embrace fatherhood rather than run away from it, James had resolved to give being a parent one hundred and ten per cent effort.
His own father’s pathetic example had shown him what not to do. James didn’t want any son—or daughter—of his to feel what he’d felt when he’d been growing up. No way!
‘Could you hold breakfast for a while this morning, Roberta? I’m going to pop down to the pool house for a few minutes.’
Roberta shook her head sadly. ‘Mrs Logan spent the night painting again, did she?’
James hesitated. Since his ego-bruising break-up with Jackie, James had become a bit paranoid about keeping his private life…private. But it was difficult to keep secrets around Roberta. She was a canny woman—though, thankfully, a kind one.
‘Afraid so,’ he admitted.
‘Poor love. I’ve tried talking to her, you know. Told her that lots of miscarriages are nature’s way when something isn’t quite right.’
‘And?’
Roberta shrugged. ‘She said she already knew that.’
James nodded. Yes. The doctor would have explained that to her, since he’d told him the same thing, reassuring James that there was no reason why his wife’s next pregnancy wouldn’t be fine.
‘I’ve decided to take Megan away on a second honeymoon,’ James informed Roberta. ‘Get her right away from here, and that infernal studio.’
‘That’s a very good idea. She can’t keep going on the way she is. She’s living on her nerves. And she eats like a bird. I can’t remember the last day she had a proper breakfast. Or lunch, for that matter.’
James frowned. He’d noticed her picking at her meal at night, but hadn’t realised she wasn’t eating much during the day, either.
‘Why don’t you make up a breakfast tray for two, Roberta, and I’ll take it down with me? That way I can sit with her and make sure she eats something.’
‘That’s another good idea. It shouldn’t take me too long.’
‘I’ll get myself a cup of that great coffee of yours while I wait.’
Ten minutes later, James arrived at the pool house with a well-stocked breakfast tray in his hands. The door was closed, James knocking with the toe of his shoe.
‘It’s me, Megan,’ he called out at the same time. ‘Can you open the door for me? My hands are full.’
The door eventually opened, with a sleepy-eyed Megan half hiding behind it.
‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘Breakfast time,’ he answered, and walked in with the tray, putting it down on the small round table which sat to the right of the door. When he pulled out a chair for her, Megan ignored it. Instead, she hurried over to the easel, where she threw a dust sheet over the canvas, then sat down on her stool and started cleaning her brushes.
‘How’s the painting coming along?’ he said, suppressing his irritation with difficulty.
‘Fine,’ Megan said without looking up.
‘Am I going to be allowed to see it one day?’
‘Not till it’s finished,’ she said, still not looking his way.
Megan had confessed to him early on in their relationship that she had a dream of becoming a famous artist, an ambition which James never believed would come to fruition, mainly because he didn’t think she had enough talent. Megan was a good painter; she hadn’t spent several years at art school for nothing. But her paintings simply didn’t have that special something which made them stand out from the crowd.
They’d met last year at an art gallery, in front of the one and only painting of Megan’s ever to be exhibited. It hadn’t been to his taste—he’d never liked still-life pictures—but he’d bought it anyway at the end of the evening, knowing by then that he’d found the ideal girl to marry. Attractive enough and suitably young, with a sweetly innocent way about her which always appealed to cynical men-of-the-world. That she also came from a well-off family hadn’t hurt, either, James not wanting to risk marrying a golddigger again.
He’d encouraged her to keep on painting after their marriage, thinking it would be good for her to have an involving hobby. He’d certainly encouraged her to keep on painting after her miscarriage, even putting up with her suddenly developing the kind of artistic temperament which didn’t allow anyone to see what she was working on whilst the work was in progress.
But there was a limit to his patience, and he was fast reaching the end of it!
‘Roberta tells me you haven’t been eating breakfast,’ he said somewhat sharply.
Now she glanced over at him, her eyes startled, perhaps by his harsh tone. Megan’s big brown eyes were very expressive.
‘I…I haven’t been very hungry lately,’ she said, and turned her attention back to her brushes.
‘Come and have some juice, then.’
‘In a moment…’
James counted to ten before saying firmly, ‘Megan. We have to talk.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said. ‘We do.’ But she made no move to join him at the table.
His patience finally ran out.
‘Then have the decency to stop what you’re doing and come over here!’ he snapped before he could stop himself.
He hated himself immediately for taking that tone with her. But, truly, there was a limit to what he could endure.
He watched, somewhat chastened, as she put down her brushes, stood up, then re-sashed her silk robe tightly around her waist, bringing his attention to just how much weight she’d lost since her miscarriage.
When he’d first met Megan, she’d been nothing out of the ordinary, a reasonably pretty, round-faced brunette with nice eyes, a few too many pounds and not much interest in how she presented herself. Like a lot of people with an artistic bent, she was introverted and unworldly. By the time he’d married her two months later, however, she’d smartened herself up considerably, admitting later that she’d sought the help of a professional style guru who’d helped her with her wedding dress and her honeymoon wardrobe, then shown her how to do herself up to her best advantage.
James had been taken aback—and turned on—by the more sophisticated look of his bride when he first saw her on their wedding day, having been overseas on business during the weeks leading up to their marriage. Her bridal gown was a delight, the strapless style and corset-like bodice giving her body a sexy, hourglass shape.
James hadn’t given Jackie a second thought on his wedding night. Quite a feat after running into his first wife in New York three days earlier, on the arm of her latest lover.
He wasn’t thinking of Jackie now, either, his eyes—and his concentration—totally on Megan as she turned and moved towards him.
Yesterday, at Hugh’s wedding, he’d thought she looked very attractive. Today, however, she looked seriously sexy and quite beautiful. Yet she wasn’t wearing any make-up and her hair wasn’t done properly, just bundled up on top of her head in a decidedly haphazard fashion, with bits and pieces falling down around her face.
The loss of weight suited her, James realised. She now had cheekbones, her eyes looked bigger, her neck looked longer. So did her legs. In fact her whole figure was leaner, but still shapely, with good child-bearing hips, nice breasts and nipples just made for a baby’s mouth.
And for a man’s.
As James stared at the provocative outline that her nipples were making against the thin silk of her white negligee, he resolved that last night would be the last time Megan would sleep down here.
Tonight, she