The Bridesmaid's Baby Bump (10 page)

‘Except its father’s name,’ he said.

Eliza was taken aback. She’d expected him to talk about private schooling, a mansion, travel, the best of everything as far as material goods went. Not the one intangible thing she could not provide.

‘Is
that
what this is about?’ she said. ‘Some patriarchal thing?’

‘What is that meant to mean?’ He stared at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted horns. ‘This is about making my child legitimate. Giving it its rightful place in the world.’

My child
. How quickly he had claimed her baby as his own.

‘Legitimate? What does
that
mean these days?’ she asked.

He gave a short, sharp bark of laughter she’d never heard from him before. ‘I went through hell as a kid because I was illegitimate. Life for a boy with no father was no fun at all.’ His mouth set in a grim line.

‘That was thirty years ago, Jake,’ she said, trying not to sound combative about an issue that was obviously sensitive for him. ‘Attitudes have changed now.’

‘Have they really? I wonder...I walked the walk. Not just the bullying from the kids, but the sneering from the adults towards my mother, the insensitivity of the schoolteachers. Father’s Day at school was the worst day of the year. The kids all making cards and gifts for their dads... Me with no one. I don’t want to risk putting my child through what I went through.’

He traced the slight crookedness of his nose with his index finger. The imperfection only made him more handsome, Eliza had always thought.

‘Surely it wasn’t such a stigma then?’ she asked.

He scowled. ‘You have no idea, do you?’ he said. ‘Born into a family with a father who provided for you. Who gave you his name. His protection.’

Eliza felt this was spiralling away from her. Into something so much deeper than she’d realised. ‘No, I don’t. Have any idea, I mean.’

One of her first memories was of her father lifting her for the first time up onto a horse’s back, with big, gentle hands. How proud he’d been of her fearlessness. No matter what had come afterwards, she had that. Other scenes of her father and her with their beloved horses jostled against the edges of her memory.

Jake’s face was set into such grim lines he almost looked ugly. ‘Every time I got called the B-word I had to answer the insult with my fists. My mother cried the first time I came home with a broken nose. She soon ran out of tears. Until the day I got big enough to deliver some broken noses of my own.’

Eliza shuddered at the aggression in his voice, but at the same time her heart went out to that little boy. ‘I didn’t realise how bad it was not to have a dad at home.’

‘It’s a huge, aching gap.’

His green eyes were clouded with a sadness that tore at her.

‘Not one I want my own child to fall into.’

‘Why wasn’t your father around?’

‘Because he was a selfish pig of a man who denied my existence. Is that a good enough answer?’

The bitterness in his voice shocked Eliza. She imagined a dear little boy, with a shock of blond hair and green eyes, suffering a pain more intense than that of any broken nose. She yearned to comfort him but didn’t know what she could say about such a deep-seated hurt. At the same time she had to hold back on her feelings of sympathy when it came to Jake. She had to be on top of her game if Jake was going to get tough.

He sighed. Possibly he didn’t realise the depth of anguish in that sigh.

She couldn’t stop herself from placing her hand over his. ‘I’m sorry, Jake. It was his loss.’

He nodded a silent acknowledgment.

Back in Port Douglas she had yearned for Jake to share his deeper side with her. Now she’d been tossed into its dark depths and she felt she was drowning in a sea of hurts and secrets, pulled every which way by conflicting currents. On top of her nausea, and her worries about handling life as a single mother, she wasn’t sure she had the emotional fortitude to deal with this.

‘Do you know anything about your father?’

About the man who was, she realised with a shock, her unborn child’s grandfather. Jake’s mother would be his or her grandmother. Through their son or daughter she and Jake would be connected for the rest of their lives—whether they wanted to be or not.

‘It’s a short, ugly story,’ he said, his mouth a grim line. ‘My mother was a trainee nurse at a big Brisbane training hospital. She was very pretty and very naïve. He was a brilliant, handsome doctor and she fell for him. She didn’t know he was engaged to a girl from a wealthy family. He seduced her. She fell pregnant. He didn’t want to know about it. She got booted out of her job in disgrace and slunk home to her parents at the Gold Coast.’

The father handsome, the mother pretty... Both obviously intelligent... For the first time a thought flashed through Eliza’s head. Would the baby look like her or like Jake? Be as smart? It wasn’t speculation she felt she could share with him.

‘That’s the end of it?’ she said. ‘What about child support?’

‘Not a cent. He was tricky. My mother’s family couldn’t afford lawyers. She wanted nothing to do with him. Just to get on with her life. My grandparents helped raise me, though they didn’t have much. It was a struggle.’

Poor little Jake. Imagine growing up with
that
as his heritage. Before the drought her parents had loved to tell the story of how they had met at an agricultural show—her dad competing in the Western riding, her mum winning ribbons for her scones and fruitcake. She wondered if they remembered it now. Would her child want to know how she and his or her dad had met? How would she explain why they weren’t together?

‘You never met him?’ she asked.

‘As a child, no.’ Jake’s mouth curled with contempt. ‘But when media reports started appearing on the “young genius” who’d become a billionaire, he came sniffing around, looking for his long-lost son.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Kicked him to the kerb—like he’d sent my mother packing.’

Eliza shuddered at the strength of vengeful satisfaction in his voice. Jake would make a formidable enemy if crossed.

* * *

Jake got up from the bed. It was hard to think straight, sitting so close to Eliza She looked so wan and frail, somehow even more beautiful. Her usual sweet, floral scent had a sharp overtone of hospital from the bandage on her hand, which reminded him of what she had been through. He would never forget that terrifying moment when he’d thought she had stopped breathing.

He fought a powerful impulse to fold her in his arms and hold her close. She needed him, and yet he couldn’t seem to make her see that. He wanted to look after her. Make sure she and the baby had everything they needed. If his own father had looked after his mother the way he wanted to look after Eliza, how different his life might have been. Yet he sensed a battle on his hands even to get access to his child.

He hadn’t intended to confide in her about his father. Next thing he’d be spilling the details of his criminal record. Of his darkest day of despair when he’d thought he couldn’t endure another minute of his crappy life. But he’d hoped telling her something of his past might make her more amenable to the idea of getting married to give their child a name.

‘I’m asking you again to marry me, Eliza. Before the baby is born. So it—’

‘Can you please not call the baby
it
? Try
he
or
she.
This is a little person we’re talking about here. I thought you got that?’

He felt safer calling the baby
it.
Calling it
he
or
she
made it seem too real. And the more real it seemed, the more he would get attached. And he couldn’t let himself get too attached if Eliza was going to keep the baby from him.

He didn’t know a lot about custody arrangements for a child with single parents—though he suspected he was soon to know a whole lot more. But he doubted the courts were much inclined to give custody of a newborn to anyone other than its mother. No matter how much money he threw at the best possible legal representation. Once it got a little older that would be a different matter. His child would not grow up without a father the way he had.

‘I want you to marry me before the baby is born so
he
or
she
is legitimate,’ he said.

She glared at him. ‘Jake, I’ve told you I don’t want to get married. To you or to anyone else. And if I did it would be because I was in love with my husband-to-be.’

Jake gritted his teeth. He had married before for love and look where it had got him. ‘That sounds very idealistic, Eliza. But there can be pragmatic reasons to marry, too. There have been throughout history. To secure alliances or fortunes. Or to gain property or close a business deal. Or to legitimise a child.’

Slowly she shook her head. A lock of her hair fell across her eyes. She needed a haircut. She’d obviously been neglecting herself. Why couldn’t she see that she needed someone to look after her?
Vulnerable.
That was what Andie had called her. Yet Eliza just didn’t seem to see it.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘I wish you could hear how you sound, Jake. Cold. Ruthless. This isn’t a business deal we’re brokering. It’s our lives. You. Me. A loveless marriage.’

‘A way to ensure our child is legitimate.’

‘What about a way to have a woman squirming under a man’s thumb? That was
my
experience of marriage. And I have no desire to experience it again.’

‘Really?’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want to see you squirming. Or under my thumb.’ Jake held up his fingers in a fist, his thumb to the side. ‘See? It’s not nearly large enough to hold you down.’

It was a feeble attempt at levity and he knew it. But this was the most difficult conversation he had ever had. The stakes were so much higher than in even the most lucrative of potential business deals.

‘I don’t know whether to take that as an insult or not. I’m not
that
big.’

‘No, you’re not. In fact you’re not big enough. You’ve lost weight, Eliza. You need to gain it. I can look after you as well as the baby.’

Her chin lifted in the stubborn way he was beginning to recognise.

‘I don’t
want
to be looked after. I can look after both myself and my baby on my own. You can see him or her, play a role in their life. But I most certainly don’t want to
marry
you.’

‘You’re making a mistake, Eliza. Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider?’

‘You can’t force me to marry you, Jake.’

‘But I can make life so much easier for you if you do,’ he said.

‘Love is the only reason to marry. But love hasn’t entered the equation for us. For that reason alone, I can’t marry you.’

‘That’s your final word?’

She nodded.

He got up. ‘Then you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.’

Eliza’s already pale face drained of every remaining scrap of colour.
‘What?’

She leapt up from the bed, had to steady herself as she seemed to rock on her feet as if she were dizzy. But she pushed aside his steadying hand and glared at him.

‘You heard me,’ he said. ‘I intend to seek custody.’

‘You can’t have custody over an unborn child.’ Her voice was high and strained.

‘You’re about to see what I can do,’ he said.

He turned on his heel, strode to the top of the stairs. Flimsy stairs. Too dangerous. She couldn’t bring up a child in this house. He ignored the inner voice that told him this house was a hundred times safer and nicer than the welfare housing apartment he’d grown up in.
Nothing but the best for his child.

She put up her hand in a feeble attempt to stop him. ‘Jake. You can’t go.’

‘I’m gone, Eliza. I suggest you get back to bed and rest. An agency nurse will be arriving in an hour. I’ve employed her to look after you for the next three days, as per doctor’s orders. I suggest you let her in and allow her to care for you. Otherwise you might end up back in hospital.’

He swung himself on to the top step.

‘I’ll see you in court.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

S
O
IT
HAD
come to this.
Eliza placed her hand protectively on her bump as she rode the elevator up to the twenty-third floor of the prestigious building in the heart of the central business district of Sydney, where the best law firms had their offices. She hadn’t heard from Jake for three weeks. All communication had been through their lawyers. Except for one challenging email.

Now she was headed to a meeting with Jake and his lawyers to finalise a legal document that spelled out in detail a custody and support agreement for the unborn Baby Dunne.

She must have paled at the thought of the confrontation to come, because her lawyer gave her arm a squeeze of support. Jake had, of course, engaged the most expensive and well-known family law attorney in Sydney to be on his side of the battle lines.

He’d sent her an email.

Are you sure you can afford not to marry me, Eliza? Just your lawyer’s fees alone will stop you in your tracks.

What he didn’t realise, high up there in his billionaire world, where the almighty dollar ruled, was that not everybody could be bought. She had an older cousin who was a brilliant family lawyer. And Cousin Maree was so outraged at what Jake was doing that she was representing Eliza
pro bono
. Well, not quite for free. Eliza had agreed that Party Queens would organise the most spectacular twenty-first birthday party possible for Maree’s daughter.

Now, Maree squeezed her arm reassuringly. ‘Chin up. Just let me do the talking, okay?’

Eliza nodded, rather too numbed at the thought of what she was about to face to do anything else
but
keep quiet.

She saw Jake the moment she entered the large, traditionally furnished meeting room. Her heart gave such a jolt she had to hold on for support to the back of one of the chairs that were ranged around the boardroom table. He was standing tall, in front of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on a magnificent mid-morning view of Sydney Harbour. The Bridge loomed so closely she felt she could reach out and touch it.

Jake was wearing a deep charcoal-grey business suit, immaculately tailored to his broad shoulders and tapered to his waist. His hair—darker now, less sun-streaked—crept over his collar. No angel wings in sight—rather the forked tail and dark horns of the demon who had tormented her for the last three weeks with his demands.

At the sound of her entering the room Jake turned. For a split second his gaze met hers. There was a flash of recognition—and something else that was gone so soon she scarcely registered it. But it could have been regret. Then the shutters came down to blank his expression.

‘Eliza,’ he said curtly, acknowledging her presence with a brief nod in her direction.

‘Jake,’ she said coolly, despite her inner turmoil.

Her brain, so firmly in charge up until now, had been once more vanquished by her libido—she refused to entertain for even one second the thought that it might be her heart—which flamed into life at the sight of the beautiful man who had been her lover for those four, glorious days. So treacherous her libido, still to clamour for this man. Her lover who had become her enemy—the hero of her personal fairytale transformed into the villain.

Eliza let Jake’s lawyer’s assistant pull out the chair for her. Before she sat she straightened her shoulders and stood proud. Her tailored navy dress with its large white collar was tucked and pleated to accommodate and show off her growing bump. She hoped her silent message was loud and clear—
she
was in possession of the prize.

But at the same time as she displayed the ace in her hand she felt swept by a wave of inexplicable longing for Jake to be sharing the milestones of her pregnancy with her. She hadn’t counted on the loneliness factor of single motherhood. There was a vague bubbling sensation that meant the baby was starting to kick, she thought. At fifteen weeks it was too soon for her to be feeling vigorous activity; she knew that from the ‘what to expect’ pregnancy books and websites she read obsessively. But she had a sudden vision of Jake, resting his hand on her tummy, a look of expectant joy on his face as he waited to feel the kicking of their baby’s tiny feet.

That could only happen in a parallel universe. Jake had no interest in her other than as an incubator.

She wondered, too, if he had really thought ahead to his interaction with their son or daughter? His motivation seemed purely to be making up for the childhood he felt he’d lost because of his own despicable father. To try to right a family wrong and force a certain lifestyle on her whether she liked it or not.

What if their child—who might be equally as smart and stubborn as his or her parents—had other ideas about how he or she wanted to live? He or she might be as fiercely independent as both her, Eliza, and the paternal grandmother—Jake’s mother.

Would she ever get to meet his mother? Unlikely. Unless she was there when Eliza handed over their child for Jake’s court-prescribed visits.

That was not how it was meant to be.
She ached at the utter
wrongness
of this whole arrangement.

Jake settled in to a chair directly opposite her, his lawyer to his right. That was
his
silent statement, she supposed. Confrontation, with the battlefield between them.
Bring it on,
she thought.

It was fortunate that the highly polished dark wooden table was wide enough so there was no chance of his knees nudging hers, her foot brushing against his when she shifted in her seat. Because, despite all the hostility, her darn libido still longed for his touch. It was insane—and must surely be blamed on the up-and-down hormone fluctuations of pregnancy.

Maree cleared her throat. ‘Shall we start the proceedings? This is very straightforward.’

Maree had explained all this to her before, but Eliza listened intently as her cousin spoke, at the same time keeping her gaze firmly fixed on Jake’s face. He gave nothing away—not the merest flicker of reaction. He ran his finger along his collar and tugged at his tie—obviously uncomfortable at being ‘trussed up’. But she guessed he’d wanted to look like an intimidating billionaire businessman in front of the lawyers.

Maree explained how legally there could not be any formal custody proceedings over an unborn child. However, the parties had agreed to prepare a document outlining joint custody to present to a judge after the event of a live birth.

Eliza had known that particular phrase would be coming and bit her lip hard. She caught Jake’s eye, and his slight nod indicated his understanding of how difficult it was for her to hear it. Because its implication was that something could go wrong in the meantime. Her greatest fear was that she would lose this miracle baby—although her doctor had assured her the pregnancy was progressing very well.

Jake’s hands were gripped so tightly together that his knuckles showed white—perhaps he feared it too. He had been so brilliant that day he’d taken her to hospital.

Eliza was looking for crumbs to indicate that Jake wasn’t the enemy, that this was all a big misunderstanding. That brief show of empathy from him might be it. Then she remembered why she was here in the first place. To be coerced into signing an agreement she didn’t want to sign.

She was being held to a threat—hinted at rather than spoken out in the open—that if she didn’t co-operate Jake would use his influence to steer wealthy clients away from Party Queens. Right at a time when her ongoing intermittent nausea and time away from work, plus the departure of their new head chef to a rival firm, meant her beloved company—and her livelihood—was tipping towards a precipice. What choice did she have?

Maree continued in measured tones, saying that both parties acknowledged Jake Marlowe’s paternity, so there would be no need for a court-ordered genetic test once the baby was born. She listed the terms of the proposed custody agreement, starting with limited visits by the father while the child was an infant, progressing to full-on division of weekends and vacations. The baby’s legal name would be Baby Dunne-Marlowe—once the sex was known a first name satisfactory to both parents would be agreed upon.

Then Jake’s lawyer took over, listing the generous support package to be provided by Mr Marlowe—all medical expenses paid, a house to be gifted in the child’s name and held in trust by Mr Marlowe, a trust fund to be set up for—

Eliza half got up from her chair. She couldn’t endure this sham a second longer. ‘That’s enough. I know what’s in the document. Just give it to me and I’ll sign.’

She subsided in her chair. Bent her head to take Maree’s counsel.

‘Are you sure?’ her cousin asked in a low voice. ‘You don’t want further clarification of the trust fund provisions? Or the—?’

‘No. I just want this to be over.’

The irony of it struck her. Jake had been worried about gold-diggers. Now he was insisting she receive money she didn’t want, binding her with ties that were choking all the joyful anticipation of her pregnancy. She tried to focus on the baby. That precious little person growing safe and happy inside her. Her unborn child was all that mattered.

She avoided looking at Jake as she signed everywhere the multiple-paged document indicated her signature was required, stabbing the pen so hard the paper tore.

* * *

Jake followed Eliza as she departed the conference room, apparently so eager to get away from him that she’d broken into a half-run. She was almost to the bank of elevators, her low-heeled shoes tapping on the marble floor, before he caught up with her.

‘Eliza,’ he called.

She didn’t turn around, but he was close enough to hear her every word.

‘I have nothing to say to you, Jake. You’ve got what you wanted, so just go away.’

Only she didn’t say
go away.
She used far pithier language.

She reached the elevator and jabbed the elevator button. Once, twice, then kept on jabbing it.

‘That won’t get it here any faster,’ he said, and immediately regretted the words.
Why had he said something so condescending?
He cursed his inability to find the right words in moments of high tension and emotion.

She turned on him, blue eyes flashing the brightest he’d seen them. Bright with threatening tears, he realised. Tears of anger—directed at
him
.

‘Of course it won’t. But I live in hope. Because the sooner I can get away from you, the better. Even a second or two would help.’ She went back to jabbing the button.

Her baby bump had grown considerably since he’d last seen her. She looked the picture of an elegant, perfectly groomed businesswoman. The smart, feisty Eliza he had come to— Come to what? Respect? Admire? Something more than that. Something, despite all they’d gone through, he couldn’t put a name to.

‘You look well,’ he said.
She looked more beautiful than ever.

With a sigh of frustration she dropped her finger from the elevator button. Aimed a light kick at the elevator door. She turned to face him, her eyes narrowed with hostility.

‘Don’t try and engage me in polite chit-chat. Just because you’ve forced me to sign a proposed custody agreement it doesn’t mean you own me—like you’re trying to own my baby.’

You didn’t own children—and you couldn’t force a woman to marry you.
Belatedly he’d come to that realisation.

Jake didn’t often admit to feeling ashamed. But shame was what had overwhelmed him during the meeting, as he’d watched the emotions flickering over Eliza’s face, so easy to read.

He’d been a teenage troublemaker—the leader of a group of other angry, alienated kids like himself. Taller and more powerful than the others, he’d used his off-the-charts IQ and well-developed street-smarts to control and intimidate the gang—even those older than him.

He’d thought he’d put all that long behind him. Then in that room, sitting opposite Eliza—proud, brave Eliza—it had struck him in the gut like a physical blow. He’d behaved as badly towards her as he had in his worst days as a teenage gang leader. Jim Hill would be ashamed of him—but not as ashamed as he was of himself.

‘I’m sorry, Eliza. I didn’t mean it to go this far.’

She blinked away the threatening tears. ‘You played dirty, Jake. I wouldn’t marry you, so you brought in the big guns. I would have played fair with you. Visitation rights. Even the Dunne-Marlowe name. For the sake of our baby. I was
glad
you wanted to play a role in our child’s life. But I wasn’t in a space for making life-changing decisions right then. I’d just got out of hospital.’

How had he let this get so far?
‘I was wrong. I should have—’

‘Now the document is signed you think you can placate me? Forget it. Don’t you see? You’re so concerned about giving this child your name, you’re bequeathing to him or her something much worse. A mother who resents her baby’s father. Who hates him for the way she’s had to fight against him imposing his will on her, riding roughshod over her feelings.’

Now he was on the ground, being kicked from all sides. And the blows were much harder than those Eliza had given the elevator door.

‘
Hate?
That’s a strong word.’

‘Not strong enough for how I feel about you,’ she said, tight-lipped. ‘I reckon you’ve let the desire to win overcome all your common sense and feelings of decency.’

Of course. He’d been guilty of
over
-
thinking
on a grand scale. ‘I just want to do the right thing by our child,’ he said. ‘To look after it and to look after you too, Eliza. You need me.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t need you. At one stage I wanted you. And...and I...I could have cared for you. When you danced me around that ballroom in Montovia I thought I was on the brink of something momentous in my life.’

‘So did I,’ he said slowly.

‘Then there was Port Douglas. Leaving you seemed so
wrong.
We had something
real.
Only we were so darn intent on protecting ourselves from hurt we didn’t recognise it and we walked away from it. The baby gave us a second chance. To be friends. Maybe more than friends. But we blew that too.’