‘Love? Or infatuation?’
‘Call it what you want. I know what I feel.’ Michele looked defensive and rose to clatter around restlessly with the icemaker, dropping cubes into glasses, pouring iced tea from the fridge. ‘My contraception failed and I found myself pregnant like some clueless teenager. It plunged me into a nightmare of telling Alister we were over, and Natasha and Jordan we wouldn’t be living with their father any more. I hated myself for what I was doing to my children but there was no way back.’ Her laugh was like a sob. ‘Then I had to tell Bailey he was going to be a parent. But he wasn’t scared off, because he loves me.’
She brought over a glass of tea, mint and lemon floating on the top, and placed it before Leah like a peace offering. ‘Forgive me for not telling you the truth, Leah. I did need you on my side, here, supporting the family. Selfish and insane I may be but I know when I’ve got too much on my plate – and you have so little on yours. Your life’s just about you.’
‘That’s not fair!’ Leah jerked upright, stung by this offhand dismissal of her life choices.
But Michele was already onto the next point on her agenda, grabbing Leah’s hands across the table for emphasis. ‘I understand that Natasha and Jordan need their father … but Baby Three’s entitled to a father, too.’
Leah’s stomach felt lined with lead. She hadn’t been thinking through the Baby Three situation. But he or she was on the way, not just a little pudding mound under Michele’s dresses, not just a life-changing shock, but a tiny person-to-be. Inconvenient, unexpected, but as much Michele’s child as Jordan and Natasha. ‘Shit,’ she groaned. ‘What the hell are you going to do?’
Michele’s gaze grew beseeching. ‘I know you’re going to be even angrier with me – but I’m going away with Bailey. I need time to talk about the future and make the right decision for my kids. All three of them. And for me.’
‘No, Michele–!’
Michele steamrollered on. ‘It would be wrong to pretend my marriage can be saved. I’m done with pretending, with lying. I’m even going to admit to Bailey that I’m not thirty-nine.’
Leah felt pressure weighing heavily on her shoulders. ‘And while you go off and explore your options with your twinkie, I suppose you’re going to ask me to stay and help Alister look after your kids?’
‘Short term,’ Michele protested, a fresh tear forming beneath her eye. ‘Please. The children like and trust you. And it’s such a brief period out of your carefree life.’
Leah snatched back her hands. ‘Don’t make me sound like the irresponsible one!’
Michele hunched a defensive shoulder. ‘I just mean the way you’ve avoided having a partner or kids so you never have to put anybody else first. Even your job’s easy.’
Holding a deep breath for an instant before letting it hiss out slowly, Leah took stock. No matter how exasperated she was – for ‘exasperated’ read ‘wanting to shriek with rage’ – Michele’s family was in chaos and Leah couldn’t indulge in a hissy fit. ‘I’ll take issue with you about whether my job’s “easy” some other time,’ she managed, fairly calmly. ‘But it’s true that I’ve chosen the single life. You made different choices. You married Alister and you conceived Jordan and Natasha. You had an affair with Bailey and you conceived Baby Three. You don’t get to say now that it’s somebody else’s turn to live that life while you flirt with a new one.’
Michele’s gaze faltered. ‘But don’t say you won’t do it.’ The lonely tear suddenly had company, rolling down her face. ‘Please, Leah! I know I’ve messed up, and it impacts my family. I know I fell in love with the wrong man, gave way to my feelings and got pregnant but I’m buckling under the strain here. Please!’
Watching her sister begin to cry in earnest Leah tried and failed to resist being manipulated. Jordan. Natasha. Baby Three. All were her flesh and blood. The only aspect of this turmoil Leah could control was the support she could offer them. ‘Do you have any further bombshells to drop? Lies to confess? Omissions to correct?’
Michele’s head shook wildly. She wiped and blew, blew and wiped in an apparently inexhaustible flow of grief. Her skin waxed to the pallor that seemed a feature of this pregnancy and she clapped a piece of kitchen roll to her lips, shoving the remains of the iced tea aside.
‘OK,’ snapped Leah. ‘Just as long as you explain to your kids and husband before you go and you realise that this is only temporary.’ She tapped Michele’s hand to make certain of her attention. ‘On September the fourth I begin my new job. On September the ninth I’ve booked a track day with Scott. On the tenth I expect to be on my sofa watching the Italian Grand Prix in peace and silence. I chose those things and they’re my life. You need to be clear that I’ll be returning to it.’
Michele nodded wildly. ‘I understand. It won’t be for ever.’
‘It can’t be.’ Leah scraped back her chair. ‘Your life is yours.’
When Curtis knocked on the gîte’s kitchen door it was Leah who answered, wearing denim shorts and a thin strappy top. Her eyes were red.
He thought of the MILF remark he’d made to try to impress Jordan and felt a bit cringy. Leah was, like, nearly as old as his dad. ‘Hello,’ he began politely. ‘Got hay fever?’
She gave him a wobbly smile. ‘Just sore eyes.’
‘Oh. Only I’ve got some stuff for hay fever.’
Her smile warmed. ‘That’s sweet of you but I have everything I need, thanks. Have you come to see Jordan and Natasha?’
At the thought of Natasha he felt his blood hit his face in an embarrassed rush, which was an improvement on where it might otherwise have rushed to. Feeling stupid and about four years old – although he suspected that four-year-olds didn’t worry about what was happening in the boxers department when they thought about girls – he managed to mumble, ‘Only they said they were coming to ours to hang out. Dad said they could, if they didn’t mind the decorating mess. Then they didn’t turn up.’
Leah glanced behind her. ‘Um … come in and I’ll see what their dad says.’
She slipped from the kitchen to the hall, closing the door behind her, leaving Curtis hovering and uncertain whether to sit or stand or stay or go. This afternoon, when they’d been balancing on bridges and rope ladders, Alister had seemed fine with the idea of Jordan and Natasha hanging with Curtis but now he began to wonder what was up. The skin around Leah’s eyes had been all blotchy, which never happened with him with hay fever.
Before he could decide whether to wait, Leah reappeared. ‘Alister says would you mind if it was here, rather than at your place? The kids are in the games room.’ She was smiling but her eyes still looked funny.
‘Where the pool table is? Cool beans.’
‘Had you better text your dad and check it’s OK?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ He passed her in the doorway and set his long legs to the sweeping staircase. He liked these big stairs; it was cool the way you could look over the banisters and through the middle of the house.
At the very top, the second landing opened out into the games room. Jordan was there, chalking a pool cue and not looking at Curtis. ‘Stripes or spots?’
Curtis said, ‘Spots, fanks,’ confidently, although he’d only been introduced to the game of pool the day before and knew nothing would prevent the more practised Jordan from beating the crap out of him. Yesterday, even Natasha had whupped him.
Keeping his gaze averted, Jordan