Pleasure, Pregnancy and a Proposition (14 page)

‘What has
love
got to do with anything?’ he said, his eyes so bleak she shivered. ‘What we’re talking about here is an unplanned pregnancy and two people with a strong sexual attraction to each other. I’m not looking for love, and neither are you.’

She rubbed her arms to stave off the cold, felt all her hopes and dreams crumble to dust. ‘Unfortunately that’s where you’re wrong. I am looking for love.’ More tears streamed down her cheeks, but this time she didn’t bother
to wipe them away. ‘It was all just a game to you, wasn’t it?’ she said, seeing it all so clearly. He’d used her feelings against her, her romantic heart, and she’d let him. The anger drained away to leave a great gaping hole of pity—for them both. ‘You always have to win, don’t you, Luke? By whatever means necessary.’

Luke struggled to hold down the unreasoning rush of fear at the sadness in her voice. ‘That’s not true,’ he said, his voice breaking. He cleared his throat, tried again. ‘I never pretended I wanted more. I never said that. I played fair with you. You’re the one trying to turn this into something it isn’t.’ The words sounded false even to him.

‘You’re right,’ she said, the resignation in her voice making his panic increase. ‘You never said you wanted more. I suppose you did play fair. But the problem is I stopped playing days ago, when I made the stupid mistake of falling in love with you.’

He recoiled from the words instinctively. She wasn’t the first woman to tell him she loved him. But something twisted deep inside him—and all the platitudes he’d used in the past to deal with unwanted declarations of love wouldn’t come. He should point out that love didn’t mean anything to him. That he didn’t need it. That he’d made damn sure he would never need it. But the denial got trapped behind the lump that had come from nowhere and got stuck in his throat.

‘You know what’s really ironic?’ she whispered. ‘You kept playing and you didn’t even know you’d already won.’

The quiet acceptance that was so unlike her made the something twist even harder inside him as he watched her walk away. She should have looked foolish, with the sheet
trailing behind her, but she held herself with the regal stature of Cleopatra on her barge, her shoulderblades so rigid with dignity they stood out starkly against the smooth line of her naked back.

‘I’ll take a cab to the station,’ she said without turning round. ‘It’s better if we don’t see each other again.’

Panic closed his throat as the bathroom door banged shut and he heard the lock click into place.

The sound reverberated in his mind and a desperate longing welled up inside him. He took two steps forward. He couldn’t let her go. He wanted her to stay. But the desperation brought with it a bitter flash of memory that stopped him in his tracks and whisked him back to the worst moment of his childhood.

He sat scared and silent in Berwick’s study, his sneakered feet dangling down, sweat staining his Spiderman T-shirt.
Please let him want me,
came the childish whisper in his mind, but then Berwick shouted, ‘Look at me, boy,’ and his head jerked up to see the frigid contempt in his father’s cold grey eyes.

Luke cut the memory off, determined not to let the crushing feeling of worthlessness engulf him all over again. Anger surged through him, obliterating the pain. How dare she do this to him? How dare she make him feel things he didn’t want to feel—need things he didn’t want to need?

He stormed across the room, thumped the door with a clenched fist. ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he shouted through the bathroom door. No reply. ‘I’ll give you time to get dressed and then you can come to my study so we can discuss this properly.’

He couldn’t confront her now. He might do something he’d regret. But she wasn’t going to get away with this. She was asking him for things he didn’t want to give her. None
of this was his fault. She was the one who had moved the goalposts, not him.

Which meant
she
was the one who would have to learn to deal with it.

Louisa collapsed against the bathroom door, felt the brutal thuds as Luke’s fist hit the other side and heard his shouted demands. She clasped her hands round her knees and realised she was back where she’d started three months ago, when she had first fallen in love with him. But this time she bit back the wrenching sobs as she heard his footsteps fade away.

She covered her belly with trembling hands, stroked.

‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered to her unborn child. ‘He might not love you, but I’ll make sure I love you enough for both of us.’

L
UKE
shoved the squash racquet into his locker and slammed the door shut.

‘Hey, buddy, don’t take it so hard,’ came Jack’s relaxed voice as he entered the locker room of the exclusive Mayfair sports club. ‘You can’t win ‘em all.’

Yeah, but he hadn’t won a match in two solid weeks.

‘You’re just off your game,’ Jack finished, sitting on the bench and untying his squash shoes.

Luke took a steadying breath, rubbed the knotted muscles at the top of his spine. He had to calm down. He was behaving like a two-year-old having a tantrum. Jack would think he’d gone mad. He flushed, recalling his surly behaviour on the court.

‘I’ve behaved like an ass today, Jack,’ he said, pasting a tight smile on his face. ‘I apologise.’

He pulled his sweat-sodden shirt over his head and stuffed it in his gym bag. A headache of epic proportions hammered away at his temples.

The truth was, it wasn’t just his form on the squash court that had deserted him in the last two weeks. He hadn’t been sleeping properly, he felt distracted all the time—and he hadn’t even been able to keep his mind on his business
affairs. He’d made a rookie’s mistake yesterday, and watched helpless as close to two hundred thousand pounds had been wiped off his share value in the space of five minutes.

Jack looked up, wrapping a towel round his hips. ‘No sweat,’ he said. ‘You want to grab some lunch once we’re done here?’

‘Sure,’ Luke said. Then felt pathetic as he watched Jack disappear into the shower room. He’d be terrible company, but the rest of the afternoon and evening stretched out before him like an endurance test. Since when had he found it so hard to tolerate his own company?

He sat on the bench, tugged off his shoes and threw them into his bag on top of the shirt.

He knew exactly when it had happened. When Louisa DiMarco had swept into his life like a hurricane, wreaked havoc, and then left him to pick up the pieces. The woman was a bona fide natural disaster area. He hoped she was pleased with herself.

He still couldn’t believe she’d run out on him. So much for her being in love with him, as she’d claimed. If she loved him she’d have come to his study as he’d asked. She wouldn’t have sneaked out of Havensmere that morning two weeks ago without even saying goodbye.

The fury that had gripped him ever since he’d discovered her gone made his hands clumsy as he peeled off the rest of his clothes and slung a towel round his hips.

The woman had so much to answer for it wasn’t even funny.

The minute Mrs Roberts had told him about her departure he’d raced down to the garage to follow her in the car. But he’d thought better of driving to the train station and dragging her back once he’d got in.

Why should he chase after her? She was the one who’d
got some stupid bee in her bonnet about love. She was the one who had to come to her senses. He’d done the decent, the responsible thing by offering to marry her and support their child. She’d as good as thrown his offer back in his face by running off like that.

But as the days had passed and she hadn’t even called the impotent rage had increased. She was a reckless, irresponsible fool. She needed him. Why couldn’t she see that?

How was she going to cope in that tiny flat? What was she going to do for money once the baby was born? He didn’t want his child growing up in squalor. The whole situation was completely intolerable. Why should he have to make a commitment he wasn’t comfortable with?

He stomped into the shower room, ducked into one of the cubicles and turned on the unit full blast. The frigid water hit him in the face.

He could hear Jack singing some old Motown tune in the cubicle next door. Jack always sang in the shower. It used to amuse Luke—how could a guy be as happy as Jack when he had so many burdens, so many people relying on him?

But as Luke felt the water warm up, and listened to Jack’s deep voice crooning something about sitting on the dock of a bay, he didn’t find his friend’s singing funny any more.

Jack had his plump, pretty wife Mel to go home to tonight. Jack had that tank-like toddler who would cling to his neck when he picked him up. And Jack had that little girl with the bright blue eyes who would run at him full pelt, wrap her arms round his legs and call him Daddy as soon as he walked through the door.

And what did Luke have?

He had his solitude. That was what he had. Luke had his independence and his pride and his self-control. But
somehow the sense of well-being, the satisfaction that had always accompanied that thought, wouldn’t come any more. Because Luke only had a lonely penthouse to go home to, and a palatial country estate that felt unbearably empty now without Louisa there.

Steam fogged up the cubicle as Luke shampooed his hair and slicked the sweat off his body with the complimentary toiletries. He let the water pummel his tired, aching muscles and felt the anger, the fury, the rage that had sustained him for the last two weeks wash down the drain with the shampoo foam.

He gave a weary sigh and turned off the shower control. Just as he had feared, the traitorous feelings lurking beneath—of regret, inadequacy and loneliness—hadn’t been washed away as well, but festered inside him. This was all Louisa’s fault too, he thought bitterly.

When he walked into the locker room Jack was combing his hair, already dressed.

His friend scowled. ‘You look like hell, man.’

Luke dumped his towel and pulled on a clean pair of boxers. ‘Cheers,’ he said wryly. You could always rely on Jack to tell it like it was.

He hadn’t felt this isolated and confused since he was seven years old and a policeman had turned up at his babysitter’s apartment to tell him he would never be able to see his mother again. Never feel her arms holding him tight, hear her whisper ‘You’re my best boy’ or smell the peppermint Lifesavers she’d loved to suck on her breath.

It figured he wouldn’t be looking his best.

‘You want to talk about it?’

Luke looked up from buttoning his shirt to see Jack watching him, a concerned frown wrinkling his brow.

‘I’m fine.’ The words came out on autopilot. He didn’t
have that kind of friendship with Jack. In fact he didn’t have that kind of friendship with anyone. Talking about his feelings made him feel weak—just like thinking about his mother did.

Another little shaft of pain and resentment pierced his heart. Louisa had made him talk about his feelings and then she’d run out on him—which just went to show how pointless the whole exercise was. And now he couldn’t stop thinking about her—or his mother.

Luke scooped his damp hair back from his brow and refused to give in to the urge to confide in Jack.

‘Your foul mood hasn’t got anything to do with Louisa’s scan today, has it?’

Luke’s head shot up. Jack was still looking at him, compassion shadowing his blue eyes. He didn’t know what Jack was talking about, so why had his insides turned to putty?

Jack patted him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t sweat it, buddy. Mel and I had a similar scare when she was pregnant with Cal. Happens all the time. It’ll almost certainly turn out to be nothing.’ Jack gave him a searching look. ‘Although I’m kind of surprised you didn’t want to be there with Louisa, seeing as you’re obviously as worried about this as she is.’

Luke debated for a few seconds playing along with Jack, pretending he knew what was going on. But the fingers of dread clawing up his throat made him realise he’d never be able to pull it off. ‘What scare?’ he said, barely able to get the words out.

‘You don’t know about it?’ Jack sounded astonished.

‘No, I don’t,’ he said, pushing back the niggling feeling of guilt. It wasn’t his fault Louisa had shut him out. ‘What the hell’s the scan for?’

‘Louisa had an antenatal appointment yesterday at her GP’s office. They couldn’t find a heartbeat.’

Every last molecule of blood drained out of Luke’s head and slammed straight into his heart, making the organ beat so hard he thought it might burst. ‘Something’s wrong with the baby?’ he rasped, panic constricting his airways.

‘Calm down, man. Let me explain.’ The reasonable tone of his friend’s voice and the reassuring weight of the hand on his shoulder did nothing to ease the rapid gunshots of Luke’s heartbeat. ‘Louisa’s GP said their foetal heart monitor’s been acting up for weeks. They referred Louisa to the hospital for a scan, just to confirm everything’s okay. The GP’s not worried, so you don’t need to be.’

Luke grabbed his shoes, scrambled to put them on. He fumbled with the laces, his fingers so numb they might have belonged to someone else. ‘Which hospital? What time’s the scan?’

‘UCH,’ Jack said. ‘And I think the appointment’s this afternoon. I’m not exactly sure when.’

‘Can you ring Mel? Does she know?’ Luke asked, ready to beg if he had to.

‘Probably,’ Jack replied. ‘I’ll see what I can find out.’ He pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket, keyed in a number.

It took Jack five agonising minutes to finesse Louisa’s appointment time out of his wife.

Luke finished getting dressed in a matter of seconds and began pacing the locker room while he waited, resentment and panic turning to a slow-burning anger. Something could be wrong with their child and she hadn’t told him. Why hadn’t she told him? He had a right to know.

And anyway, she needed him with her at a time like this. Yet she’d been too damn pig-headed to pick up the phone and ask him to come. She clearly didn’t have the sense of an amoeba when it came to taking care of herself or their child.

Once he had made sure everything was okay he was going to give her a good talking-to on that score. And then he was never going to let her or their child out of his sight again.