Tempting Taine (14 page)

A hand on her shoulder shook her awake.
 
Taine was standing by the side of the pool, fully dressed once more.
 
"You'd better get out or you'll turn into a prune."

Great.
 
Just great.
 
First
she had let him jump her bones, and then she had fallen asleep on him.
 
What a way to impress him with her coolness and competence.
 
He must think her the most unprofessional therapist possible.

She clambered hastily out of the pool, turned her back on him, and brushed the worst of the water off her skin.
 

"There's no need for modesty.
 
I've seen it all before."
 
His voice was satin and
honey,
and it stripped her soul until she bled.

Still with her back to him, she pulled on her clothes as quickly as she could.
 
"Very funny."

The warmth from the water lingered, preventing her from becoming chilled, but she needed to get away from Taine as fast as she could.
 
Her feelings about him were such a mixture of long-remembered love and long-fostered hatred, of desire and despising, that she did not know what she ought to feel.

They walked back to the house in silence.
 
She did not want to speak, and he sensed her mood and was quiet.
 
For
that
she was thankful.

His silence only lasted until they reached the house.
 
He took her hand as they walked up the stairs to the bedrooms.
 
"Come share my bed," he said, as he tugged her towards his room.

She pulled her hand away.
 
"No.
 
I don't think that's a good idea."

His expression darkened.
 
"Why not?
 
We were good together tonight.
 
As good as we used to be."

She crossed her arms in front of her.
 
Clearly
he was far too used to getting his own way.
 
"You're not the sort of man I want to get involved with again."

"I'm not?"
 
He laughed, but it was a brittle sound and disappeared quickly into the darkness.
 
"Are you sure?
 
After all,
I've
come back home a wealthy man.
 
I can afford to buy you whatever you want.
 
Enough to keep you around for as long as I want you."

The heat rushed to her face.
 
Is that what he thought of her?
 
And
their daughter?
 
"The boy I once knew would not have insulted me like that."

His reply was hard, unforgiving.
 
"The girl I once thought I knew would not have deserved it."

Verity lay awake that night, listening to the wind and the night birds call.
 
Taine was as bitter and unforgiving as he had been nine years ago.
 
Though he still desired her, the years had ingrained his cynical attitude towards her.
 
He would not change, or ever stop despising her for who she was and the choices she had made.
 
There was no point in hoping for a miracle.

She would forget him.
 
Put him out of her mind.
 
Maybe even go on a date with her accountant, as he had asked her several times lately to do.
 

Taine would never be a real father.
 
Aroha deserved better than a man who resented her, ignored her, and simply pretended she did not exist.

No, Taine Hunter was not for her.
 
The sooner she came to terms with that, the easier it would be.

He never had been for her.
 
She had known that ten years ago, when she had returned home fighting back tears from the disastrous lunch with Taine's parents and that little blue line on the pregnancy test has confirmed what she had secretly already known - that she was carrying his child.

She had known him so well back then, or so she had thought.
 
She sat there with the kit in one hand and a box of tissues in the other, knowing what she had to do.
 
Break it off with him.
 
Now.
 
Before it got any harder.

She could not tell him that she was expecting.
 
He would do the right thing and marry her, even though his parents, his mother especially, would hate it.
 
He would give up finishing his degree at Lincoln to get a job and support his new family.

She could not ask him to do that.
 
She
would
not ask him to do it.

He had dreams, and she wanted to see him free to reach those dreams.
 
She would not shackle him to the drudgery of a job he did not want to support a family he had not planned.
 
It would not be fair.
 
To either of them.
 
Their love could never flourish in such an environment - however strong it was and
however
they tried to nurture it, it would inevitably wither and die

Neither would she do as her mother and grandmother had done before her, and give up all hopes of an education and a decent job just because she made the mistake of getting pregnant too young.
 
No, she would go to university, just as she had planned, and she would cope.

She had sat there cross-legged on the bathroom floor for over an hour, her pregnancy test in her hand, crying her heart out and planning what she would do.
 
Then she rose, dried her eyes, and set out on her new path.

Saying goodbye to Taine was the hardest thing she had ever done.
 
She waited for two days, until the day before he was to leave for college.
 
They sneaked out to the lake together, and
were curled up
in the sun together on a blanket.

Verity fought to hold back the tears as they made love.
 
The knowledge that it was the last time he would ever hold her, stroke her skin, or whisper his love into her ear was the closest to hell that she had ever gotten before.

Afterwards, she sat up on the blanket, her arms around her knees.
 
"This isn't going to work, Taine."

"What isn't going to work?"
 
He traced lazy circles on her back with his hand.
 
"I thought it worked pretty well just now, don't you?"

"This.
 
Us.
 
We
are not going to work.
 
You're
going back to university in Christchurch.
 
I'm
going to Wellington.
 
We'll be too far away from each other."

"I'll come home every
holidays
.
 
We'll see each other then."

"I don't want to live like that."

"What do you mean?"
 
For the first time, his voice showed real worry.
 
"I love you, Verity.
 
More than anything else.
 
I'd do anything for you."

Oh, how tempting it was to tell him everything, to throw herself into his arms and explain her predicament.
 
He would gladly stay with her and look after her.
 
But
no, she loved him more than that.
 
"Then let me go.
 

"You don't mean it."

How she kept her voice calm, she would never know.
 
"I do mean it, Taine.
 
I mean every word of it.
 
We've
had a great summer together, you and me, but that's all it can ever be.
 
Just a summer fling.
 
We've got
to get back to the real world now.
 
I
don't
want the thought of you around my neck like a millstone while I'm studying.
 
I want to be free to do as I please."

"Are you dumping me?"
 
The anguish in his voice almost undid her.

Her fists
were clenched
so tightly her fingernails were digging into her palms.
 
"Yes, I am.
 
I'm sorry, Taine, but it's over."

"I thought you loved me.
 
Like I love you."

She shook her head.
 
He would never know how much she loved him.
 
"I'm sorry, Taine."

He drove her back to town in silence.
 
Only when she got out of the truck did he speak.
 
"Call me tonight.
 
Please.
 
I love you, Verity."

She shook her head.
 
She could do this.
 
She would not give in now.
 
"Goodbye, Taine."

And
she turned away and walked out of his life.

She did not tell her mother and grandmother that she was expecting before she left for university in Wellington, fearful they would persuade her to stay in Taupo with them and give up her chance at an education and a better life.

It was her choice and she would do it alone.
 
She would cope with the path she had chosen, even if it half-killed her.

And
cope she had, though it had been more difficult than she could have imagined.

Two months of feeling ill in the mornings and dragging herself off to classes regardless.

Stares and whispers from her fellow classmates at her gradually increasing girth.

Embarrassed looks from the boys her age, whose invitations to coffee and movies dried up the instant she began to show.

Three months at the end of swollen feet, a stomach too large to be comfortable, and every night's sleep broken by the need to get up and relieve the pressure on her bladder.

No, she had had no idea how difficult it would turn out to be.

And then
, in the study week between the end of classes and the beginning of exams she had had Aroha, and had instantly fallen in love.
 

Her flat mate had babysat Aroha for her while she sat her exams, in a haze of new mother exhaustion.

Miraculously she had passed, and had returned to Taupo for the summer with her new daughter in tow.

Her mother had cried over her and promptly forgiven her for her silence.
 
Her grandmother had scolded her roundly for her foolishness in getting pregnant so young, and then picked up Aroha with such love and tenderness that Verity had not been able to hold a grudge.

Both of them had insisted that Taine had a right to know about his daughter.

So, early one evening in late December with Aroha just fed and settled down into her crib, she got on to her trusty old bicycle and made the hour-long trek up to Taine's parents' place.

The lights were blazing and there were a number of cars in the driveway and lining the road.
 
She thumped her hand on the handlebars and swore.
 
Clearly
it was Christmas party time at the Hunter place.

Only the knowledge that she had just spent an hour of hard pedaling getting there, a feat which she was not in a hurry to repeat, made her lean her bike against the hedge and walk up the long driveway to the front door.
 

A woman opened the door and tried to usher her inside.
 
"I'm not here for the party," Verity explained, in some embarrassment.
 
"But can you get Taine for me?
 
Taine Hunter?
 
I need to speak with him."

She disappeared inside and in a
moment
Taine was at the door.
 
His face paled when he saw her standing there.
 
"What do you want?
 
I'm busy."

"I have something I have to tell you."

"Taine, honey?"
 
A young blonde woman in a red party dress came up to him, linked her arm in his and gazed up at his adoringly.
 
"What's up?"