Part Time Marriage (18 page)

Just hearing his voice made her feel all weak, and she found that, when she'd vowed no word of apology was going to pass her lips, she was saying, 'I'm sorry. I must have misunderstood. I thought I was to phone you to tell you what I'd arranged. But I believe you've already done the arranging.'

`You're annoyed with me?'

Oh, Noah, don't do this to me! `Who could be annoyed with you?' she answered lightly. `So I'm allowed to call for you at six-thirty this evening?'

`I shall be ready and waiting,' she promised, and loved him, loved him, loved him, and if this dinner tonight was a prelude to divorce, she didn't care-she simply ached to see him again. She spent the rest of the day wondering what to wear.

`You look terrific!' Noah smiled when she opened the door to him-and he bent and placed a kiss on her cheek.

For a man about to propose divorce, the kiss to her cheek was unexpected. Her heart danced a little jig all of its own as, dressed in a cream funnel-necked fine wool suit, her long legs shown to advantage in an above-the-knee skirt, Elexa went with him out to his car. When it came to terrific, he wasn't too bad himself.

`Busy week?' he enquired once they were on their way.

`Happily so,' she replied, glad to be busyif only to escape the torture of her thoughts. `No need to ask if you've been busy.' `I suspect we both thrive on having busy lives. Have you heard about your interview yet?' .

`The closing date for all applications is a week next Friday, so I won't hear before then.'

`You'll get it,' he assured her.

She loved him! `Don't tempt fate!' she implored.

He laughed. `I've every faith,' he said, and chatted easily most of the way to the Royal Oak Hotel.

They arrived at around the same time as her parents, and the evening went along splendidly. So much so that, for a short while, Elexa even forgot her certainty that Noah would be mentioning the word `divorce' before too long.

Then she remembered, and felt a little panicky that he might say something about getting divorced in front of her parents. Noah asked, `Are you all right, Elexa?' Oh, my word. She quickly found a smile. `Of course,' she answered, not for a second prepared to let him into the bleakness of her thoughts, or her panic either, but not missing that her mother was all smiles that her son-inlaw seemed to be most concerned for her daughter's welfare.

All the way on the drive home Elexa waited for Noah to tell her-duty done, fairness dealt with, the score once more even-that now was the time to talk divorce. But he did not, and she was sure-having had her nose bitten off once and being accused of trying to back out of their agreement for daring to mention itthat she wasn't going to be the first to bring it up.

`I've enjoyed this evening,' Noah commented formally when he saw her to her door. `So have I,' she answered, as any nicely brought-up girl would.

`Goodnight,' he bade her, and, bending, he kissed her, and was too quickly gone. She went indoors-not quite certain how she felt about the evening. She had loved seeing him, but somehow everything seemed unsatisfactory.

The plain truth, she mused as she lay waiting for sleep to come, was that she didn't want any dutiful light kisses in parting from her husband. She wanted to be held by him, and to be loved by him. Not particularly sexually, she just wanted him to love her-but she might just as well cry for the moon. Life went on, she found, when a week followed of her being extremely busy. She managed to find time to lunch with Lois on Monday-Lois still being heavily involved with Hugh-but Elexa worked through her lunchtime for the rest of the week, and worked late most evenings.

She had just arrived home on Friday when the man who occupied her every free space for thought rang. `I was rather hoping I might be able to see you tomorrow,' Noah began, and Elexa felt sick inside-there was only one thing he wanted to see her about.

`Oh, yes?' she replied pleasantly, just as if she hadn't a clue that it was divorce time.

`But there's a weekend conference I can't get out of.'

Divorce, obviously, could be put on hold. `Well, you know how much you enjoy your work.' She hung on to her pleasant tone.

`Where were you Tuesday?' `Tuesday?' she enquired, startled at the bluntness of his question.

`I rang-you weren't in.'

`Oh,' she murmured, feeling all over the place, not knowing if she was glad or sorry she hadn't been in-love was truly making a nonsense of her. `I was working.'

`Until ten at night?' he questioned sharply.

Gethim ! She might be married to him, might love him with everything she had, but she still had charge of her own life-or thought she had. `A girl has to eat."

'I could have met you when you finished taken you for a bite.'

It saddened her that he was so keen to end this marriage he'd have met her when she finished work to discuss it. `I went and had some dinner with a friend.' `Not Lois?'

Part of her thought he was fishing to know whom she had dined with, but the sensible part of her knew that Noah, being a private kind of person, he didn't want her friend Lois knowing that while he was still in the country his wife wasn't rushing home to him.

`I went with Gary, one of the team,' she answered.

'I'll give you a ring when I get back,' he said crisply. `Goodnight.'

'G...' she began, but he had already put down his phone. Swine!she fumed, and loved him so much it was almost like a physical pain. The next time he contacted her would be to arrange to see her so he could tell her that he wanted their marriage ended.Sad, but true.

Elexa heard not a word from him in the week that followed, and the waiting started to get her down. She felt physically sick sometimes, just thinking about it. So that by the time Friday came round again she didn't think she could take much more of the waiting. In a weak moment she tried to cheer herself up by considering that perhaps she had got it all wrong. Perhaps for some reason-some reason with a simple explanation that Noah would tell her about if she asked-he hadn't been able to contact her during her last fertile time. Perhaps next week, when her fertile time came round again, Noah would ring to...

When the next week her telephone was deafening by its silence, Elexa knew that she had not got it wrong. Noah did not want a son with her. That much was now blatantly obvious ... underlined, and chiselled in stone.

A dry sob escaped Elexa as she faced that she could say goodbye to any last remaining doubt that Noah was regretting their marriage. He must be regretting it wholeheartedly.

Had he not been, this would have been the week when they should have tried again.

Knowing that she was still fairly new to this sort of calculation, on Sunday Elexa idly checked her workings out. She was as numerate as Noah had suggested that she had to be in her job, so she knew she had no need to check again her cycle of what should happen and when-she was just filling in this gaping void. She picked up her pen and began ticking off ... and abruptly stopped dead, nearly fainting with shock!

Everything in her went haywire as she made herself go back to the very beginning and start to recalculate afresh. Then she just sat utterly stunned. Because in her recalculation of the various dates of what should happen, and the dawning realisation of what had not happened, Elexa suddenly knew that there was no need any longer for her to work out when it was best for her to conceive because-she already had!

She was pregnant! She couldn't possibly be! That Saturday at Noah's parents' home... But-she couldn't be! It wasn't possible! She must have the dates all wrong.

Deny it though she might, and try to believe she had to have it all wrong, there was no doubting the test she did as soon as she was able to purchase a pregnancy testing kit the next morning. The test proved it-she was having Noah's baby!

Gradually over the rest of the day Elexa started to get her head back together. Instinctively she wanted to tell Noah at once. But that was when she recalled that Noah had gone off the whole idea of being a fatherotherwise he would have been in touch. She had to accept that, while he had never wanted a wife in the accepted sense, he no longer wanted to be a father either. By Friday Elexa knew conclusively that Noah had gone off the idea of having a son. He was a business man who by and large must live by his diary. He must have known- since he had no idea she had made a mistake in her calculations-that last Wednesday should have been the best time.

She slipped out of work early on Friday afternoon, feeling extremely well but also feeling so completely ignorant about what she should or should not be doing to safeguard herbaby, that she went to see her doctor.

Elexa returned to her office feeling highly emotional that her doctor had confirmed she was having Noah's child. She had realised through holding Joanna's baby that she did have a little maternal feeling, but Elexa discovered that she so wanted this baby that, when Clive Warren came into her office and told her the glad news that she had an interview next Thursday for the junior manager's job, she was hard put to be as enthusiastic as she would normally have been.

`Great 1' she beamed, but the inner glow she felt had nothing whatever to do with that chance of promotion which she had worked so hard towards.

She awoke the next morning feeling glad that it was Saturday and that she didn't have to go into work. Because, in contrast to how extremely well she had felt yesterday, that morning she had barely put her feet to the floor than she was diving for the bathroom. Her bout of morning sickness lasted until about lunchtime. By four that afternoon she was feeling her old self again. Then her phone rang. She thought it wouldn't be Noah-but it was.

`Sorry I haven't been in touch,' he apologised.

`You've been busy, I expect?"

'You could say that. Working in overdrive,' he answered, adding, somewhat obscurely, `All means to an end,' and, before she could decipher that, `Any chance of you having dinner with me tonight?'

Her heart began to pound. She could tell him about the baby-her heart slowed-he could tell her about their divorce. `You're lucky,' she said lightly. `My engagement book shows a clean page for tonight.'

She thought there was a smile in his voice. 'I'll call for you,' he said, and rang off. She went down to meet him that night, and he was as she remembered him- wonderful. What he was thinking she had no idea, but she had a notion there had been an admiring look in his eyes the moment before he'd kissed her cheek in greeting. Then, taking her arm, he guided her over to his Jaguar.

Her spirits lifted-was that the look, the action, of a man who wanted to end their agreement, a man who wanted to divorce? She had been torn all ways ever since his phone call. Everything in her urged her to tell him about the baby-he had every right to know. But would he want to know?

The restaurant Noah took her towas small, expensive-looking and intimate. `Gin and tonic?' he queried while they sat studying menus. `Or would you prefer wine?"

'G ... orange juice, please,' she remembered in time-she fancied a gin and tonic too.

Noah's glance showed interest, but he allowed her to make her own decisions without questioning her, and ordered the orange juice-with no idea that it would be better for his baby than the gin Elexa would have preferred.

`Hungry?' he enquired. Having been unable to fancy much in the way of food that day, Elexa suddenly realised that she was starving. `Ravenous,' she confessed, and decided there and then that she would tell Noah that evening about the baby. He would have to know anyway. It was his right.

She started her meal with a pear in tarragon sauce, and was just tucking into her second course of a succulent piece of salmon with delicious vegetables when she was aware of Noah looking at her.

`Am I pigging it?' she asked, suddenly selfconscious.

He smiled. `It's a joy to see you eat,' he answered blandly. `So many women merely pick.'

She almost confessed then that she was `eating for two', but she was side- tracked by the niggling thought of him eating with `many women'. `You've been overseas again?' she asked instead.

Noah looked solemnly at her. `I was in Australia the week before last, and I've been out of the country for a few days this week,' he agreed, then paused, and deliberately stated, `But I was in London all of last week.' `I-see,' she said slowly, and promptly lost her appetite. If Noah had not been in England last week then he had every excuse for not contacting her last Wednesday. But, had he wanted to let her know just how very much he did not want a baby with her, then he could not have put it more plainly had he told her outright.

She looked him straight in the eyes then.

They had always before only ever been honest with each other.`You've gone off the idea of having a son, haven't you?' she asked.

Noah gazed steadily back. `Let's say that, recently, I've begun to think it wasn't the best idea I ever had.'

Recently?As in, after that weekend down at his parents' place? She was hurting, but she smiled. `If I remember rightly, I approached you out of the blue.' Pain cut deep. `By the way-' she abruptly changed the subject ` isn't it next week that you're making that speech to some conference in Vienna?"

'Next Thursday,' he agreed. 'Elexa,I ' `What time?' she asked.

`My speech?'She nodded. `Some time around four, I believe.'

`I shall think of you,' she said lightly. `At precisely four o'clock next Thursday,' she babbled on, `I shall be being interviewed for that promotion I-'

`The promotion to junior manager?You'll get it,' he said, sounding as certain of that as he had before.

`Not that it's as important as what you'll be doing,' she reminded him modestly.

`Don't say that. I know how important this promotion is to you.'

`Well, you're right there,' she agreed, trying not to feel stunned at the thought that suddenly arrived from nowhere: that her baby was perhaps more important. `Come fire, flood or high water, I shall be there for that interview.' `On your hands and knees if you have to?'Noah teased, and she loved him.

`It's as important as that to me,' she confirmed with a smile. `Nothing short of a major disaster would keep me from attending.' And, having coped with her hurt that, without any questionn of a doubt now, Noah was not interested in being made a parent, `But I imagine you feel pretty much the same about what you have to do next Thursday?'