for months. One minute there was nothing. The next it was wildfire. Unstoppable…
Somehow they made it to the lift and he groped back for the key that closed the doors, sending it silently upward as they tore at the fastenings on each other’s clothes, desperate for skin against skin. Just desperate.
A ping announced the arrival of an email from his office. Tom McFarlane bypassed the trip to Mustique, driven by a woman’s tears to take the first long haul flight out with a vacant seat, and he’d hit the ground running the moment he’d touched down in the Far East. Work. Work had always been the answer.
He opened it. Read the note from his secretary and swore. Then he picked up the picture postcard of Sydney Opera House lying beside the laptop. Read the brief message—‘Wish you were here’—not a question but a statement, before tearing it in two.
‘I’ll be fine…’
Famous last words, Sylvie thought as she regarded the pregnancy test. But then, when she’d said them, she hadn’t been talking about the fact that she’d just had unprotected sex with a man with whom, despite the fact that he’d taken up residence in her brain, she’d never made it to first name terms.
She’d hoped, expected, that he’d call from Mustique, if only to make sure that there had been no consequences to their moment of madness. Maybe, even better, just to say hello. Best of all to say, I’d like to do that again…
Apparently he wouldn’t. No doubt he thought that she’d have dealt with the possibility of any unforeseen consequences without a second thought. It was true; she had momentarily thought about emergency contraception while she’d been walking past a pharmacy the day after Tom McFarlane had made love to her. Then, just like some teenage kid buying his first packet of condoms, she’d come out with a new toothbrush.
Not because she was embarrassed, but because she had given it a second thought.
She was nearly thirty and a baby would not be bad news. She smiled as she lay her hand over her still perfectly flat abdomen. Far from it. It was wonderful news. Totally right. For her, anyway.
Quite what her baby’s father would make of it was another matter altogether. She’d given up hoping for any kind of a call from him when she’d received a freshly drawn cheque in the post, clipped to a compliment slip with ‘settlement in full’ typed on it, followed by someone’s indecipherable initials. Not his. Well, no, he was taking time out in the fabulous villa that Candy had chosen for their honeymoon.
He’d reinstated the twenty per cent she’d deducted and couldn’t have made his point more succinctly. He’d known exactly what he was doing. Had regained control…
She returned the twenty per cent with a brief note, reminding him that she had deducted it from her bill. Stupid, no doubt, but pride had its price and it had been essential to make the point that she did not.
A secretary replied to thank her for pointing out the error, assuring her that Mr McFarlane had been informed.
She wasn’t going to risk that this time. Or a formal letter from a lawyer demanding a paternity test. He had a right to know he was about to become a father, but she was going to make it plain that this was something he’d have to deal with himself and steeled herself to call his office.
She doubted that holidays came easily to him and fully expected that he would have returned early, but was informed that he was still away and did she want to leave a message?
She declined. A letter would be easier. That way she could keep it cool. She pulled a sheet of her personal notepaper from the rack, uncapped her pen.
An hour later she was still sitting there.
How did you tell a man you scarcely knew that he was about to become a father? Especially since Candy had shared her joy that ruining her figure to provide him with an heir had not been part of the deal.
How could she tell a man who apparently had no desire for children of his own that this was the most magical thing that had ever happened to her? Share just how amazing she felt, how happy she was? How life suddenly had real meaning?
She knew he’d hate that and, since she didn’t want him angry, she’d keep it businesslike. Strictly to the point. Give him room to look past a moment of sizzling passion and see what they’d created together so that he could, maybe, find it in his heart to reach out to his child without any burden of liability to get in the way.
Finally, she began.
Dear Tom,
No. That wouldn’t do. She blotted out the memory of crying his name out as he’d brought her body humming to life and scratched out Tom and, clinging instead to the memory of that twenty per cent, she wrote:
Dear Mr McFarlane—that was businesslike.
I’m writing to let you know that as a result of our recent…
She stopped again.
What? How could she put into words what had happened. His unexpected tenderness. The soaring joy that had brought the tears pouring down her face…
He hadn’t understood the tears, how could he? She just kept saying, ‘I’m all right…’ Blissfully, brilliantly, wonderfully more than ‘all right’. And she would have told him, but then Josie had rung in a panic because Delores was out of her head on an illegal substance half an hour before everyone was due to arrive and the baker had turned up with the cake and there had been no time. And all she’d said was, ‘I have to go.’
She’d expected him to ring her. Kept hoping he would. But when she’d rung his office using the excuse of reminding him about the cheque—they’d somehow forgotten all about that—she’d been told he was away. He had, apparently, taken her at her word and caught his plane…
Come on, Sylvie. Get a grip. Keep it simple.
…as a result of our recent encounter, I am expecting a baby in July.
Businesslike. To the point. Cool. Except there was nothing cold about having a baby. When she’d seen the result of the pregnancy test there had been a rush of an emotion so powerful that she could hardly breathe…
Please believe me when I say that I do not hold you in any way responsible. It was my decision alone to go ahead with the pregnancy and I’m perfectly capable of supporting both myself and my son or daughter. My purpose in writing is not to make any demands on you, but obviously you have a right to know that you are about to become a father. Should you wish to be a part of his or her life, I would welcome your involvement without any expectation of commitment to me.
She crossed out without any expectation of commitment to me. You could be too businesslike. Too cool…
You have my assurance that I won’t contact you again, or ever raise the subject in the unlikely event that our paths should cross. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume that you have no wish to be involved.
Yours
Sylvie Smith
What else could she say? That she would never forget him? That he had broken down the protective wall that had been in place ever since Jeremy had decided that he wasn’t up for the ‘worse’ or the unexpectedly ‘poorer’—at least not with her—leaving her with everything in place for a wedding except the groom.
That she would always be grateful to him for that. And for the precious gift of a baby.
A new family. The chance to begin again…
No. That would be laying an emotional burden on him. Any involvement must not be out of guilt, but because he wanted to be a father. If he didn’t, well, at least that way, her child would be spared the bitter disillusionment she’d suffered at the hands of her own father.
Something dropped on to the paper, puddling the ink. Stupid. There was no reason for tears, absolutely none, and she palmed them away, took out a fresh sheet of paper and wrote out her letter minus the crossings out. Then she drove across to the