The Girl He'd Overlooked (18 page)

‘Of course you’re not going to want to get back into the situation we had, given the circumstances.’

‘No-o-o…’ Jennifer dragged out that one syllable for as long as she could while she tried to figure out where his speech was going.

‘In a matter like this, you simply don’t see the value of thinking with your head.’

‘It’s not
that—
’

‘And I won’t waste time trying to make you see that this is
just
the time when you
should
be thinking with your head. You don’t want to marry me and I accept that.’

‘Really? You do?’ Why did that hurt so much?

‘Why do you sound so surprised?’

‘Because you seemed so convinced that getting married was the only option we had. As if we were still living in Victorian times and you had to make an honest woman of me, however unhappy we might both have ended up being!’

James held his cool and continued to look steadily at her. ‘Let’s just say that I’m willing to make compromises in that area.’

‘What sort of compromises?’

‘You move in here and I move in with you. No marriage, but I think we should see how it works out, give this a chance for the sake of the baby. If it doesn’t work out, then we do the modern thing and walk away from
each other.’ He flushed darkly and looked away. ‘We were happy… before this all blew up,’ he said in a rough undertone. ‘What’s to say that we couldn’t be happy again?’

J
AMES
didn’t realise just how happy life with Jennifer was until he got her panicked call in the middle of a meeting.

When he had suggested that they live together, he had had no idea what he had been letting himself in for. He was a man accustomed to freedom of movement and independence, fundamentally unanswerable to anyone. Of course, he acknowledged that that state of affairs had undergone some change in the weeks after they had become lovers. He had also acknowledged that had she agreed to his original terms they would probably have been married by now, but somehow the fact of marriage had seemed less daunting than the fact of living together.

With a sense of duty no longer in the equation, living together had struck him as more of a commitment, even though he couldn’t fathom why.

He had engineered a smooth transition for her from apartment to house. Despite her reassurances that she was as healthy as a horse, waving aside the occasional giddy spell as nothing to worry about, insisting that she continue working until a suitable replacement was found for her position, he made sure that she had as little to do as humanly possible during the actual move. Packing a few personal items into a suitcase was just about all he allowed her to get away with.

Clearing his own apartment had been a far weirder experience. The enormity of what he was doing only struck him when, after two days and a lot of overtime from engineers kitting out an office space in the house, he finally closed the front door on the outside world and joined her in the kitchen for their first meal as… a couple living together.

It had felt like a massive step but he had made sure to conceal any trepidation from her. He knew that she remained wary and hesitant and pregnancy appeared to have made her unpredictable. It happened. He knew. He had surreptitiously bought a pregnancy book and had read it cover to cover. He now felt equipped to start his own advice column.

‘James… do you think you could get here?’

‘What’s wrong?’ Few people had his private cell number. He had felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and her name had popped up. Immediately he had silently indicated to the assembled financiers that they should continue with the meeting and he had left the conference room. When she had started working at the little publishing company that he had inherited as part of the much bigger takeover package, Jennifer had never contacted him. She had quit two weeks previously and not once had she called him at work, even though he had repeatedly told her that she was more than welcome to interrupt his working day.

If the tone of her voice hadn’t alerted him that something was wrong, the mere fact that she had called would have.

An emotion shifted into gear that he almost couldn’t recognise. It was fear.

‘I’m bleeding… I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about—’

‘I’m on my way.’

Jennifer lay back on the sofa with her legs raised and
tried to stay calm. Looking around her, she took in all the small touches she had introduced to the house that had very quickly felt like a home. The vases filled with flowers picked from the garden, the framed photos on the mantelpiece, the ornaments she had picked up from Portobello Market a couple of weekends previously. She wasn’t entirely certain that James even noticed them and she hadn’t wanted to point them out.

She had been gutted when all talk of marriage had been dropped so quickly. Had he been relieved that that final act of commitment had been avoided? Living together was so different and, of course, she had no one but herself to blame for not grabbing his marriage proposal when it had been on the cards.

Not that she regretted it. She still believed that without love a marriage was nothing more than a sham and yet…

Hadn’t he been just the perfect partner ever since they had moved in together? She constantly told him that there was no need for him to treat her as though she could break at any given moment, and yet hadn’t she loved every minute of it? Hadn’t she begun to hope that the love he didn’t feel for her might begin to grow from affection?

And now…

Jennifer didn’t want to think that she might lose this baby. She wished that she had paid more attention to those dizzy spells she had been having off and on. If she lost the baby, then what would happen to her and James? It was a question she didn’t want to think about because the answer was too agonising to deal with.

She closed her eyes and kept as still as possible but her mind continued to freewheel inside her head, irrespective of her desperation to keep it under control. She had already invested so much love into this unborn baby. How would she cope if anything happened?

She sagged with blessed relief as she heard the sound of James’s key being inserted into the door, and he was in the act of removing his jacket as he pushed open the sitting room door and strode towards her, his face grey with worry.

‘I shouldn’t have bothered you—’ She smiled weakly as he snapped out his mobile and began dialling.

‘And hurry!’

‘Who have you called?’

‘The doctor.’

‘I panicked. I’m sorry, James. I’m sure all I need is a bit of rest.’

James knelt down next to her and slipped her hand into his. ‘You’re not a doctor, Jen. You don’t know what you need. Gregory is the top guy in London and a personal friend of the family. I asked him whether I should get an ambulance to take you to hospital but he said that he’ll give you the once-over first. You scared the hell out of me.’

‘I didn’t mean to.’

He asked her about her symptoms, detailed questions to which he produced a series of clinical answers, and she smiled when he confessed to the pregnancy book languishing in his briefcase.

‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, James.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner that the giddy spells hadn’t stopped?’

‘I didn’t want to worry you. I didn’t think that there was anything to worry about…’ And besides, she could have added truthfully, she hadn’t wanted to rock the boat. She hadn’t wanted to face up to anything that might cast a shadow over the picture-perfect life they had been living for the past few weeks. Except uncomfortable questions couldn’t be put to bed by ignoring them and they were out of the box now, demanding attention.

‘I know you’re going to tell me that this isn’t the right time to have this conversation, James, but—’

‘It’s the right time.’

Jennifer’s eyes fluttered and she felt her heartbeat quicken.

‘You don’t know what I’m going to say…’

‘I do.’ He smiled crookedly at her. ‘Do you think I don’t know you a bit by now? Whenever you want to broach a delicate topic of conversation, you lick your lips for courage and begin to play with your hair.’

‘I didn’t think you noticed stuff like that.’

‘You’d be surprised what I notice.’
About you.
‘You won’t lose this baby.’

‘You can’t say that and what if I do?’ There. It was out. She closed her eyes and calmed herself by taking deep breaths. Deliberately, she stuck her hands by her sides and fidgeted with the baggy tee shirt she was wearing.

‘Then the time is right for us to talk about what happens. Before Gregory gets here. Stress isn’t good for you and I don’t want to stress you out but I need to say something.’

Jennifer looked at him with resignation. She wanted to put her hand over his mouth and hold the words back but he was right. He needed to tell her that their arrangement would not survive a miscarriage. The stress of hearing it would be a great deal less than the stress of lying here pretending that everything was just fine. And if she didn’t lose the baby, then it would be good to know the next step forward. She realised that through the happiness and joy of the past few weeks, there had remained a poisonous thread of doubt that things would continue the way they were for ever more. That just wasn’t how life worked. Now, he would put a face to those doubtful shadows and, yes, there would be disappointment all round, because their respective
parents had accepted the situation and given their full support, but life was full of disappointment, wasn’t it?

‘I know that sharing this house with me probably wasn’t what you had in mind when you realised that you were pregnant. You were only just coming into your own and suddenly… fate decides that it’s time for you to have another learning curve…’

‘What do you mean
coming into my own
?’

‘I mean—’ he sighed heavily and raked his fingers through his hair ‘—you’d led a sheltered life and then you go to Paris and return a changed person. You’re sexy as hell and you’re on a journey of discovery.’

‘I hadn’t realised that I was that adventurous.’

‘You fell into a relationship with me to fulfil some youthful infatuation but I know you still want to get out there and discover what the world has in store for you.’

‘I do?’

‘Of course you do. You said as much when you told me that I was unfinished business. Unfinished business comes to an end eventually.’ He looked away, his broodingly handsome face flushed. ‘I guess I maybe ambushed you when I suggested we live together… You’d already turned down my marriage proposal. I’ll admit that there was a certain amount of blackmail involved when I suggested that we live together. How could you turn down marriage
and
turn down the other reasonable alternative on the table without appearing utterly selfish?’ He threw her a challenging look.

‘It was a good idea,’ Jennifer murmured, heart beating fast.

‘And it
has
been… hasn’t it? Good?’

Jennifer nodded, because it required too much effort to try and work out how much of herself she should give away. Should she tell him that it couldn’t have been better?
He had been affectionate, supportive, reassuring and, as she had always known, wonderfully funny and entertaining. He had returned from work early so that she could put her feet up while he had cooked. He had put up with Ellie coming round every few days and had only given her the occasional dry look when her best friend had launched into colourful stories about her love life. He had indulged her sudden taste for soaps on television and brought her cups of tea whenever she wanted. She had been spoiled rotten and that was the problem. It had felt like a
real
relationship. But there was no ring on her finger and she was now terrified that if there was no baby to provide the glue that kept them together, it would all come crashing down around her ears. Had she been too greedy in holding out for perfection?

‘I’m going to tell you something, Jennifer, and it may shock you but it needs to be said before Gregory gets here.’ James looked at her and felt the ground shift under him. He had always been able to predict the outcome of the things he did and the decisions he made. But then, his biggest decisions had always involved deals and business. He had come to realise that, where emotions were involved, there was no such thing as a predictable outcome, which made it a hell of a lot scarier.

Jennifer braced herself for the shock. She reminded herself that it was better to get it all out of the way.

‘If you lose this baby—and I don’t think for a minute that you will. In fact, you’re probably right, there was probably no need to get Gregory over at all, but better safe than sorry—’

‘Just say what you have to say,’ she told him gently. ‘Between the two of us, I’m the only one allowed to babble when I’m nervous.’

James opened his mouth to tell her that he wasn’t
nervous, that nerves were a sign of weakness. Except he
was
nervous.

‘Whatever the outcome, I want to marry you, Jennifer. Okay, I’ll settle for living together. I don’t want to rush you into anything and living together at least gives me a shot at persuading you that we can make this work. But I want to persuade you of that whether or not there’s a child involved.’

She looked at him in silence for so long that he began to wonder whether he had got it all wrong. The signs had all been there. Hadn’t they? He had a talent for interpreting nuances. Had that talent let him down now?

‘We’ve been happy. You said so yourself.’ A defensive tone had crept into his voice.

‘Very happy,’ she finally whispered, which he thought was a start. She could feel tears begin to gather in the corners of her eyes. Pregnancy had sent her emotions all over the place. Now she wondered whether they had interfered with her hearing as well.

‘Are you saying that you want us to be married… whatever…?’

‘Whatever.’

‘But I don’t understand why.’

‘Because I can’t imagine that there could ever come a day when I wouldn’t want to wake up with you next to me, or return from work knowing that you’d be waiting for me. I love you, Jennifer, and, even if you don’t return the feeling, I wanted to lay my cards on the table—’

‘When you say you
love
me…’

‘I love you. With lots of strings attached. So many strings that you’d tie yourself up in knots trying to work your way out of them.’

‘I love you too.’ She tried to hold back the tremulous grin but failed. ‘And what strings are you talking about?’

‘I’ll tell you later.’ The consultant had arrived, a very tall, very gaunt middle-aged man with a severe expression that only relaxed into a smile once his examination was completed and he accepted the cup of tea offered to him.

Some slight concern but nothing to worry about. Blood pressure was a little on the high side but nothing that some rest and relaxation wouldn’t sort out. The bleeding would stop and, although he could understand her worry, rest assured that it had not been a dramatic bleed. He had examined and listened and everything was in order. And she was in good hands. He had known James since he was born because he had delivered him.

Jennifer smiled and listened, relieved that her panic had been misguided. Her mind was all over the place. Relief that everything was all right. Wonder mixed with disbelief that James had told her that he
loved her.
Had he just said that because he had thought it might calm her? Had he known that that was what she had wanted to hear? She caught his eye and tried to still the nagging doubts from trying to get a foothold.