* *
Kat prepared bread rolls, cheese, cold meats and potato salad while Marco placed thick tape across all the windows. After they ate, they sat on the sofa and had coffee, the muted TV spurting out nonstop cyclone updates.
It was a familiar scenario—the coffee, the silent television, their seating positions: she at one corner, sprawled across two spots and hugging a pillow, he in the opposite corner with ankles and arms crossed. Yet the unspoken tension in the air was smoke-thick and just as hard to ignore.
This time it was Kat who broke the silence. “You know, Grace was arranging a surprise dinner for your return.”
His eyebrow went up. “Was she?”
“Yeah.”
“Right.” The slight grimace in his expression spoke volumes.
“What’s that look for?”
“What look?”
“Don’t give me that. You know the one.”
He sighed. “I don’t know why she keeps bothering. We broke up months ago.”
“I see,” Kat said slowly, pressing her lips together. Marco would never lie to her—so was it all wishful thinking on Grace’s part? She frowned. Yeah, Grace liked to talk up all her relationships—that TV exec three months ago, the Russian writer, the ex-soapie star.
Then Marco abruptly turned on the couch, giving her his full attention, and she forgot all about Grace’s love life.
“Kat, this is me here. We talk about pretty much everything—”
“Not everything.”
He gave her a look. “Just stop avoiding the issue and talk to me now. Let’s think this baby situation over logically.”
She shook her head. “Were you not listening about the tests?”
“I didn’t ask that. I asked if you wanted to have this baby.”
“I am not turning this discussion into a pro-choice debate.”
He scowled. “I’m not trying to. All I’m asking is for you to consider all your options.”
Her insides ached. “That’s all I’ve been doing since I found out. Marco, please don’t do this. I can’t get attached, knowing there’s a possibility it will be carrying a fatal disease. Plus, I know women are supposed to have these ticking body clocks, supposed to be filled with a great burning need to be mothers, but I am telling you, I’m not one of them.”
And yet...there’d been a few moments where she’d allowed her imagination to drift, where her thoughts had been occupied by something other than work, her swish Cairns apartment and all those solitary nights stretching before her. She’d imagined an unfamiliar future consisting of a house, a garden, a husband and babies. A scary, scary thought that had her breath catching and her heart racing every time she let her mind wander there.
No.
She sighed. “I...I don’t know what to say. I really don’t.”
“Well, that’s a start. At least it means you’re not wedded to the idea of an abortion.”
“I’m not making any decision until the tests come back. I’m not going to...” She swallowed and glanced away. “Not going to get attached to the idea if they come back positive. And anyway, what on earth am I going to do with a baby? This is me we’re talking about here.”
His scowl deepened. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re a great person. You’re funny and gorgeous and smart, and you have people in your life who love you.”
She flushed under the unexpected praise. “But a mother?”
“Other women begin with a whole lot less.”
“But it’s a full-time job. A lifelong commitment.” She worried the edge of the pillow, picking at the stitching. “You can’t get a do-over with these things. What if I stuff it up?”
“Nobody’s perfect at parenting—just look at Connor’s family. I guarantee you’d do a lot better than them.”
Kat nodded. It was impossible to avoid the Blairs, especially when her father and Connor’s were business partners at Jackson & Blair. Unlike her relationship with Marco’s parents, she’d never warmed to Stephen Blair, a ruthlessly ambitious man with a penchant for blondes, and his wife, Corinne, a cold gym-junkie socialite with a Botox habit. Connor’s childhood was a perfect study in fractured family dynamics. A therapist’s dream...more so than her own.
“My dad isn’t much better,” she said now. “He’d rather hold a grudge about old headlines than dole out any praise.”
“At least they were happy, well, until...” He trailed off diplomatically.
Until her mother’s diagnosis. Kat silently filled in the sentence. They had been strict but fair, even when she’d stretched the limits with the usual teenage smoking, drinking and sneaking out to parties. Certainly not overly demonstrative in their affections. But after her mother’s diagnosis, her father had turned into an angry, bitter man, always judgmental, always unhappy. And Kat could never do anything right, from her decision to drop out of Brisbane University to her crazy, wild nights on the town that were her one respite from thinking about her mother’s disease.
Until one particular night when she’d stumbled home at sunrise in a highly drunken state and her father had been waiting for her, scorn pouring from every tense muscle.
“You’ve had everything we could give you, and look at you! Your mother is dying, so you throw in a perfectly good education to get drunk every weekend!”
“Maybe that’s the point!” she’d stormed back. “It’s in my head every single waking moment. I need some time to clear it out, to just forget, otherwise I’ll go crazy!”
His fists had clenched, and for one awful moment she’d wondered whether he’d give in to the temptation and actually hit her. Instead he’d cut her with words, his particular specialty.
A month later her mother had died and Kat had run away to France, where Marco was the current darling of French football. Where she’d slowly come to realize there was more to her tiny little world than short skirts, wild parties and free drinks.
Kat swallowed, pushing the memory aside. God, no wonder the press had loved to hate her. She’d been such a spoiled little rich girl.
“But you’ve grown since then,” Marco said now. “And he’s still stuck in the past, rehashing old arguments. We don’t have to be our parents. Not with our child.”
Our child. Those two words were like a blow to the chest, leaving a shallow breath rattling in her throat.
“Look, Marco, let’s be honest. You’ve worked incredibly hard to get where you are. You’ve got a great career and an amazing, wonderful life. No commitment, no ties—”
“Kat...”
“No, let me finish. You can jump on a plane at a moment’s notice and be on the other side of the world. You have your pick of women—and there are a lot of women.”
“Kat—”
She ignored the warning growl in his voice and kept going. “I’m not going to force you to change, and a baby does that, in ways you can’t even imagine. The media frenzy will affect both our lives and careers.”
“If you choose to keep the baby, then I’ll do the right thing.”
She blinked. “The right thing? What, are we living in the 1950s now? You don’t have to marry me because I’m pregnant.”
He paused, a second too long. “Who said anything about marriage? I’m talking about being here for you. As your friend.”
She frowned, the unexpected