The Bridesmaid's Baby Bump (9 page)

But Andie told it how it was. And Eliza was her dearest friend, whom she would defend with every weapon at hand. Jake wouldn’t have appreciated a face-to-face confrontation with her on the steps of the hospital. Not when he was feeling so on edge. Not after the conversation he’d already had with her on the phone.

When he’d called to tell her Eliza was in hospital Andie been shocked to hear the reason. Shocked and yet thrilled for Eliza, as she knew how much her friend had wanted to have children but had thought she couldn’t conceive.

‘This is a miracle for her!’ Andie had exclaimed, and had promptly started to sob on the phone. Which had been further proof—not that he’d needed it—that Eliza had not been lying. Then, in true sisterly fashion, Andie had hit Jake with some advice. Advice he hadn’t thought he’d needed but he’d shut up and listened.

‘Don’t you hurt her, Jake,’ she’d said, her voice still thick with tears. ‘I had no idea you two had had a...a thing. Eliza is Party Queens family.
You’re
family. She thinks she’s so strong and independent, but this pregnancy will make her vulnerable. She’s not some casual hook-up girl. You can’t just write a cheque and walk away.’

‘It’s not like that—’ he’d started to protest. But the harsh truth of it, put into words, had hit him like blows to the gut.

Eliza was connected to his life through his best friends, Dominic and Tristan, and their wives. He could argue all he liked that their fling had been a mutually convenient scratching of the itch of their attraction. But that sounded so disrespectful to Eliza. In his heart he knew he’d wanted much more time with her. Which was why he had been considering a move to Sydney. But Eliza’s pregnancy had put everything on a very different footing.

Andie had continued. ‘Oh, what the heck? This is none of my business. You’re a big boy.
You
figure out what Eliza needs. And give it to her in spades.’

Jake was beginning to see what Eliza needed. And also what
he
needed. He’d never been so scared than when she’d passed out on the chair while they were waiting for the ambulance to arrive. In a moment of stricken terror he’d thought he was going to lose her. And it had hit him with the power of a sledgehammer hurtling towards his head how much she had come to mean to him—as a friend as well as a lover. Suddenly a life without Eliza in it in some way had become untenable.

But the phone call with Andie wasn’t what had him still staggering, as if that sledgehammer really had connected. It was the baby.

First he’d been hit with the reality of absorbing the fact that Eliza was expecting a baby—and the realisation that it had irrevocably changed things between them. Then he’d been stricken by seeing Eliza so frighteningly ill. But all that had been eclipsed by the events at the hospital.

Once the medical team had stabilised Eliza with fluids—she’d been conscious enough to refuse any anti-nausea medication—they’d wheeled her down, with him in attendance, to have an ultrasound to check that all was well with her developing foetus.

The technician had covered Eliza’s bump with a jelly—cold, and it had made her squeal—and then pressed an electronic wand over her bump. The device had emitted high-frequency soundwaves that had formed an image when they’d come into contact with the embryo.

Up until the moment when the screen had come alive with the image, the pregnancy had been an abstract thing to Jake. Even—if he were to be really honest with himself—an
inconvenient
thing. But there on the screen had appeared a
baby
. Only about six centimetres at this stage, the radiographer had explained, but a totally recognisable baby. With hands and feet and a
face
.

To the palpable relief of everyone in the room, a strong and steady amplified heartbeat had been clearly audible. The baby had been moving around and showing no signs of being affected by Eliza’s inability to keep down so very little food over the last weeks. It had looked as if it was having a ball, floating in the amniotic fluid, secure in Eliza’s womb.

Jake had felt as if his heart had stopped beating, and his lungs had gone into arrest as, mesmerised, he’d watched that image. He was a man who never cried but he’d felt tears of awe and amazement threatening to betray him. He hadn’t been able to look at Eliza—the sheer joy shining from her face would have tipped him over. Without seeming to be aware she was doing it, she had reached for his hand and gripped it hard. All he’d been able to do was squeeze it back.

This was a real baby. A child. A
person
. Against all odds he and Eliza had created a new life.

What he had to do had become very clear.

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
HE
NEXT
DAY
Eliza was surprised at how weak she still felt as Jake helped her up the narrow, steep stairs to her bedroom in the converted attic of her house. She usually bounded up them.

‘Just lean on me,’ he said.

‘I don’t want to lean on anyone,’ she said, more crossly than she had intended.

Forcing herself to keep her distance from this gorgeous man was stressful. Even feeling weak and fatigued, she still fancied him like crazy. But way back in Port Douglas she’d already decided that wasn’t enough. Just because she was pregnant it didn’t change things.

‘Sometimes you have to, Eliza.’

She knew he wasn’t only referring to her taking the physical support his broad shoulders offered.

‘You can’t get through this on your own.’

There was an edge of impatience to his voice she hadn’t heard before. Looking after her the way he’d done yesterday, and now today, wasn’t part of their four-day fling agreement. That had been about uncomplicated fun and uninhibited sex. Now he must feel he was stuck with her when she was unwell. He couldn’t be more wrong. She didn’t need his help.

‘I appreciate your concern, truly I do,’ she said. ‘You’ve been so good to me. But I’m not on my own. I have friends. My GP is only a block away. I spoke to her yesterday after you left the hospital. Both she and the practice nurse can make home visits if required.’

‘You need to be looked after,’ he said stubbornly.

Eliza’s heart sank as she foresaw them clashing over this. She had been perturbed at how Jake had taken over her vacation—how much more perturbing was the thought that he might take over her life?

Eliza reached the top of the stairs. Took the few steps required to take her to her bed and sat down on the edge with a sigh of relief.

‘I’d prefer to look after myself,’ she said. ‘I’m quite capable of it, you know.’

‘It didn’t look that way to me yesterday.’ He swore under his breath. ‘Eliza, what might have happened if I hadn’t got here when I did? What if you’d passed out on the bathroom floor? Hit your head on the way down?’

She paused for a long moment. ‘It’s a very scary thought. I will never be able to thank you enough for being there for me, Jake. Why
did
you come to my house when you did?’

‘The obvious. I didn’t get why you blanked me at the party and I wanted an explanation.’

Her chin lifted. ‘Why did you feel you were owed an explanation? We had a fling. I didn’t want to pick up from where we left off. Enough said.’

‘Now you’re pregnant. That makes it very different. From where I stand, it doesn’t seem like you’re doing a very good job of looking after yourself.’

Her hackles rose. ‘This is all very new to me. It’s a steep learning curve.’ Eliza took a deep, calming breath. She couldn’t let herself get too defensive. Not when Jake had pretty much had to pick her up from the floor.

‘There’s a lot at stake if you don’t learn more quickly,’ he said.

She gritted her teeth. ‘Don’t you think I
know
that? While I was lying there in that hospital bed I kept wondering how I had let myself get into that state.’

‘I suspect you thought the sickness was a natural part of pregnancy. That you had to put up with the nausea. Perhaps if you’d told your friends you were pregnant they might have seen what you were going through wasn’t normal and that you were headed into a danger zone.’

Eliza wasn’t sure whether he was being sympathetic or delivering a reprimand. ‘When did you get to know so much?’ she said, deciding to err on the side of offered sympathy. The direction of where this conversation was beginning to go scared her. It almost sounded as though it might lead into an accusation that she was an incompetent mother—before she’d even give birth.

‘Since yesterday, when the hospital doctor explained it,’ he said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘I learned more than I ever thought I’d need to know about that particular complication.’

How many men would have just dropped her at the hospital and run? She was grateful to Jake—but she did
not
want him to take over.

‘I’ve learned a lot too,’ she said. ‘If I keep on top of the nausea, and don’t let myself get dehydrated, that shouldn’t happen again. I admit this has given me a real shock. I had no reason to think I wouldn’t fly through pregnancy with my usual good health. But the doctors have given me strategies to deal with it. Including more time in the hospital on a drip if required. I’ll be okay.’

He shook his head. ‘I wish I could believe that. But I suspect you’ll be back at Party Queens, dragging a drip on its stand along behind you, before you know it.’

That forced a reluctant smile from her. But he wasn’t smiling and her smile quickly faded. He was spot-on in his assessment of her workaholic tendencies. Though she didn’t appreciate his lack of faith in her ability to look after herself.

‘Jake, trust me—I won’t over-extend myself. Miracles don’t come along too often in a person’s life.’ She placed her hand protectively on her bump. ‘Truth is, this is almost certainly my only chance to have a baby. I won’t jeopardise anything by being foolish. Believe me—if I need help, I’ll ask for it.’

Asking for help didn’t come easily to her. Because with accepting help came loss of control. One of her biggest issues in management training had been learning to delegate. Now it looked as if she might have to learn to give over a degree of control in her private life too. To doctors, nurses, other health professionals. Because she had to consider her baby as well as herself. But she would not give control over to a man.

For a converted attic in a small house, the bedroom was spacious, with an en suite shower room and a study nook as well as sleeping quarters. But Jake was so tall, so broad-shouldered, he made the space seem suddenly cramped.

How she wished things could be different.
Despite all that had happened desire shimmered through her when she feasted her eyes on him, impossibly handsome in black jeans and a black T-shirt. Jake, here in her bedroom, was looking totally smokin’.

Then there was her—with lank hair, yesterday’s clothes, a big wad of sterile gauze taped to the back of her hand where the drip had been, and a plastic hospital ID band still around her wrist. Oh, and pregnant.

Jake paced the length of the room and back several times, to the point when Eliza started to get nervous without really knowing why. He stood in front of the window for a long moment with his back to her. Then pivoted on his heel to turn back to face her.

‘We have to get married,’ he said, without preamble.

Eliza’s mouth went dry and her heart started to thud. She was so shocked all she could do was stare up at him. ‘
What?
’ she finally managed to choke out. ‘Where did
that
come from?’ She pulled herself up from the bed to face him, though her shaky knees told her she really should stay seated.

‘You’re pregnant. It’s the right thing to do.’

He looked over her head rather than directly at her. There was no light in his eyes, no anticipation—nothing of the expression she might expect from a man proposing marriage.

‘Get married because I’m pregnant?’

She knew she was just repeating his statement but she needed time to think.

‘We have to get married,’
he’d commanded. There had been no joy, no feeling, certainly no talk of love—and that hurt more than it should have. Not that
love
had ever come into their relationship
.
Worse, there had been no consultation with her. She’d rank it more as a demand than a proposal. And demands didn’t sit well with her.

What would she have done if he had actually proposed? With words of affection and hope?
She couldn’t think about that. That had never been part of their agreement.

‘You being pregnant is reason enough,’ he said.

‘No, it isn’t. You know I don’t want to marry again. Even if I did, we don’t know each other well enough to consider such a big step.’

The irony of it didn’t escape her. They knew each other well enough to make a baby. Not well enough to spend their lives together.

She shook her head. ‘I can’t do it, Jake.’

The first time she’d married for love—or what she’d thought was love—and it had been a disaster. Why would marrying for less than love be any better? Marrying someone she’d known for such a short time? An even shorter time than she’d known her ex.

‘Your pregnancy changes everything,’ Jake said. His face was set in severe lines.

‘It does. But not in that way.’

‘You’re having a baby.
My
baby. I want to marry you.’

‘Why? For my reputation? Because of the media?’

There was a long pause before he spoke. ‘To give the baby a father,’ he said. ‘The baby deserves to have two parents.’

That was the last reason she would have anticipated from him and it took her aback for a moment. She put her hand to her heart to try and slow its sudden racing. ‘Jake, that’s honourable of you. But it’s not necessary for you to marry me. If you want to be involved with the baby I’m happy—’

‘I want the baby to have my name,’ he said. ‘And a good life.’

‘
I
can give him or her a good life. You don’t have to do this. We knew marriage wasn’t an option for us.’

‘It’s important to me, Eliza.’

She noticed his fists, clenched by his sides. The tension in his voice. There was something more here—something that belied the straightforwardness of his words.

‘You married your ex-wife because she was pregnant,’ she said. ‘I don’t expect that. Really I don’t. Please stop pacing the room like a caged lion.’

Her knees felt suddenly too weak to support her. She wanted to collapse back onto the bed. Instead she sat down slowly, controlled, suddenly fearing to show any weakness. Jake was a man used to getting what he wanted. Now it seemed he wanted
her
. Correction. He wanted her for the baby she was carrying.
His baby
.

‘Why, Jake? You said you never wanted to be a father. Why this sudden interest?’

Jake sat down on the bed beside her, as far away from her as he could without colliding with the bedhead. He braced both hands on his knees. Overlying Eliza’s nervousness was a pang of mingled longing and regret. Back in Port Douglas they wouldn’t have been sitting side by side on a bed, being careful not to touch. They would have been making love by now, lost in a breathtaking world of intimacy and mutual pleasure.
Lovemaking that had created a miracle baby.

‘Seeing the baby on the ultrasound affected me yesterday,’ he said now. ‘The pregnancy which, up until then had been an abstract thing, became very real for me.’

Eliza noticed how weary he looked, with shadows under his eyes, lines she hadn’t noticed before etched by his mouth. She wondered how much sleep he’d had last night. Had he been awake half the night, wrangling with the dilemma she had presented him with by unexpectedly bearing his baby?

‘It affected me too.’

She remembered she had been so overcome that she had gripped his hand—so tightly it must have hurt him. Then she had intercepted a smiling glance from the nurse. She and Jake must have looked quite the proud parents-to-be. If only that sweet nurse had known the less than romantic truth.

‘You didn’t see a scan when your ex—Fern—was pregnant?’ she asked Jake.

‘She didn’t believe in medical intervention of any kind.’

‘But an ultrasound isn’t like an X-ray. It’s safe and—’

‘I know that. But that’s beside the point. The point is I saw a little person yesterday. A tiny baby who is going to grow up to be a boy, like I was, or a girl like you were. We didn’t plan it. We didn’t want—’

She put up a hand in a halt sign, noticed her hand wasn’t quite steady. ‘Stop right there. You mightn’t want it—I mean him or her... I hate calling my baby “it”—but I
do
want him or her. Very much.’

‘I’m aware of how much you want the baby. Of the tragedy it was for you to discover you couldn’t conceive. But the fact is I didn’t want children. I would never have chosen to embark on a pregnancy with you. You know that.’

His words stung. Not just because of his rejection of her but because of her baby, unwanted by its father. No way would she have chosen a man she scarcely knew—a man who didn’t want kids—as the father of her baby.

‘I know we had a deal for four days of no-strings fun,’ she said. ‘Mother Nature had other ideas. Trust me—I wouldn’t have
chosen
to have a child this way either.’

He indicated her bump. ‘This is no longer just about me or about you; it’s about another person at the start of life. And it’s
my
responsibility. This child deserves a better life than you can give it on your own.’

If that wasn’t an insult from an arrogant billionaire, she didn’t know what was.

She forced herself to sound calm and reasonable. ‘Jake, I might not be as wealthy as you, but I can give my child a more than decent life, thank you very much. I’m hardly a pauper.’

‘Don’t delude yourself, Eliza. You can’t give it anything
like
what I have the resources to provide.’

Perspiration beaded on her forehead and she had to clasp her hands to stop them from trembling. It wasn’t just that she was still feeling weak. She had a sudden, horrible premonition that she was preparing to do battle for her own child.

So quickly this had turned adversarial. From a proposal to a stand-off. She couldn’t help but think how different this would be if she and Jake were together on this. As together and in tune as they had been in bed. Instead they were sitting here, apart on the bed, glaring at each other—she the mother, he the inadvertent sperm donor who wanted to take things further than he had any right to do.

‘I can—and will—give this child a good life on my own,’ she said. ‘He or she will have everything they need.’

Jake was so wealthy. He could buy anything he wanted. What was he capable of doing if he wanted to take her child from her?