Lucy Gordon - The Pregnancy Bond

‘Is that all our marriage was to you? Messing up your life? And our divorce-an escape?’

‘As much for you as for me,’ she said, recovering herself. ‘Think how you’ll enjoy your freedom now when the luscious ladies crowd around.’

‘But I always came home to you,’ he observed quietly.

‘Eventually-yes. And I was supposed to be grateful.’

‘That’s not-’

He broke off, exasperated as some new arrivals interrupted them. A young woman threw her arms around Kelly and pressed a gift on her.

‘This is from Harry. He’s terribly sorry he couldn’t get back in time, but he sends you this, and says he’ll call in a few days. He misses you terribly.’

‘I miss him,’ Kelly said, unwrapping the gift which turned out to be a small alabaster figure, exquisite and costly. ‘This is so lovely.’

More arrivals. A man said, ‘Miss Harmon-’

‘Kelly, please.’

‘Kelly, I’m sorry to be so late-’

She said the right things and took charge of the newcomers. Jake drained his glass and the next Kelly saw he was dancing smoochily with Marianne. She gave him only the briefest glance. The days when she sat on the sideline watching Jake work the room were over.

In the early hours the party began to break up. Carl was collecting plates and glasses, taking them to the kitchen, where Frank was busily stacking the sink.

‘Push off!’ Carl told him. ‘I’ve appointed myself to washing-up duty.’

‘Nobody needs you,’ Frank objected. ‘Go home, there’s a good fellow, and leave everything to me.’

‘Leave Kelly alone with a predator like you?’ Carl demanded.

‘So who isn’t a predator?’ Kelly challenged, much entertained. ‘You?’

At once he slipped an arm around her waist. ‘I can be anything you want me to be,’ he said throatily.

‘Well, right now I need a kitchen maid.’

‘Great. You’ve got me. Tell him to go. We’ll do the most ecstatic washing-up the world has ever known, and afterwards-’

As he spoke he was gently pushing her backwards over his arm in a theatrical simulation of passion. He was about to drop his lips on her throat when Frank seized him by the back of the neck, howling, ‘Git outta here. She’s mine!’

‘Don’t stop him,’ Kelly begged. ‘I can’t wait to hear about afterwards.’

But Frank grasped her by the waist, pulling her free so firmly that she staggered and had to be saved from falling by both of them.

‘My afterwards is more interesting than his afterwards,’ he said.

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Carl demanded.

‘You pair of maniacs,’ she said, chuckling.

They stood holding her, one on each side, exchanging glares.

‘I wouldn’t trust either of them with your crockery,’ came a voice, and Kelly looked up to see Jake lounging in the doorway, grinning. ‘Clear off, both of you.’

‘I can give my own orders, thank you,’ Kelly said, ruffled.

‘Go on, then, tell them to go.’

‘When I’m ready.’

The movement of Jake’s head was barely perceptible, but Carl and Frank saw it and it was enough to make them shuffle their feet and cough.

‘Hey, hold on,’ Kelly cried as they edged to the door. ‘Ignore him. He’s had no rights since ten-thirty this morning.’

‘You don’t need them; you’ve got me,’ Jake said.

‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

‘’Bye, fellers,’ Jake said remorselessly.

Speechless with indignation, Kelly watched as her two admirers picked up their jackets and departed, for all the world as though Jake were the master of the house. At the door Carl turned to blow her a kiss and shrug helplessly, as if to say, What could you do?

Then she was alone with Jake.

‘You’ve got a nerve,’ she seethed. ‘Ordering people out of my home. Just who do you think you are?’

‘A few days ago I’d have known how to answer that, but when I arrive on our wedding anniversary and find my wife putting out the flags because the anniversary’s cancelled-’

‘Don’t talk as though the divorce came as a surprise to you.’

‘Let’s say it came as a surprise that you went through with it.’

‘Oh, I see. You didn’t think I had the guts.’

‘I didn’t think you had the stupidity,’ he yelled. ‘Or the pig-headedness, or the short-sightedness. Where would you like me to stop?’

‘Right there. You’re talking nonsense. Our divorce was inevitable from the moment you slept with Olympia Statton.’

Goaded, Jake roared to heaven. ‘How many times does it have to be said? I did not sleep with Olympia.’

‘Oh, sure, you just did a little detour via her hotel room in Paris, at three in the morning, and left an hour later.’

‘I’ve never denied I went to her hotel room-’

‘Or why!’

‘All right! I went in for reasons I shouldn’t have done, but I changed my mind almost at once. I didn’t want to turn and run like a kid who’d lost his nerve, so I hung around drinking and making excuses to talk. Then I told her I wasn’t feeling well, and left. How was I to know that it was a set-up and the entire damned crew was out there timing me?’

‘Luckily for me.’

‘Unluckily for both of us. I didn’t sleep with Olympia, but they think I did, and you listened to them, not me. Dammit, even Olympia denied it, and you as good as called her a liar to her face.’

Which was what she wanted, Kelly thought. Oh, yes, Olympia had denied it all right, but she’d done it in a way that was half an admission, shaking her head earnestly so that her blonde hair swung around her delicate features, as if to say, You don’t really think a man could resist this, do you?

And Kelly hadn’t thought anything of the kind, any more than she’d thought Jake could be alone in a bedroom with that seductive, half-clad body, and not take matters to an inevitable conclusion.

‘Olympia said what you wanted,’ she told Jake now. ‘And later you admitted it, have you forgotten?’

‘I never admitted sleeping with Olympia,’ Jake said swiftly. ‘In the divorce papers I admitted “adultery with an unknown woman”-’

‘So that Olympia’s fair name shouldn’t be sullied. You’re a real knight in shining armour, Jake, you know that?’

‘I didn’t do it for her, I did it for you-’

‘From the goodness of your heart,’ she said sarcastically.

‘You were determined to have that divorce, one way or another. It wasn’t Olympia. She was just your excuse to be rid of me. So I made it easy for you. If it hadn’t been her it would have been something else.’

‘Something or someone?’

‘Whatever you’ve decided in that stubborn head of yours.’

‘Skip it, Jake, that’s all in the past. We’ve left it behind.’

‘Oh, sure! You settled what you wanted to believe and moved on.’

‘Wanted to believe?’ She whirled on him, eyes flashing. ‘If you think I wanted to believe that a man I used to love went out tom-catting then you’ve got rocks in your head. I believed it when I had to. And that was after years of refusing to face facts.’

‘Facts? What damned facts?’ he roared. ‘Are you suggesting that I made a career of infidelity?’

‘I’ve always wondered. What I did know for sure was that I spent my time waiting for you while you took off around the world at the behest of Olympia, who always seemed to have some vital job for you when we had an anniversary or a birthday coming up.’

‘Olympia is my producer; she trusted me with the assignments that made my name. I almost owe her my career-no, dammit!’ He checked himself, muttering curses under his breath. ‘No! What am I saying? It’s you I owe things to, that time you supported me so that I had nothing to do but hunt for assignments-I haven’t forgotten.’

‘Yes, you have,’ she said, but without rancour. She’d calmed down now. ‘And why shouldn’t you? It’s a long time ago. Never live in the past.’

‘Kelly-’

‘I’m the past; she’s the present-’

‘Kelly, please-’

‘And all our divorce did was recognise that. Now, I’m going to put the rest of the things in the sink.’

FOR the next few minutes Jake helped her clear away, and Kelly gave up the attempt to make him go. She washed and he dried, until at last he said, ‘I don’t know where to put things away in this place.’

‘Leave them and sit down while I make some coffee.’

When she took the coffee in a few minutes later she found him sprawled on her sofa, dead to the world. It was a familiar sight. How often in the past had she yearned for him to return, only for him to collapse with jet-lag as soon as he walked in the door?

The clink of the cups roused him and he pulled himself upright, rubbing his eyes, then closing them again at once.

‘Long flight?’ she asked sympathetically.

‘Ten hours. I’m dead.’

He got to his feet, yawning and stretching, and began to wander around her apartment. ‘Nice,’ he observed. ‘Shops nearby, that little park outside, not too far from the college, just the right size.’ He was opening doors as he spoke.

‘Hey,’ she said indignantly. ‘This is my home.’

‘It’s all right, I’m only snooping,’ he said, so innocently that it was a moment before she realised he’d admitted the offence. He’d always done that. It was how he got away with murder.

‘Anyway, I already know what your bedroom looks like because people were leaving their coats here,’ he observed, standing in the doorway and regarding the double bed.

‘Come away from there,’ she said firmly.

‘What’s this one?’ he asked, swinging around to another door. ‘Let me discover your dark secrets.’

‘This’ was the tiny second bedroom that was filled with boxes.

‘I haven’t been here long and there are things I haven’t found a place for,’ Kelly explained. ‘So tonight I just tossed them all in there. I’ll get around to it soon.’

‘That’s not like you,’ he observed, letting her lead him away.

‘What isn’t?’

‘Leaving things. You were always so tidy.’

‘I guess my priorities have changed. I’m too busy to fuss about things these days.’

Jake sat down and immediately moved to reach for something that had been sticking into his back. It was a book.

‘Hey, what’s this?’ he demanded, studying it. ‘Moving On, In Bed and In Life!’

‘Marianne gave it to me,’ she chuckled. ‘It’s one of those New Age psychobabble things. Just a laugh.’

‘A laugh, eh? And all these bookmarks? Are those the places where you’re laughing hardest? Or did Marianne put them there?’

‘Some are hers, some mine.’

‘Which is which?’

‘Work it out. You met her tonight. The way you two danced you must know her very well by now. You should have followed up. She’s ready to move on and, goodness knows, you must be. Did she give you her number? Because if not I can-’

‘Will you let me organise my own sex-life?’ he demanded, harassed. ‘And what does this mean?’ He was stabbing the book which was open at a chapter headed ‘Time For a Toy Boy?’ ‘Did she mark this?’

‘No, Marianne’s done toy boys,’ Kelly said cheerfully. ‘If she wanted another one she wouldn’t be bothering with you. Let’s face it, Jake. You hardly qualify, do you? What are you? Thirty-eight?’

‘Thirty-two, as you well know.’

‘Are you sure? I’ve always thought-I mean you look-well, anyway, thirty-two is still past your best, and-’

‘All right, all right,’ he said, grimly appreciative of this wit at his expense. ‘So I take it the bookmark’s yours?’

She glanced over and shrugged. ‘Sure.’

‘Nice reading matter you go in for, Mrs Lindley,’ he said scathingly.

‘Miss Harmon, and it’s none of your business what I read.’

He recited aloud. “‘Don’t be half-hearted about the change you’re making. Feel the sense of liberation as you chuck out unwanted possessions”-would that include unwanted husbands, by any chance?’

‘Oh, don’t be a dog in the manger. You were bored to tears with me. You’re just mad because I made the first move to end our marriage-unless, of course, you consider Olympia the first move, which you could-’

‘Do not,’ he said dangerously, ‘mention her again.’

Kelly shrugged. ‘OK. Nuff said-about everything. Give me back my book.’

‘Wait, I haven’t finished. Where was I? “Unwanted possessions. Replace them with something as different as possible. A change of partners works wonders. If years of sex with the same man has left you feeling bored-” now we’re coming to it “-your new lover should be somebody young. He’ll bring freshness and novelty to your bed, as well as strength, vigour, and a sense of adventure.”’ He set the book down. ‘You must be older than I realised. I wouldn’t have thought you’d reached the age for a toy boy.’

‘Shows how wrong you can be,’ she teased, running her hands over the tight black satin. ‘Underneath this I’m all droop and sag.’