What Might Have Been (22 page)

37

S
arah twirled her engagement ring anxiously round on her finger as she sat at her desk. She was surprised Evan hadn’t called after Grace’s slip, but that was just as well. She didn’t have a clue what to say to him.

She played with the diamond that probably cost more than Evan’s car, and did her best to look forward to the weekend. She couldn’t ignore the fact that, with David as a partner here, she
certainly
wasn’t making a bad decision, even if it was partly a practical one, though she reminded herself that that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all, her father had married for love, and had ended up with heartbreak – though perhaps that hadn’t been his fault – and she did love David, although that love was perhaps a combination of comfort, familiarity, and . . . what? Gratitude? It was hard to say. But Sarah wasn’t sure she knew what real love felt like anyway, and if that was the case . . . well, you couldn’t miss what you’d never had, could you?

The two of them were compatible – she was pretty sure of that. And while compatibility hardly smacked of excitement – and her brief time with Evan had been exciting – marriage was
different
, wasn’t it? The Mercedes was fun around town but probably a nightmare on a long run, whereas the BMW? It was easy to drive.
Reliable
. Felt like it could keep on going forever. And wasn’t that the way to look at marriage?

Yes, Sarah decided, she was doing the sensible thing. As to whether she was doing the
right
thing, well, that depended on your definition of the word. Trouble was, all this speculation about what Evan might have done had he known he might have gotten her pregnant had thrown up a more important question: Had David only proposed because he thought
he
had?

She fetched herself a coffee from the machine in the hallway – her third of the day, she noted, worryingly – and set it down on her desk, then noticed the bag of donuts sitting in her in-tray. They still looked relatively fresh, and for a moment, she was tempted to eat them both, until she remembered she was still on her pre-wedding diet. The dress she’d ordered months ago from a designer in Hay’s Galleria just about fitted her, and she was already going to spend most of her wedding day breathing in as it was.

She checked the time. David was bound to have finished his conference call by now, so she picked the donuts up and headed off down the corridor. Forcing herself to give Sally a friendly smile on the way past, she walked into his office and placed the bag on
his des
k.

‘What’s this?’

She smiled, sheepishly. ‘Peace offering.’

David looked at the bag, and then up at her, a surprised expression on his face. ‘There was no need.’

‘There was. Besides, the girls bought them for me, and I’ve got to watch my figure.’

David peered inside the bag, his face lighting up at the contents. ‘Excellent,’ he said, extracting a chocolate-covered donut and devouring half of it in one bite.

‘I hope you had a decent lunch?’ she said, a little worried the donuts might be off, but David had a cast-iron constitution. Or at least, she hoped he did. ‘And by “decent”, I mean “healthy”.’

‘This
is
my lunch.’ He crammed the rest of the donut into his mouth. ‘Calls all morning, and now a bloody board meeting starting in ten minutes,’ he said, as he chewed. ‘No doubt it’ll go on till the evening. Then we’ll probably go for dinner . . .’

‘Right. Well, in that case . . .’ She walked over and shut the door. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Sure.’ David glanced nervously at his watch, no doubt fearing a resumption of their earlier discussion. ‘If it’s quick. Like I said, board meeting.’

‘It is. At least, it should be.’ Sarah perched on the corner of his desk again and took a deep breath. ‘Why are you marrying me?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Why are you marrying me?’

David leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. ‘Because I love you and you’re a good shag. That do you?’

‘I’m serious, David.’

‘Ah. Right. Sorry.’ He sat up quickly, like a schoolboy told to take his feet off a train seat. ‘What’s brought this on?’

‘It’s just . . . it’s silly, really, but I was wondering . . .’

‘Wondering what?’

She shrugged, attempting to trivialise what she was about to ask. ‘If I hadn’t been pregnant, would you still have proposed to me?’

David frowned. ‘Of course.’

‘Honestly?’

He nodded, then patted her reassuringly on the knee. ‘I was just waiting for an excuse to ask.’

‘That was just what I needed to hear.’ She reached down to brush some crumbs from his tie. ‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

David made a relieved face, pleased he seemed to have navigated this particular emotional minefield successfully, and while Sarah wanted a moment to bask in this rare flash of sincerity from him, she could tell he was conscious of the time. She jumped off the desk, then leaned down and kissed him on the top of his head.

‘See ya,’ she said cheerfully, making for the door.

‘Sure,’ said David distractedly, his attention already back
on work
.

Sarah walked back along the corridor and into her office, carefully closed the door behind her, and sat back down at her desk, determined to stop obsessing about Saturday and get on with her day job. She knew she should have been reassured by David’s response, but the trouble was, while he might not have asked her to marry him because she was pregnant, something else was worrying her: She might only have said yes because she was.

And that was even worse.

38

E
van could tell Sarah had spotted him – why else would she have suddenly begun walking in the other direction? He three-point-turned the Mercedes quickly, causing a taxi driver to give him the finger, and caught her up.

‘Haven’t you heard of the word “stalking”?’ she asked, as he drove slowly alongside her.

‘Haven’t you heard of the word “honesty”?’ he called back through the car’s open window.

Sarah stopped abruptly and wheeled round to face him, her expression a mixture of anger and vulnerability, and Evan stamped on the brakes, fearing he’d overstepped the mark. Then again, he reminded himself, she didn’t really have a leg to stand on.

‘Evan, you shouldn’t be here.’

‘Give me one good reason why not.’

Her eyes flicked to behind his car, where a large Routemaster was bearing down on him. ‘Well, for starters, you’ve stopped in the bus lane.’

Evan cursed under his breath, and glared at her. ‘Wait there.’

He gunned the car back out into the traffic, offering a silent prayer of thanks when he spotted a parking space a few yards further on, then kept an eye on Sarah in his rear-view mirror as he reversed the Merc into it. As he fed a couple of pound coins into the meter, she stared at him for a moment, then disappeared into a
Starbucks
on the corner. This certainly wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have on the pavement, especially not so close to her office, and she was grateful when Evan followed her inside.

‘Well?’

‘Grace shouldn’t have said anything,’ was all she could manage.

‘No,’ said Evan. ‘But
you
should have.’

‘What do you want?’ she said, as they walked up to the counter.

‘The truth.’

‘I meant
to drink
.’

‘What? Oh . . .’ Evan shrugged, wondering whether they sold alcohol in Starbucks. ‘Nothing. Thank you.’

Sarah ordered herself a cappuccino, deciding it’d take the longest time to prepare, conscious she was stalling for much-needed time. She stood there silently as the barista made it, grateful for the few precious seconds it gave her to formulate an answer to the question she was sure was coming, and she didn’t have long to wait.

‘So come on – why didn’t you tell me?’ Evan asked impatiently.

She glanced around for a place to sit, but there were no free tables, so she changed her order to ‘to go’ and led Evan back outside. ‘How?’ she said, blowing through the hole in her cup’s plastic lid as they walked along the pavement. ‘You were off having a fine old time in the U.S.’

‘Stop throwing this back at me, Sarah.’ He shook his head exasperatedly. ‘When did you find out?’

‘About two months after you left.’

‘And you didn’t think I might have wanted to know?’

‘No. I’m sorry.’ She took the next right turn, anxious to put as much distance in between the two of them and her office as possible. ‘Besides, what difference would it have made?’

‘What difference?’ Evan stared at her incredulously. ‘All the difference in the world.’

‘Why?’

‘Why do you think? You were carrying my baby.
Our
baby.’

‘You can’t be sure of that.’

‘Can you be sure it wasn’t?’

Sarah couldn’t look at him. ‘Would you have come back? If it had been?’

‘Of course I would have.’

‘That’s easy to say now. Now there isn’t a baby.’

‘Well, what did you expect?’

Sarah took a sip of her coffee, wincing as the still too-hot liquid burnt her tongue. ‘It doesn’t really matter what you say now, Evan, does it?’

‘Christ, Sarah, You seem to be judging me as if I’ve failed some sort of test, when I didn’t even know I was being tested in the first place,’ he said, following her as she suddenly crossed the road, sprinting to avoid a white van that seemed determined to run him over. He peered at the driver, checking to see it wasn’t David, then fell into step beside her. ‘Was it mine?’ he asked, his voice faltering, and at once, she felt sorry for him.

‘How should I know? They don’t exactly test for that sort of thing after you’ve, you know . . .’ Sarah swallowed hard. She’d already had too much loss in her life, and the word always troubled her. ‘Afterwards. Especially when it’s so early.’

‘But there was a chance it could have been?’

‘Of course. Just like there was a chance it could have been David’s. But we’ll never know, will we?’

As he trailed her along the pavement, Evan thought back to that night. They’d had sex twice, then once the following morning, each time without any protection, and while he was no expert, surely that tripled the chances? But without knowing the intimate details of Sarah’s relationship with David, he couldn’t say the same wasn’t true for them, and that was one line of questioning he really didn’t want to go down.

‘I still think you should have told me.’

He looked crushed, and Sarah fought the urge to take his hand. ‘You were off on this big tour of yours. I knew how important that was to you.
For
you.’

Evan stared at her. The insinuation that Sarah hadn’t told him because she hadn’t wanted him to interrupt the tour had taken him by surprise – but had she done that for him, or for her? ‘So, you kept the fact that you might have been carrying my child from me . . .’ – he was struggling to keep his voice level – ‘. . . for the benefit of my
career
?’

Sarah nodded, a little guilty that her admission was provoking this kind of reaction. ‘Well . . .’

‘And what would you have done if it
had
turned out to have been mine?’ he said, angry now. ‘Turned up at one of the concerts pushing a pram and wearing a t-shirt with “surprise” and a large downwards-facing arrow printed on the front? Or just married David, and brought
my
baby
up as his?’

Sarah had never seen him like this, and wondered whether she’d overstepped the mark. But she had anger she could tap into, too. ‘Well, that turned out not to be an issue, didn’t it?’

‘Conveniently.’

As soon as he’d said it, and seen the pain the word had provoked, Evan had known it was a mistake, but it had just slipped out as these things often did in arguments, and not for the first time, he wondered how on earth they’d got to this. If he could have taken it back, he would have, and he braced himself for Sarah’s response, but instead, the remark seemed to have deflated her. He didn’t want to push, but he felt he had a right to the truth, so he took her arm and steered her through the gateway in front of them, and into Postman’s Park.

‘Did David know?’

‘David?’ She gazed around the once-familiar setting, her impassive expression hiding a complicated churn of emotions, then met his eyes defiantly. ‘Of course he knew.’

‘When?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Before the two of you got engaged? Or after?’

Sarah knew it was a tricky question to answer. Say ‘before’, and Evan would assume – like she had – that David’s proposal had been instigated by the pregnancy, and what on earth would he make of that? More ammunition for this ridiculous crusade of his, probably. But to say ‘after’ would assume that she’d already made her decision about marrying him, and for some reason, she didn’t want Evan to think that. She sat down heavily on the nearest bench, and Evan followed suit.

‘David found out. By accident.’ She shook her head as she placed her coffee down on the floor. ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen like that. And he was so overjoyed . . . What was I supposed to say?’ She put on a faux-English voice. ‘Hold your horses, mate, I’m not sure the little blighter’s yours’?’

Under different circumstances Evan would have laughed at her accent, but right now he didn’t find it the slightest bit amusing. Instead, he just stared at her, unable to compute what was going on.

‘That still doesn’t answer why you didn’t tell
me
.’

‘Like I said. I didn’t want to mess up your tour, your
life
. Not until I was sure.’ She shook her head. ‘Maybe that was my bad.’

‘My bad
? Christ, Sarah, what does that actually mean, apart from claiming ownership of a Michael Jackson album? And when exactly were you going to be sure? When the kid was born and turned out to have my eyes?’

‘Evan.’ She rested a hand on his arm, but he shook it off angrily. ‘Don’t you think it was difficult for me too?’

‘I had a right to know.’

‘Know what? That there was a fifty percent chance that you might have gotten me pregnant?’

‘Yes. Or ten percent. Or even just one . . .’ He sighed, all the fight suddenly going out of him. ‘Don’t you think I’d have come back, even if there was the slightest possibility?’

Sarah looked up sharply.
That
was the thing. The crux of the matter. ‘I didn’t want you to come back because you thought you had to. I needed you to come back because you
wanted
to. Wanted
me
. What kind of woman would I be if I’d have used something like, you know . . .’

‘Being pregnant?’

‘Yes, being pregnant. To trap you.’

‘It seems to have worked with David. Though I’m not sure who’s trapped who.’

‘Evan, I . . .’ Sarah saw how upset he was, and decided that perhaps getting everything in the open was the best thing – for both of them. ‘What was I supposed to do? You weren’t here. I didn’t know for sure who the father was . . .’ She caught herself – uttering those words didn’t perhaps portray her in the best light. ‘I mean, would you have preferred for me to have ruined the biggest break of your career by telling you there was a chance of something that, actually, turned out not to matter?’

‘Of course it matters.’

‘Let me finish. And then, like I said, when David found out, he was so happy that he literally got down on one knee there and then. Then what was I going to do?’

‘You could have said no,’ said Evan, petulantly.

‘And possibly alienate someone who, let’s not forget, might actually have been the father of my child? That wouldn’t have been smart. Especially since there wasn’t anyone else around.’

Evan shook his head slowly. Even though it was Sarah, and not him, who worked in Risk Management, even he could see the sense in that approach – but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

‘Did you have to say “yes” so quickly? At least, without talking to me first?’

She looked pleadingly at him. ‘I was confused. Not thinking straight. Jesus, I’d just found out I was pregnant. It had all come as a bit of a shock – especially the part where David proposed. Plus, what possible reason could I have given him for saying no?’

‘What about me?’ Evan said, realising how selfish that sounded the moment the words left his lips.

‘What about you? Things were great for you. You got to screw me without any real commitment . . .’

‘Or not, as it might have turned out.’

‘That’s not what I meant. You didn’t tell me you were leaving before you slept with me, and that didn’t stop you.’

‘But I didn’t know! And besides, you didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend before you slept with me!’ Evan put his head in his hands. ‘What chance did I have?’

‘You could have fought for me,’ said Sarah, softly.

‘Seems to me you’d already made your decision – particularly since you were quite happy to get engaged to someone else when you might have been carrying my baby.
Our
baby.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘No? American girls seem to be allowed to date as many people as they like, so are they allowed to get engaged to lots of people at the same time too? Or is that just the Mormons?’

‘That’s not fair, Evan.’

‘Because while we’re at it, you had it pretty good too. David and me, making fools of ourselves over you.’

‘Is that how you really see it?’

‘How else am I supposed to see it? You played me, Sarah. Even if I’d stayed, and we’d been seeing each other, would you ever have told me about David, or would you just have kept going out with both of us?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Really? I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d even gone and got engaged to him just to see what my reaction would be. Whether I’d feel I had to ask you the same question. If I’d buy you a bigger ring. Would that have made the difference?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Well excuse me, but I don’t know what other interpretation I could possibly put on it. You had your fun with me, and then when push came to shove, you decided that David was the better bet – and especially as a father – even if it wasn’t his kid.’ Evan held his hands up in surrender. ‘So there you have it. I’m obviously wasting my time. Because if you didn’t even think it was important to let me know I was maybe going to be a dad, then that just proves how little you thought of me.’

Sarah glanced around the park. Their raised voices were starting to attract a bit of interest from the half-dozen or so people sitting on the other benches, and she deeply hoped there was no-one from her office listening this time.