Convenient Brides Page 31

  She showered and brushed her teeth, stalling for time. She hoped he’d be asleep by the time she came out. Her passionate reaction to him embarrassed her; she was sup-posed to hate him but he had only to touch her and she was aflame. It made her feel far too vulnerable, as if he had the upper hand and she was just a pawn in his game.

  She came out of the en suite bathroom to find him sitting up against the pillows on her side of the bed, leafing through a book. He put it down as she approached the bed, his expression slightly mocking.

  ‘Washing all trace of my detestable presence away, Emily?’

  Emily straightened her spine and met the satirical glitter in his eyes. ‘You’re on my side of the bed.’

  ‘Am I?’ He put his hands behind his head in a make-me-move pose.

  ‘You know you are.’ She stood at the end of the bed and glared at him. ‘You’re doing it deliberately to annoy me.’

  ‘Why don’t you come and push me back to where I belong?’ he challenged her. ‘It could be fun.’

  ‘You’ve had your fun. Now move over.’

  ‘Now, now, let’s be fair. You had your fun too.’ His mouth curled upwards in a sardonic smile. ‘I made sure of that.’

  Emily felt the colour of her shame rise from the very soles of her feet to pool in her cheeks like fans of fire.

  ‘Don’t be embarrassed, my sweet,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of, this chemistry we have together. Who knows? You might not even be bored after six months with me.’

  ‘I’d never survive that long. I’d kill myself.’

  He laughed and she tore her eyes away from the ripple of muscle along his abdomen, the sheet he’d pulled over his legs doing little to disguise his nakedness.

  ‘So dramatic,’ he teased. ‘Come on, hop into bed and get some sleep. You look like a child who’s been kept up too late—all eyes and pouty lips.’

  She clenched her fists and, moving to the head of the bed, flicked the sheet back angrily. She lay down stiffly, turning her back on him, keeping herself as far away from the warmth and temptation of his long muscular body as possible.

  She felt the brush of his fingers along the base of her spine and shivered.

  ‘Come closer,’ he said temptingly. ‘I want to kiss you goodnight.’

  Emily tightened her resolve another notch, clamped her eyes shut and pretended not to hear him.

  His hand stroked the smooth curve of her bottom and then his body shifted towards her in one movement, the hard wall of his stomach grazing her as he settled behind her like a set of spoons in a drawer. Her breathing quick-ened as she felt the probe of his arousal between her thighs, and his arms closed around her, making escape, even if she’d had the will to exercise it, impossible.

  Even though she kept her back to him he was still able to bring her to the pinnacle of pleasure, with gasping groans of release that reverberated throughout her body as his rocked against hers. His own sounds of ecstasy soothed her pride; at least it wasn’t just she who was rendered helpless by the touch of his hands. She too had sent him to paradise, and with that thought comforting her she drifted off to sleep, still locked in his arms.

  The next three weeks passed for Emily in a haze of lazy days and passion-filled nights. A kind of unspoken truce became established between them. Damien usually left for work before she got up, and when he returned in the evening she was dressed for dinner. Sometimes they ate in; on other nights they went out. She visited Rose every few days or so.

  Rose wanted her to visit even more often but Emily didn’t trust herself in case she accidentally let slip something about his aunt to Damien. The effort of keeping quiet about her clandestine relationship with Rose was taxing her already stretched nerves.

  She did her best to remain civil around Damien, although by the end of the third week her temper was beginning to fray. She wasn’t used to so much time on her hands and her restlessness made her snap at him when he asked her what she had planned on Friday morning as he was leaving for work.

  ‘Nothing. A big fat nothing.’

  He gave her a studied look as he deftly tied his tie. ‘Why don’t you come in and have lunch with me today?’ he suggested. ‘I’ll show you around the offices, introduce you to the staff.’

  She lifted one shoulder half-heartedly.

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Call me before twelve. I’m with clients until then.’

  ‘I’ll see.’

  ‘As you wish.’ He stooped to drop a quick kiss on her pouting mouth. ‘Let me know what you decide. I’ve got to rush. Be good.’

  She humphed and rolled over on her side, pulling the sheets back over her head.

  After she heard his car leave she pushed the hair out of her eyes and swung her legs out of bed. That was when it hit her like a truck coming at full force down the highway. The nausea was so sudden and so vile she only just made it to the en suite bathroom before gasping out the meagre contents of her stomach. She clutched at the basin, glancing at her pale features in the mirror. Another wave hit her, making her lurch over the basin once more in desperation.

  After a while it eased slightly, and she washed her face and returned to the bed to lie down until the light-headedness dissipated. She lay there in increasing panic. How could her body have betrayed her like this, falling pregnant without her permission? She wanted to blame Damien but knew it was really her own fault. She shouldn’t have stopped taking the Pill in the first place. She’d just got lazy.

  She dragged herself out of bed and back to the bathroom. She had to have it confirmed first—it could be a false alarm, she reassured herself vainly.

  ‘Oh, God!’ she cried at her reflection in the fogged mirror. ‘What am I going to do?’

  Emily stared at the dipstick in her hand, waves of panic sweeping through her at the confirmation of the pregnancy she dreaded. She’d rushed to the pharmacy and bought a double testing kit and both of the tests told her the same truth. She was having a baby—Damien’s baby.

  She wished she could tell somebody, somebody who would reassure her it was all going to work out, but there was no one. She thought of calling Rose but decided against it at the last minute. Her friendship with her was still developing; she didn’t want to jeopardise it by bur-dening her with problems that were largely insurmountable.

  She’d have to face it alone—she didn’t have any other choice. It wasn’t as if she could tell Damien, at least not yet. Perhaps she could simply disappear from his life, pre-tend she’d found somebody else and move on. Her heart quaked at the thought of his reaction. He liked to be the one calling the shots; that much she had learned in the few short weeks they’d been married.

  Emily caught a bus to Centennial Park and walked for two hours, thinking about her dilemma. The cooling shade of the old trees calmed her enough to make her realise she had to take better care of herself from now on. No more scanty meals and irregular exercise.

  She checked her watch and, seeing it was close to twelve, wondered if she should take up Damien’s offer of lunch after all. She hadn’t thought to bring her mobile with her, nor did she have his number on her, but she knew where his office block was and decided to go there in person.

  She wasn’t sure what made her stop at the flashing pedestrian signal across the street from his building. Normally she would have raced across, just like everyone else, weaving her way through the bustling crowd, but this time she didn’t.

  She saw Damien first. He was outside the front entrance, bending down to speak through a car window to someone sitting in the driver’s seat of a sports car. Several horns tooted behind the shiny Mercedes and Emily watched in horror as Linda Janssen leaned out of the window to kiss him, her hand grasping his, holding it to the ridge of the car’s open window. A cab driver tailgated Linda’s car and Damien stepped back and waved her off with a warm smile.

  Emily turned and sped in the opposite direction, her heart thumping painfully in her chest. She almost fell to her knees in her
haste to get away before Damien looked across the street. She checked over her shoulder once and was relieved when a line of buses blocked the intersection, giving her a lengthy reprieve.

  She stumbled on to the first bus that sidled to a stop beside her, not caring where it was going. She paid her fare and huddled in a seat next to an old gentleman who smelt of mothballs and whisky. She sat and willed herself not to be sick, all the time wondering how she was going to face Damien later that day.

  The bus took her to Waringah Mall, where she spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly around the shops, filling in time with cups of tea or glasses of juice from the various cafés. She was sitting staring at the uneaten raisin toast in front of her when she felt a shadow pass over her.

  ‘Emily!’ Danny Margate pulled out the chair opposite. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I…’ Emily gaped at him in shock. ‘I’m…I’m shopping.’

  Danny looked at the floor near her feet, noting the ab-sence of any parcels.

  ‘Not very successfully, I’d say.’

  ‘I’m not in the mood for buying today.’

  ‘How’s Damien? Keeping you busy?’

  Emily didn’t care for his insolent tone. ‘He’s fine.’

  ‘You don’t seem very happy to see me,’ he observed. ‘Especially when I have something in my possession I’m sure you’ll want very badly.’

  She watched him closely, trying to gauge his mood. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a diary,’ he said, picking up a slice of her abandoned raisin toast and biting into it.

  ‘Whose?’

  He paused for effect. Emily felt like a trout being lured by a colourful but totally fake fly.

  ‘Rose’s.’

  She stared at him incredulously. ‘You’d give me Rose’s diary?’

  His smile didn’t quite reach his cold light-blue eyes. ‘For a price.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said cynically.

  ‘If you don’t want it I can offer it to someone else. I already have someone in mind.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Marsha Montford.’

  Emily was familiar with the biographer’s work. Her last book had caused an even bigger scandal than her own. She felt sick at the thought of Damien and his aunt being subjected to the sort of ruthless tactics someone like Marsha employed to write a bestseller.

  ‘How much?’ she asked.

  ‘How much can you afford?’

  Emily took her time replying. She didn’t want to commit herself, but neither did she want to give him free rein to destroy his brother and aunt in so despicable a fashion.

  ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ she hedged. ‘I’ll call you on Monday.’

  His eyes glinted with triumph. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’ He got to his feet and handed her a business card. ‘I’ve got a new apartment in Bondi. Come and see me there on Monday afternoon, say two o’clock? We can finalise the terms then.’

  Emily took the card, immediately feeling tainted by its presence in her hand. She felt as if she’d just stepped into a carefully laid snare, but it was too late to step back out of it now.

  Danny waved a hand and was gone, disappearing into the crowd of Friday afternoon shoppers. She sat and stared at the card in her hand and wondered if today was going to get any worse. It hardly seemed likely, but she was wrong.

  The bus she caught back to the city got swallowed up by a nasty traffic snarl approaching the Harbour Bridge. Emily sat clammily in the late-afternoon heat, her brow beading with perspiration in spite of the air-conditioning. The bus moved by millimetres every five minutes or so, as impatient drivers fought for their turn to merge into the already crowded lanes.

  Emily began to think it would be quicker to walk, and was even considering asking the driver to open the door for her when all of a sudden the traffic started to flow. Relief seemed to spread through the bus as each of the other passengers settled back in their seats for the remainder of the journey.

  She was exhausted by the time she walked up the path towards Damien’s front door. A raging thirst had given her a headache and her right foot had developed a blister on the heel. It was close to seven p.m. and she knew Damien would be wondering where she was. Before she could find her key in her bag the door opened and he stood there, all six feet four of him, his dark brown eyes raking her from head to toe.

  ‘I suppose it would be a complete waste of time to ask you where you’ve been?’ he drawled.

  She brushed past him, her right shoe in her hand. ‘I could ask you the same question.’

  ‘I was at work all day,’ he said. ‘Waiting for you to call.’

  Emily turned to look at him. ‘And was it a trying day at the office—darling?’ she asked with sugar-sweet derision.

  He frowned as his gaze swept over her dishevelled form. ‘You don’t seem to be in a very good mood,’ he observed. ‘Has something happened?’

  She could have screamed at him. Yes, I’m having your child! She could hear the words forming in her throat and hastily swallowed them. This was definitely not the right time to drop that particular bombshell.

  ‘I’m hot and tired. My bus was caught in traffic and I had to sit for an hour and twenty minutes while the lanes cleared. I have a headache too,’ she added despondently. And I saw you with your mistress in the middle of town and your brother is a creep who’d sell his grandmother to make a dollar.

  ‘Why don’t you have a shower and I’ll bring you up some paracetamol?’

  Emily sighed gratefully and carried on up the stairs.

  She was towelling her hair dry after her shower when he came into the en suite bathroom with a glass of water and two white tablets. She tucked the ends of the towel across her breasts and took the glass from him. She was raising it to her mouth just as he reached down to pick up something off the floor near the vanity basin.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  She stared in horror at the scrunched up packet in his hand. It was the pregnancy test she’d used that morning.

  Chapter Twelve

  EMILY froze.

  Damien unfolded the packet and stood looking at it for a long time. He scrunched it back up and tossed it in the bin near the basin. His expression when he turned to look at her was inscrutable.

  ‘I was going to tell you—’ she began uncomfortably. She cleared the restriction in her throat before continuing. ‘I’m pregnant.’

  ‘But I thought you said you were taking the Pill?’ His eyes lasered hers.

  Emily lowered her gaze.

  ‘I suppose it’s rather impolitic of me to ask, but is it mine?’

  Her stomach churned at the contempt in his voice.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked, hoping he’d see beyond the mask of pride in her tone.

  He sucked in a breath that she felt all along the length of her spine.

  ‘I think I’m finally starting to see why you married me.’

  She didn’t trust herself to speak. His eyes hardened as they bored into hers.

  ‘I didn’t just solve your financial problems, did I? I also provided a convenient safety net for your love-child. Does Danny know?’

  She shook her head, close to tears at his ready assump-tion that this baby wasn’t his. Did he really think so badly of her? That she’d use him in such a way?

  He gave her a scornful look when she didn’t speak.

  ‘I can’t believe you managed to pull it off. Here I was, thinking I had outmanoeuvred you, while all the time you had me falling neatly into a snare of your own.’

  ‘Damien, I never intended this to—’

  He dismissed her with a carelessly flung hand. ‘Me, of all people. The irony, if only you knew, is unbelievable.’

  ‘It’s not what you’re thinking—’

  ‘Don’t try and weasel your way out of this,’ he barked. ‘I should’ve seen it coming but I didn’t. Quite frankly, I didn’t think you’d go so low, but then it proves how deluded us men really are. I should�
��ve known there’d be a high price to pay for the pleasure I’ve had from that delec-table body of yours.’ He gave her another sweeping glance that chilled her to the bone. ‘When is it due?’

  Emily was beyond the maths in her upset state. ‘I’m…I’m not sure. I don’t know how far along I am.’

  He turned around and slammed his fist into the wall near the door. She shrank from the violence in his action, her eyes widening in alarm. She’d never seen him so out of control before and it frightened her.

  ‘Please, Damien,’ she choked. ‘Please listen to me.’

  He pushed himself away from the wall and faced her, his eyes like savage pools of hatred. ‘I need to be on my own for a while,’ he said. ‘Don’t wait up.’

  Emily watched him leave the bathroom, her heart breaking with each step he took away from her.

  She heard the front door slam and then the roar of his Lamborghini as he sped out of the driveway as if the hounds of hell were after him. She sank to the floor and bent her head into her knees. There was nothing she could do—he’d already made up his mind. There was simply nothing she could do.

  Emily crawled into bed some time later and slept fitfully until she heard the sound of Damien’s car returning. She heard him clatter about in the kitchen downstairs and then in the lounge, where she heard him switch on the television. The noise of the replay of a one-day cricket match made it impossible for her to go back to sleep. She listened to the background drone for a few minutes before she dragged herself out of the bed. She reached for her bathrobe and, giving the lounge a wide berth, headed for the kitchen for something to settle her squeamish stomach.

  She was peering into the refrigerator when Damien spoke from behind her. ‘Can I get you something? Some toast or an egg?’ There was no trace of the earlier anger in his voice.

  Emily shut the fridge and looked up at him. There were lines of tension around his firm mouth, but his expression remained impassive.

  ‘I’ll have some toast.’ She moved towards the toaster.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ he said, crossing the room. ‘You sit down.’