One Reckless Night (12 page)

 
None of her training in negotiation or confrontation had prepared her for this kind of scenario. But she could at least talk to him, she amended lamely.

 
She was trembling as she drove past the village sign. She slowed when she reached the garage, but the doors were closed and padlocked and the place seemed deserted. Zanna bit her lip and drove on into the village.

 
She parked at the side of Church House, out of sight of the village green, and walked slowly up the path to the front door, trying to pretend she felt at ease when in reality she was shaking inside.

 
She rang the doorbell and waited, heart thudding, praying for some sign of movement inside the house, but there was only silence. As she went found to the back of the house she glimpsed a neatness and order between the parted curtains mat spoke of emptiness and absence. Not just 'not at home' but 'gone away', she thought, her heart like a stone in her chest.

 
But what had made her think he'd be there? Had she really imagined she could simply step back into the enchantment and find him waiting, like the prince in a fairy tale, to kiss her and make her somehow whole again? She lashed herself with contempt. To make the nightmare go away? As if it had all meant something more- something finer than the usual sordid, casual one-night stand?

 
I didn't know I had such a talent for fantasy, she told herself angrily. Or such a capacity for self-deception.

 
She hammered on the back door, barking her knuckles, taking a kind of perverse pleasure in the discomfort of it. One glance through the kitchen window revealed the big pine table stripped, and bare of any homely clutter.

 
The caretaker was no longer taking care, she thought, and realized for the first time how completely she'd relied on his being here for her, in this house which meant so much-how totally she'd needed to go into his arms and weep out her fear and confusion, to know the reality of his heart beating against hers.

 
And she wondered, not for the first time, what it had been like for him to wake and find her gone, without a word. She wondered if he'd cared, if he'd asked at the Bull for any clues to 'Susie Smith' or tried to trace her in some other way.

 
Or if, more likely, he'd just accepted it for what it was-a passing fling, without strings or regrets, a few hours of total irresponsibility, now, at this distance, barely remembered.

 
Except by me, Zanna thought bleakly, and perhaps I should be thankful that pregnancy's been the only consequence of this incredible piece of folly.

 
She sat down limply on the stone step, leaning her back against the heavy timber. Life moved on, she thought, and it was unwise even to look back, let alone walk back into the past and hope to find it unchanged.

 
But, although she hadn't admitted it until this moment, she now realized that she had hoped and she had believed. And that made her present sense of desolation even more overwhelming. And more absurd.

 
Tears scalded like dancing fireflies behind her closed eyelids. His name burned on her aching throat.

 
'Where are you?' she whispered painfully into the stillness. 'Jake, come back-I need you. Forgive me for running away-and help me, please. Oh, please...'

 
She heard her words vanish into the unmoving silence and become swallowed up there. And after a while she got up slowly and stiffly from the step and went back to her car.

 
She got back to London in the early afternoon. She hadn't hurried the return journey, her mind circling wearily on her problems throughout the miles. Although she still hadn't come up with any real solution, she acknowledged unhappily as she fitted her key into its lock. And stopped, her senses alerted by the pungent odor of cigar smoke.

 
'Father?' she said uncertainly as she walked into the living room. 'What are you doing here?'

 
'Waiting for you.' The bulk of Sir Gerald's frame outlined against the window spoke of menace. 'You dirty little slut.'

 
Zanna's mouth was suddenly dry. 'I don't understand.'

 
'Neither did I-not until I went into the bathroom and found that obscene-thing.' His eyes were like stone. Opaque, cold. 'I had Ben Wickham with me. Tessa had told me about the vomiting. I was concerned, naturally. I wanted him to look you over.'

 
Zanna cursed Tessa under her breath. 'I asked her not to tell you. I said I didn't want the company doctor...'

 
'Thank God I have some employees who are loyal.' He drew a breath. 'I couldn't believe it when Ben told me what that paraphernalia was for-what it meant.'

 
Zanna lifted her chin. 'You have no right to come in here, either of you, and pry into my life. How did you get in anyway?'

 
"This apartment belongs to the company. I have keys to all Westcott property. And thank the Lord we did find out about you. The whole situation can be taken care of at once, without fuss or any scandal. Ben's assured me of that.'

 
Zanna was very still. 'What are you talking about?'

 
'He knows an excellent clinic, quick and discreet. He's making an appointment for you there right away.'

 
Zanna's head went back. 'You mean I'm to have an abortion?' Her mind was reeling. She seemed to be looking at her father across some vast chasm of space.

 
'Well, naturally,' he said impatiently.

 
She drew a swift breath. 'You haven't even asked who the father is. If we have our own plans...'

 
'I don't have to.' He drew heavily on the cigar. 'There's no ring on your finger or regular man in your life. I know that. You've behaved like a slut and a fool, but you don't have to live with the consequences-not these days.'

 
She stared at him. She said thickly, 'You're talking about your grandchild...'

 
'You think I'd actually welcome some bastard? That I'd let you humiliate me-Westcott Holdings-in front of the whole City?' His laugh was harshly derisive. 'See sense, girl. Remember who you are-what your purpose in life is.'

 
'Perhaps I don't see it as destroying unborn children.' She tried to speak calmly, evenly.

 
'Then you're worse than an idiot, and no daughter of mine.' Across the room, she felt the power of him-the anger like a tangible thing, reaching out to tear at her. 'Understand this, Zanna, there's no question of you keeping this child-becoming a-a single parent.' He spat the words at her. 'Do that and you lose everything- your job, your car and this flat. You're out on your ear and on your own, surviving on Social Security. See if the baby's father wants you then,' he added savagely.

 
'That's blackmail.'

 
'That's common sense,' Sir Gerald retorted implacably. 'You don't need to ruin your life, throw away your career because you've done a stupid thing.'

 
'I seem to have done a number of stupid things,' Zanna said tonelessly. 'But you and I would never agree on what they've been.'

 
Her father moved away from the window, and in spite of herself Zanna flinched as he came towards her. He stabbed out his cigar in a small porcelain dish, grinding the burning stub into the delicate glaze.

 
'I meant what I said,' he threw over his shoulder as he went past her to the door. 'I'm warning you, keep the appointment Ben's making for you, or you're finished.'

 
She heard the outer door slam and the tension went out of her. Knees buckling, she stumbled to the nearest sofa and sat down.

 
She stared around her.

 
My flat, she thought. The glittering prize I've worked myself into the ground for. The proof of my value and success. Or so I thought.

 
She looked at the gloss on the carefully chosen pieces of furniture, the unmarked pastel walls, the statements made by the few paintings and ceramics the designer had suggested, and wondered for the first time in her life what it all meant. How it could be that she'd made so little impression on her surroundings that they looked brand-new-untouched by human hand.

 
And inside her, also brand-new, was a tiny life, on which, for good or ill, she could be a major influence. And she knew that despite her father's threats her choice had already been made. There was no way she could ever have destroyed her child-Jake's child-the evidence that, just for once, during one reckless night in her sterile, work-orientated life, she had been human too.

 
You 're finished. The brutal words seemed to echo in her mind. Slowly she shook her head, emptying them away.

 
No, she thought, with resolution. I'm just beginning.

 
CHAPTER SEVEN

 
NOT having a car placed a new value on your feet, Zanna thought wryly as she emerged from yet another employment agency.

 
Finding a bed-sitting room had been relatively easy, but so far, during the three weeks since her precipitate departure from Westcott Holdings, her job search had been totally fruitless.

 
Zanna had confidently believed that her track record would smooth her path into another executive position, but she'd been swiftly proved wrong.

 
Probably, she admitted, she had not really believed her father would go to the threatened lengths. But, arriving at the office the day after she had quietly but firmly told Dr Wickham that she would not be keeping the appointment he'd arranged for her to terminate her pregnancy, she had found her way barred by a clearly embarrassed security guard.

 
She'd been forced to wait in Reception until Tessa Lloyd, brimming with ill-concealed triumph, had arrived to conduct her to her office and stand over her while she cleared her desk. And before leaving she'd been required to hand back her car keys.

 
After that Zanna had seen no point in waiting for the humiliation of eviction from the flat, so she'd packed her clothes and her home computer and moved out to a hotel, using it as a base to start her hunt for a new home and employment.

 
Fortunately, shortage of money had not been an immediate problem, although she couldn't live indefinitely on her savings, which were ebbing away at frightening

 
speed.

 
No, her main difficulty was that her name seemed to have become poison in the marketplace. Every job application she submitted ran into some kind of invisible barrier, and her total lack of references, added to brief, snide comments about her sudden departure in the financial pages of the daily Press, suggested she'd been guilty of some stunning misdemeanor. Fraud, at the very least, she'd realized with helpless horror. And she knew her father was at the back of it all. It was part of her on-going punishment for defying him. Although, from a practical point of view, he clearly didn't want Zanna taking her expertise to some rival company.

 
Candor about the real reason for her dismissal hadn't helped either. Companies were unlikely, she'd been told civilly but dismissively, to hire a young woman who would soon be asking them to pay for her maternity leave-especially when there was no guarantee that she'd return to work after the birth.

 
Gritting her teeth, Zanna had started applying for secretarial posts and making the weary rounds of the temping agencies. But many of them, including the one she'd just left, already had sufficient people on their books to supply current demand. Jobs weren't easy to come by, she was told regretfully. It was all part of the recession. Now, pausing in the sunlit street while she flexed her aching toes in their smart court shoes, she pondered whether her volatile stomach was ready to tolerate some coffee. She had learned by bitter experience to start the day with a glass of mineral water and a dry biscuit, and to take things one step at a time thereafter.

 
But there weren't any coffee-shops in this particular street, she thought ruefully. It was all art galleries and antique shops, interspersed with the occasional designer boutique. The kind of place she'd have found a happy hunting ground in former days. Suppressing a sigh, she decided to walk to Fortnum and Mason.

 
Waiting to cross the road, she found herself gazing almost absently at a display of vibrant abstract art behind an imposing stretch of plate glass. New since I was here last, she thought, scrutinizing the name emblazoned across the immaculate dark green awning.

 
Lantrell Galleries, she repeated silently. Now, why did that sound familiar? She'd reached the other pavement before she remembered that, for some obscure reason, in some other existence, she'd been invited to the opening. She glanced irresolutely at her watch, then made up her mind. As she was on the doorstep she might as well pay them a belated visit.