Authors: Anne Styles
He suddenly remembered what Liz had said about 'her state'. Liz had obviously assumed he knew.
'You're pregnant!'
'Good God! Give the man a medal for observation!' Sarah said tartly. 'Yes, I'm pregnant, Nicholas.'
'Mine.'
'Of course it's yours! Do you think I'm like you? Off with someone else the minute your back is turned?' Shock and horror at her announcement fought in his head for prominence over her accusation of his infidelity.
'How pregnant?'
'Eight months and a few days,' she said, holding his gaze firmly.
He calculated rapidly. 'The wedding?' '
The wedding,' she confirmed. 'Don't worry, Nick, I can cope with everything. You don't need to get involved. I know how you feel about babies.'
'Sarah and I are getting married,' Charles interrupted. 'Tell him, Sarah!'
'The hell we are. I told you no, and I meant it!'
'Then there's no discussion!' Nick caught her arm. 'Come with me, Sarah, now - this minute.' 'Don't order me around!' There was true fury in the wide hazel eyes that met his. 'I'm not a child, Nick. You can't tell me what to do.' '
No, but you are carrying a child,' he retorted, his control reasserting itself as he tried to calm down and think logically. 'My child - and I have some rights.'
'You have none at all,' Charles snapped. 'Get out of here. Nick, we don't need you. Biological father you may be, but that child will be mine, not yours. I've looked after it - not you!' Nick stood his ground. This battle was one he was not going to lose.
'Sarah, do you want to marry Charles? Because if you do I'll walk away, never see you again. I mean it.'
'I told you I didn't!' She was adamant.
'Then pack a bag - get whatever you need - and come with me now. I mean it, Sarah.' He was taking an incredible chance, but at that moment it was all he could think to do.
For a moment she hesitated, her expressive eyes going from one man to the other, both taut with their respective inner battles. 'I ... I ... Nick . . . Are you sure?'
'Do you think I've come all this way for nothing?' he demanded. 'The hell I have! I came for you, Sarah, nothing else. Believe me!'
'Then I'll come!' Sarah paused as Charles tried to grab at her and she shook him off impatiently. 'But Nick it means both of us - the baby and me. You have to accept that.'
'I can't do much else at this stage of the proceedings! Sarah, hurry - please, darling.' She heard the urgency in his voice and she moved then. Despite her pregnancy, she ran - back into the house to her room, hurling her few possessions into her bag, then carefully adding the outfits she had bought for the baby on their one expedition to the nearby town.
In the fragrant, sunlit garden the air chilled rapidly as Charles rounded on Nick, his fury unleashed completely now that Sarah had gone indoors. 'You bastard!' he snarled. 'You couldn't bear it, could you? That Sarah might prefer me?'
'Prefer you?' Nick laughed sarcastically. 'Is that why she went to pack? Face facts, Charlie. She was never yours to begin with. She's mine - my girlfriend - my lover -whatever you like to call her,-and whatever game you're playing it's over! If I hadn't been ill I'd have been home much sooner - and, frankly, if I'd known she was pregnant I'd never have gone to Brazil in the first place.'
'Oh, you would,' Charles retorted. 'You've always put work first - all your life. Tasha gave up on you because of that. You're an out-and-out selfish bastard! You don't deserve a gorgeous girl like Sarah any more than you did Tasha. You managed to ruin her life - and mine.'
'I had nothing to do with that accident and you know it! I've told you often enough,' Nick said angrily. 'That part was all in your imagination. Tasha was hysterical that night over your treatment of her, but I thought I'd calmed her down. I told her not to come out. Obviously I was wrong.'
'It was you she wanted all along,' Charles said bitterly. 'Whatever I did for her it was never enough. When she got drunk, which was often, all she ever talked about was you! My marriage was hell, Nick, and it was down to you!'
'Don't give me such garbage!' Nick snapped. 'Your marriage was difficult because you were so obsessed with controlling everything Tasha did or said, and you were going to try and do the same thing with Sarah, weren't you? You don't want a wife, Charles, you want a puppet to manipulate.'
'All I wanted for Sarah was to keep her away from you!' Charles replied. 'To make.you suffer like I did. Tasha was pregnant when she died - trying to get to you. I didn't just lose my wife, I lost my child too - and now I'm going to take yours!'
'Oh, my God! You never told anyone?' Nick stared at him.
'That was my grief, not yours. You of course, already had the perfect wife and an adorable baby to complete the picture of domestic bliss. Why should you have been worried about mine wanting you back?'
'Only after a row with you!'
I hate you, Nicholas. I've hated you ever since the night she died, and I've waited all these years to get even with you! Sat back and waited for you to want something so badly that you were going crazy with wanting, and then I planned to take it from you! I really thought it would be the company, but when Sarah came along it was even better - especially when I found out you'd left her pregnant. Typical of you, I suppose! So touching those letters of yours were! Literary to the end! I really enjoyed burning those.'
'You burnt my letters to Sarah?' Nick roared at him. It was all he could do not to throttle him as he smiled smugly.
'And hers to you! Of course I did! She thought you'd deserted her. That's what I wanted her to think, and to make you suffer.'
'You hate me that much? I don't believe what I'm hearing!' Bewildered, Nick clutched at the table for support. 'All this time I thought we were friends, and you've hated me?'
'That's about the size of it! Oh, maybe sometimes the old childhood memories came back, but then I remembered Tasha and I hated you again. Since then, hating you has dominated my life. I've spent years trying to be like you, trying to be equal, and it never worked. Now, finally, I have something you want!'
'And I'm taking her back! Have no doubt about that, Charles.' Nick's voice had a dangerous edge to it. 'From now on leave Sarah alone. I never want to see you again, ever! I still can't believe you feel this way about our friendship, but I will never trust you again.'
'Don't think your threats can frighten me, Nick,' Charles said. 'I'll kill her rather than let you have her.'
'Keep away from her! I warn you, Charles, I warn you now. I won't tolerate you anywhere near her from now on. You so much as breathe a threat to Sarah and you will be the one in fear for your life. Remember that!' He walked away before Charles could retaliate, striding into the hall as Sarah came down the tiny stairway.
Quickly he reached for her bag and thrust her haversack at her. 'Let's go!' he said, more harshly than he had intended, shaken to the core by Charles's revelations and the fear that he would try and harm Sarah there and then.
'Nick . . . I . . .' Sarah hesitated momentarily.
'I want to get you out of here now, Sarah,' he reiterated, grabbing at her arm.
'I told you - stop ordering me around!' Sarah pulled herself away from him. She still had some pride.
'We'll argue about it later. You can shout all you want in the car,' he told her. 'Now, get in!' Bewildered, she obeyed him, numb until he reached over for the seat belt, then she shook her head. 'It's uncomfortable,' she complained.
'Put it on!' He brooked no argument and did it for her.
For twenty minutes or so he drove without speaking, concentrating on getting his emotions under control before he could trust himself to speak, and in getting a fair distance between them and Charles before he felt safe. Finally judging that they were a far enough distance from the villa, he noticed a small bar/restaurant. On slowing down, he liked what he saw and pulled into the car park behind it.
'OK.' He turned to Sarah, still huddled in her seat. 'We need to talk, you and I.' Leaning across, he caught her face in his hands and kissed her, hard. 'I ought to strangle you for deceiving me like this, but instead I'm going to find out why! Come on.' He led her to a vine-covered patio at the back of the inn, politely pulling out a chair for her before throwing himself into the opposite one. Briefly he acknowledged the young waiter who had followed them out and ordered a carafe of white wine, and then mineral water when Sarah grimaced.
'Hungry?' Sarah, not really caring, shrugged, but he turned back to the waiter. 'Omelettes - fines herbes,' he decided. 'And salad, please,' he added. 'OK! Now we talk. Give, Sarah – everything.'
'Such as?' Sarah feigned nonchalance. 'Why you deserted me for another woman the moment I went back to England?'
'What woman?' he demanded. 'I did no such thing! There has been no other woman in my life since I met you - you know that!'
'So why were you photographed carrying Madeleine along the beach? Why did the papers say that you and she were lovers? That she left her husband for you?'
'Madeleine? That's rubbish, Sarah, as you should know it is. Madeleine took over as my assistant since Jane didn't want to come out to Brazil. She left her husband for her own reasons, and it was nothing to do with me, I assure you. The only surprise was that it took her so long to realize what a boring old sod he was!'
'But the photographs,' Sarah protested. "They were very - intimate. Neither of you had much on!'
'On the beach, you say?' Nick frowned. 'The only time I carried Maddy on the beach was at a unit party in Rio. We were having a race, if I remember rightly. There were probably eight or ten of us competing.'
'A race?' 'A race,' he confirmed, beginning to laugh with relief. 'Just a bit of fun, darling. That's all - I promise. Madeleine contacted me a day or so after you went home and I offered her a job since I couldn't persuade Jane to come out with me. Madeleine comes from LA, so of course she came home when her marriage broke up. Since she'd worked for me in London, it was natural that she should get in touch. And Jane knew I would prefer someone I knew rather than a stranger. She was my PA, and nothing else - except that she probably saved my life when I got sick.' He gave her the briefest outline of his illness, and Sarah listened in horrified silence, realizing how close she had come to losing him altogether.
'Charles,' she said at last. 'He told me it was all true, about Madeleine.'
'Charles, I'm afraid, has deceived us both very badly for his own ends. I never realized just how much he wanted revenge for Natasha's death. He only told me today that she was pregnant when she died, though I'm not sure Tash knew herself. I think she'd have told me if she'd known.'
'But it was an accident, wasn't it?' Suddenly she was hesitant.
'Yes, it was. But Charles has always thought that she was on her way to see me. She rang me in a dreadful state that morning and I told her that no, I didn't want to get involved in any quarrel between her and Charles. By that time I was married to Diana, and Charlotte was a baby. It broke my heart to refuse her, because I still loved her, but - well, my loyalties were to Diana. They had to be. I'd made my choice, wrong though it was.'
'And all this time Charles has waited for revenge? But I thought you were such good friends!'
'I did too, Sarah, and I'm still sure that a lot of the time we were.' He sank back into his chair in defeat. 'I've known Charlie all my life, I just can't believe he could hate me so much!'
'I think I can,' Sarah said quietly. Things were beginning to click into place. 'I think it was only when I came along that things really changed between you. You were like brothers, almost. After all, you knew he was in love with me long before I did. Perhaps it triggered his memory about Natasha when you and I became involved?'
'It's certainly possible, and easier to believe,' he agreed. 'I always knew he could be obsessive about things, but I really thought he had accepted us. How wrong I was.'
'Maybe, but then remember. Nick, Charles resents the way so many things came easily to you - sports prizes at school, for instance. You even got the school captaincy that he coveted. I certainly know that from conversations with him recently in the last week or two. He can be quite frightening at times. Natasha was the only thing he won that you wanted, and in the end even she wanted you back. That's what he can't forgive.'
'Poor Charlie,' Nick sighed. 'I never meant it to be like that. I even tried to help him when his Lloyds syndicate got into financial problems.'
'Even that gesture probably rubbed salt into the wound!' Sarah picked an olive from her salad and chewed at it thoughtfully. 'Hastings is an expensive house, and he sinks every penny into it. Without that to drain him he d be a very wealthy man.'
'And probably a great deal happier. But you're right, darling, the estate is at the bottom of it - his sudden obsessive need for a wife, for an heir just for Hastings.
Sarah shuddered. 'And I was coming very close to giving in to him. I was feeling very vulnerable, and he was very persuasive. Nick.'
'I bet he was! Do you love him, Sarah? Because if you do . . .'
'No ... no, I don't! And certainly not now - not after what he tried to do to us.'