments lined up, time blocked out, and knew exactly where he should be and at what time. But she said none of this and instead waited for him to make a suggestion. At least she seemed willing to try as hard as he was to make this work.
‘Do you have any doctor’s appointments scheduled? I’m not really sure how this works but I’d like to be there if that’s what you want.’
‘I’ve an appointment with my GP in a few days. Probably won’t be much to tell at that stage, from what I’ve read. But generally they want to schedule the first scan at some point around twelve weeks.’
‘Twelve weeks?’ He raised a brow in question.
‘The twelfth week of the pregnancy. Not twelve weeks from now. Or, in fact, twelve weeks from when we...’ He smiled a little at her embarrassment. ‘The counting is weird,’ she continued, a light blush colouring her cheeks. ‘Right now I think I’m about nine weeks pregnant, even though it’s not that long since we... They count from the first day of your last...’
‘Are you going to finish a sentence today?’ He laughed at the sudden appearance of this bashfulness. ‘Or is there always going to be so much guesswork?’
‘I’m sorry. It seems stupid to be embarrassed talking about any of this when you’re the one, well, we’re the ones... Sorry.’
She laughed, too, and Leo relaxed into his chair as the tension in the air palpably lightened. What was it about her laugh that reached his spine and his heart?
‘I’m doing it again, aren’t I?’ He nodded. ‘They count from the first day of your last period, which means today is week nine of the pregnancy even though it’s not been that long since we...met. Which means they’ll want to schedule the scan for around three weeks’ time.’
‘I’d like to be there.’
‘Me, too.’ They both smiled, and he breathed a sigh of relief, glad that they’d found this common ground at last. Maybe they could do this. Maybe they could find a compromise to make them both happy. And if they did that, what next? What more could there be between them when they weren’t both terrified of what the other craved?
Rachel drew a column on the piece of paper and wrote the heading Appointments at the top; then clicked through the screen of her phone with one hand and wrote the date in the column with the other. She glanced up at him. ‘Do you want to make a note of the date?’
Or maybe they couldn’t. ‘What date? You haven’t got an appointment yet.’
‘No, but I’m sure they’ll make it that week. You could...’
‘Rachel, this is one of those times when you’re going to have to let me make a decision for myself. I’m perfectly capable of keeping in my head the fact that I will have to make some time approximately three weeks from now to attend the scan. It’s not something I’m likely to forget. Just because I’m not doing it your way doesn’t mean I’m doing something wrong.’
She concentrated hard on the page; going over and over one word with her pen until he feared the paper would dissolve. But she didn’t argue with him. The best he could hope for, for now, he supposed.
‘Okay, so that’s the appointments sorted for now. What next?’
‘I want to have the baby in London.’
‘Makes sense, considering you live there.’
‘So you’ll have to make arrangements to be up there, if you want to be around when it happens.’ He nodded, able to see the logic in that. He waited, wondering whether she’d want him to make some more definite plans, but she seemed happy—or at least reluctantly willing—to leave it at that for now. Though he did notice the way her pen ripped through the paper slightly as she wrote the next word.
‘Fine.’
‘Seems to me like we can’t really decide anything to do with dates until you’ve seen a doctor, though,’ Leo said. ‘So how about we leave that for now and move on to another part of the plan? What else is on your list that needs deciding now?’
When she didn’t reply, he looked up from where his eyes had been following her pen scoring into the paper, to find her sitting with her mouth open and a hesitant look on her face. ‘What?’
‘You’re right. We don’t need to decide everything now.’ She started to close the notebook, but Leo reached out and laid a hand across the page, trying not to notice the way that his skin tingled when it accidentally brushed against hers.
‘Something’s worrying you. Why don’t you tell me what it is?’ He tried to catch her eye, but she seemed determined not to meet his gaze. An alarm bell, deep in his belly, started ringing. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘It’s not a problem. It’s just—ʼ she took a deep breath and spat the words out ‘—I had all this worked out with scenarios, and different options and choices, and now that I’m sitting here at your kitchen table it feels weird.’
‘What? Now that I’m a real person and not just an item in your schedule? Now that I get a say?’
She nodded. ‘I am sorry. For turning up with it all finished and ready to present to you. I didn’t mean to cut you out, to tell you this is the way it has to be. I just had to see for myself how I was going to make this work. And the only way to do that was to work it all out and write it down. I can see how it must have looked, as if I was dictating the whole of the rest of your life to you. But I didn’t mean it that way.’
Her honesty eased that little knot of tension from his stomach, and he couldn’t tell her how grateful he was for this acknowledgement that maybe she didn’t have it all worked out after all. Funnily, her apology for creating the schedule in the first place made him want to help her with a replacement more than ever; he wanted to do whatever it took to make this work for them, even if it felt like seeing Exit signs being ripped down in front of him. Because what was an escape to him now? Sure, he could run. He could get far away from Rachel, throw money at the situation to keep the lawyers happy and have nothing to do with this woman and her child ever again. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
And just like that his relaxed feeling was gone. He sat a little straighter in his chair, the tension in his neck and shoulders not allowing him to lounge. There was no escape now. Nothing for it but to plough on, into whatever it was his life held for him. He couldn’t escape the facts: he was going to be a father. This woman, her plans and her notebooks, would be in his life for ever.
But not every part of his life. Rachel’s presence had become an accepted fact between that Italian lunch and her turning up here. But just because he had her in his life, didn’t mean he couldn’t keep parts of it for himself. Keep part of himself safe. So she would be the mother of his child. He couldn’t change that. But that was all she would be. He would stop these daydreams and night-time fantasies about that night. Forget the feel and taste of her lips and skin. He wouldn’t fall into a relationship with her just because she was carrying his child.
‘Let’s just get this over with,’ he said, forcing out the words. ‘We have to talk about it some time, and we’re both here now. What else did you have written down before?’
‘Well...there was one part of the plan I had trouble with,’ she admitted. ‘Without knowing your financial position it was difficult to be accurate, so I came up with a number of different scenarios.’
‘You should know, I’m not as well off as you might think.’ He wasn’t sure why he just threw the words out like that. Best defence perhaps, hoping to scare her off. Instead, he could see from her scowl that he’d offended her. He cursed under his breath. How could they misstep at every turn?
‘And how would you know what I think about your financial position?’
‘Well, we met at a fundraiser where the tickets cost two hundred quid a plate. It would be reasonable on your part to assume that I was loaded. I’m not,’ he added, watching her carefully to see her reaction. She didn’t even look surprised, never mind disappointed.
‘If you remember, I thought you were crashing. So the price of the ticket is neither here nor there.’
She was impossible to second-guess this morning, Leo realised. But nothing he’d seen so far screamed gold-digger. He was cautious of money, and those who wanted it. And he had every reason to be. He’d grown up surrounded by it, rich and miserable. When he’d turned twenty-one, and for the first time could decide for himself how much of the family money he wanted to use, he’d decided the answer was ‘none of it’.
He’d been selling his artwork since school, and when he’d left had set up a website and taken a few commissions, still trying to decide what he wanted to do with his life. When the paperwork had come through authorising his access to his trust fund, he’d decided once and for all that he didn’t want a penny of it for himself. So he’d set up donations to charities, funded a few local projects he was interested in, and left the remainder in the bank, waiting until he could decide the best place to send it.
He’d saved almost every penny he’d earned, and as the commissions for his work increased, so did the nest egg he was building up. He’d wanted to buy a home, somewhere completely his, where he could feel safe. All he could afford was this wreck, a shell of a place when they’d exchanged the contracts, but it was his, and he loved it. He worked the renovations around his commissions, and the time that he spent in his studio, so progress had been slow, but he had relished every minute of the work.
His art had gained a reputation now, and it had been a long time since he’d had to worry where that month’s mortgage payment would come from. And he could certainly support a child.
But he wouldn’t see his son or daughter grow up with the sense of entitlement—to money, to people, to anything they wanted—that he’d seen from the boys at school.
‘I’m not loaded, and I can’t give you a specific figure right now,’ he said eventually. ‘I pretty much just turn everything over to my accountant and let him worry about it. But I’ll do my bit, I can promise you that.’
* * *
Rachel reached down and pulled off her flip-flops; she threaded her fingers through the straps as she walked along the beach, swinging her arms and enjoying the feel of the sand between her toes. Well, Leo didn’t seem to be in any hurry for her to see whatever he wanted to show her, she thought, as they ambled down across the sand. The tide was out, and the beach stretched before her, flat and vast. A dark stripe of seaweed bisected the view, and as they grew closer she detected its smell—raw, salty, and not entirely pleasant. She couldn’t help but notice that Leo seemed to be getting more interested the closer they got. His eyes scanned the beach.
‘Looking for something?’
‘For anything,’ he corrected, though Rachel wasn’t any the wiser for this clarification.
‘Looking for anything.’ She spoke seriously and nodded as if this made perfect sense to her.
‘Come on, I’ll show you.’
Leo grabbed her hand and towed her the last few yards across the sand, dragging her, as far as she could tell, to the largest pile of stinking seaweed.
‘Ah, now I understand,’ she lied, looking down and laughing, still completely clueless about what they were doing here. She could hardly be expected to play detective when her hand was trapped in his. When her every nerve ending and neuron seemed intent on those few square inches of skin where their bodies were joined. ‘You love the seaweed. You think a city girl like me will be impressed by its...pungency?’
He laughed. ‘Exactly. I brought you all the way down to the coast to enjoy the finest seaweed this country has to offer. No, don’t be daft.’ He threw her another smile, and gestured to the stinking pile with their joined hands. ‘Let’s get stuck in.’ Abruptly, he dropped her hand and to his knees, before picking up a huge handful of the slimy green fronds and throwing it to one side.
She let out a bark of laughter, unable to hide her amusement at this grown man’s pleasure at rooting through rubbish. ‘And what exactly are we looking for?’ She crossed her legs and dropped beside him, gingerly picking through the nearest weeds.
‘Whatever the sea has sent us.’
She sat with the idea for a moment, trying to see if she could leave that statement as it was. If she could accept it. Nope.
‘You’re sure you’re not looking for something in particular.’
‘I’m sure. I’ve found all sorts down here. You never know what will turn up.’ He looked up and his gaze met hers. When he saw that she still didn’t understand, he rocked back on his heels. ‘If it helps you to have a bit more of a plan, look out for driftwood. Something big, rubbed smooth by the sea.’
She frowned a little. His answer had taken her by surprise, and she didn’t like the feeling. ‘What do you want it for?’
‘To make something beautiful. Something for the house, or something to sell. I’ve found all sorts out here,’ he went on—he must have seen she wasn’t yet convinced. ‘Jewellery, pottery, beautiful rocks and shells. Just have a dig around.’
Sitting on the sand, she couldn’t do more than pick through the pile directly in front of her, so she clambered up onto her knees, getting used to the feel of the weeds slipping through her fingers. She snuck a glance at Leo from the corner of her eye, still trying to see where this exercise was leading. As if there was some part of him that was a complete mystery to her. He was wandering along the line of debris, kicking it with his toes at times. Unable to see anything but weeds and the odd carrier bag, she decided to catch him up.
‘Any luck?’ he asked as she reached him.
‘Not—’ She started to speak but then a glint of something on the sand caught her eye. She dropped to a squat on her heels like a toddler and carefully pulled the glass out from under the detritus. As she cleaned it off, an antique bottle emerged in her hand. She stared at it, taken aback by the appearance of this beautiful object. Leo came to stand behind her and peered at the bottle over her shoulder.
‘Very nice.’ He reached out to take it. ‘May I?’
She handed it over and he turned it in his hands, brushing off a little more sand and scrutinising the lettering.
‘It’s been in the water a long time, I think,’ she said, just making out the figures ‘1909’ on one side. She took it back from Leo and tested its weight in her hands. ‘No message, though.’ She peered into the neck, wondering if it had once carried a slip of paper.
Energised by her find, hitting gold her first time beachcombing, she started walking again, stopping often to pull aside some stone or vegetation, offering up shells and rocks for Leo’s admiration.
Before long, she had pockets full of pretty shells, and her bottle tucked safely under her arm. She could feel the waves and the sand working their magic on her and Leo, as an easy chemistry and camaraderie grew between them. ‘Do you find a lot of stuff out here?’
‘Enough to keep me in hot meals and building materials.’ She raised an eyebrow in question, too relaxed to be frustrated by his cryptic answer. But then she’d been so...abrasive, that first time they’d met, she couldn’t blame him for being reticent about telling her about his life.
‘You know, you never really explained what you do. I know I wasn’t helping, being snippy about a trust fund and everything. I realise I got it wrong, then.’
He halted suddenly, evidently taken by surprise. When he started walking, there was something a little stiffer about his stride. ‘Not entirely wrong.’
‘But you said—’
‘I said I’m not loaded. What I didn’t tell you is that it’s out of choice.’
Her brows drew together in confusion, and she glanced at Leo, encouraging him to continue.
He sighed before starting to speak again. ‘My family has plenty of money. Pots of it, in fact. Too much. And I do have a trust fund.’ Not something that would normally cause such distress, she thought. ‘But I haven’t spent a penny of it for years.’
‘Why not?’ It was none of her business, but she could tell this was something big, for Leo. Perhaps the tip of an emotional iceberg, something he didn’t often talk about. And she wanted to know him.
‘It’s hard to explain. I want you to understand. I want you to know why I find it hard for you to pull out that plan... I’m not making life hard for the sake of it. It’s all connected.’
Her heart ached at the note of vulnerability in his voice, the pain that he was clearly hiding. And it soared a little, too, at the fact that he was sharing this with her. Opening up to her. But Leo’s shoulders had fallen forward, and a haunted look had crept over his face. She reached for his hand, refusing to acknowledge what that contact might signify, but needing him to know that she was there to support him. ‘I want to understand, Leo. Tell me anything you want.’
* * *
