Читать книгу Surprise Baby For The Heir - Ellie Darkins - Страница 12

FRASER STARED INTO his coffee and could tell without having to glance at the mirror opposite him that his eyebrows were pulling together in a way that was giving him a line between them.

He was pretty certain that this was a bad idea.

His usual practice when he had unexpected text messages from one-night stands he’d thought he’d never hear from again was to say a polite but firm no, and he should have stuck to that today.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like spending time with women—he liked to have fun. But he’d seen first-hand what happened when you let yourself be swept away by emotions. Lust and passion were all well and good for a night or two. But when you gave in to them for longer than that they clouded your judgement and led to the people around you getting hurt.

He got hurt.

That was what he had learned as a teenager, when he’d seen his father throw away twenty years of marriage and move in a woman who hadn’t lasted more than a couple of years. But when Fraser had given him an ultimatum—‘Either she goes or I do!’—in the early, heady days of that relationship, his father had chosen his new partner instead of his son.

So Fraser had packed up his things, helped his mother into the car—with her white face and her shocked silence—and left his home, the ancient seat of his ancestors and his title. The estate he had been preparing to inherit from the day he was born.

And he didn’t know if he would ever get them back. All because his dad hadn’t been able to say no to a pretty face and walk away. Seeing what that had done to his mother had made the decision for him. Nothing and no one, no relationship, could be worth the sort of pain that she had gone through.

Meeting with Elspeth now went against every rule he had made for himself and stuck to so rigidly for the past fifteen years. But she had found his phone number somehow and invited him for coffee.

She was clearly keen. Keener than most. And that meant he had to be even firmer than usual. He had to tell her, face to face and in no uncertain terms, that he wasn’t interested. He didn’t do relationships. He’d assumed that she’d known that when she’d taken him home halfway through a wedding and then barely woken him for a goodbye kiss the following morning. Had assumed that she wasn’t after anything serious.

So why had she tracked him down? The time for swapping numbers had come and gone without either of them suggesting it, and he had assumed that meant that she felt the same way he did.

Whatever. The whys of the situation didn’t matter. All that mattered was shutting this thing down. And it seemed more effective to do that in person than by text. He could show her that he really meant it.

And show himself.

Because he’d been thinking about Elspeth far more than was reasonable or desirable over the past few weeks. Perhaps it was the way that she had sneaked out in the half-light of dawn. The colours in the room faded in the early morning, the silhouette of her face the only clear thing.

But that was no excuse. He’d shared plenty of dawn kisses goodbye before and hadn’t had any problems forgetting them.

The door of the hotel lounge where he’d suggested they meet opened and he glanced up. Even though he was expecting her, he still felt his stomach dip at the sight of her.

He’d forgotten how petite she was. Her shoulders were half the width of his, and her head barely reached his collarbone. Her ankles and wrists were so tiny he could wrap them with his thumb and little finger. And so sensitive that she’d moaned every time he’d done so. And those freckles over her nose and her cheekbones…like a constellation of stars. He’d stared at them so intensely that night he had been able to see them even when he’d closed his eyes—like the negative image left by a bright light.

And wrapped up in that delicate exterior was a desire and a strength and a passion that had given his six feet and two hundred pounds a run for their money for a whole, blissful night.

But he wasn’t meant to be thinking about that, he reminded himself as he schooled his face back into something neutral. He had to remember that this meeting was about breaking things off, not about picking up where she’d left him, naked in bed, wanting more.

‘Hi,’ Elspeth said as she approached his table.

Her smile was wary and it made his forehead crease again. She was the one who had asked to meet him, so why was she looking so guarded? So very much as if she didn’t think being here was a good idea any more than he did?

He stood to kiss her on the cheek—a polite habit, he told himself, rather than anything meaningful. The hand that he dropped to her shoulder met firm, tense muscle, and he realised that she was really nervous.

‘Have a seat,’ he said. ‘What do you want to drink?’

‘I’ll have tea. Thanks.’

He could see her looking around the richly decorated interior of the hotel lounge as he summoned the waiter with a glance and wondered whether he’d made a mistake, choosing somewhere so intimate. But he hadn’t wanted to have this conversation in a crowded restaurant or bustling coffee bar. Though that would have had its advantages… He’d have loved a reason to step away from her right now and catch his breath.

The sight of her had brought memories flooding back, and he wanted some space to remind himself that it didn’t matter that she was beautiful. It didn’t matter that she was funny. It didn’t even matter that they had killer chemistry together. What mattered was that he couldn’t trust himself around her, and he had to make sure that she knew this wasn’t going to go anywhere.

He ordered her tea, and a fresh drink for himself. Something to do with his hands. To keep them distracted. To try and forget the memory of the delicate bones of her wrists trapped between his fingers.

‘Thanks for meeting me,’ Elspeth said eventually, gazing at a point somewhere past his left shoulder.

Alarm bells started ringing. There was definitely more to this meeting than he understood, and he didn’t like it.

‘What’s going on, Elspeth?’ he asked, his voice brusquer than he had intended. But he couldn’t regret it. He had to know what she wanted from him because his body was growing increasingly tense, and the suspicion that this conversation was going somewhere he wasn’t going to like was becoming impossible to ignore.

Elspeth took a deep breath, and—finally—looked him straight in the eye. Her face was set defiantly, as if she were expecting a fight, and a shiver travelled the length of Fraser’s spine. A flash-forward—a presentiment, perhaps. An acknowledgement that, whatever it was that had put that expression on her face, he wasn’t going to like it.

‘I’m pregnant.’

The words hit Fraser like a bus, rendering him mute and paralysed. He sat in silence for long, still moments, letting the words reverberate through his ears, his brain. The full meaning of them fell upon him slowly, gradually. Like being crushed to death under a pile of small rocks. Each one was so insignificant that you didn’t feel the difference, but collectively they stole his breath and would break his body.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

He didn’t know why. She wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t sure. The look on her face told him that she was sure. And he wasn’t going to insult her by asking if he was the father—she wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.

‘I’m sorry. Of course you’re sure.’

But this couldn’t be happening. He didn’t want this. He’d seen the danger of giving in to romantic feelings. His mother had married the man she loved and then found herself turfed out and having to start her life again more than a decade and a half later. His father had given in to those feelings a second time, destroyed his family in the process—and with what to show for it? Two ex-wives and a son who hated him.

Fraser had decided a long time ago that that sort of commitment—the family and marriage sort—wasn’t something he was interested in. It couldn’t possibly be worth the heartache for everyone involved. Okay, so when he looked ahead maybe he did see a couple of kids in his life, in between the dogs and the lambs and the horses. But that didn’t mean they were a realistic part of the picture, because they didn’t come on their own. The thought of committing to any woman was completely off the cards. And to this woman—someone who had already caused him too many sleepless nights—it was impossible.

The commitment of raising a child was an unimaginable complication—how could it not be? He was happy with his life the way it was. With a string of casual attachments and the distant thought that one day, when his father was dead, he would return to his family estate and finally do the job he had spent his whole life waiting and working for. Put into practice all the preparations he had been making in the meantime, developing property and managing estates all over Scotland and being responsible for the lives of the people who lived and worked on them.

His father had always impressed upon him as a child that his money and his title came with responsibilities, and he was determined to be worthy of that privilege. In the years since he had left Ballanross he had been training to take up that position. Learning how to make land profitable; investing the small trust he had inherited from his grandfather and turning it into a fortune. Watching this fall and rise of the property market and ensuring that he was on the right side of it, amassing the cash and the property that had gone some way to filling the hole in his life that the loss of the estate had left.

He’d not been able to return home for fifteen years. His father had made it clear that he wasn’t welcome in his home or in his life. Even after his dad’s second marriage had broken down, when it had turned out that leaving his wife and the mother of his child wasn’t the cure for a midlife crisis that he had expected it to be, Fraser had not gone back. How could he when his father had made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want him in his life?

So he had taken the heartbreaking decision to wait until the land was his before he returned.

But if he had a child… That would change everything. Because that child had every right to know its inheritance. Its place in the world. On their land. How could he deny him or her that?

‘Are you going to say anything?’ Elspeth asked, breaking into his thoughts at last.

He met her gaze and saw that it had hardened even further—he hadn’t thought that was possible. But he could understand why. He’d barely said a word since she’d dropped her bombshell. He needed time to take this in. Surely she could understand that.

‘I’m sorry. I’m in shock,’ he said. Following that up with the first thing that had popped into his head. ‘We were careful…’

‘Not careful enough, it seems.’

Her voice was like ice, cutting into him, and he knew that it had been the wrong thing to say. He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know.

Fraser shook his head. He’d never expected to be so unlucky. Nor had Elspeth, from the look on her face.

‘What do you want to do?’ he asked, his voice tentative, aware that they had options. Equally aware that discussing them could be a minefield if they weren’t on the same page.

‘I want to have the baby,’ Elspeth said, using the same firmness and lack of equivocation with which she had told him she was pregnant. How someone so slight could sound so immovably solid was beyond him—and it was a huge part of her appeal, he realised. Something he should be wary of, then.

He nodded, though, his chest a little lighter, and realised that he was relieved that was what she wanted. Selfishly glad that she had spared him having to come to a conclusion himself. That picture of his future with children—it was what he wanted, he realised. He couldn’t imagine growing old on his land with no one to pass it on to. It wasn’t the child that wasn’t wanted—it was the relationship, and the woman, and the commitment, and everything that came with it that was completely terrifying him.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

Elspeth shrugged. ‘Tired, hungry. Everything that you’d expect, really. I’m only about eight weeks along. It’s still early days, but I called in a favour and got a scan. Everything looks good so far. We’ve no reason to think that anything will go wrong.’

‘That’s good,’ Fraser said.

His lips involuntarily turned up into a smile. He wasn’t even sure why. He couldn’t even think about what he was meant to be feeling at this news.

‘So, what do we do now?’

* * *

What did they do now?

How on earth was she meant to know? She’d only been able to see as far as this. As far as telling the father of her child that the child existed. From here on in it was up to both of them to figure it out.

It would help if she had a clue where to start.

She didn’t even know the basics about Fraser. Where he lived. Where he was from. His surname…

They’d come back to this very hotel the night of the wedding, so she didn’t have many clues there, apart from the fact that it was one of the most discreetly expensive hotels in the city. She’d gone along with it, surprised, when he’d suggested meeting here.

If she was honest with herself, she was more surprised that he’d agreed to meet her at all. He had money, she gathered, wondering what he would make of her usual coffee shop and feeling suddenly uncomfortable.

‘I guess we try and figure out the practicalities,’ she said. ‘If you want to be involved.’

She’d decided that this was the best tactic. She didn’t want to force him to be in their lives if he didn’t want to be. This child had every right to know its father, but it also deserved a father who wanted to be there. Not someone who was only doing it because they thought that they should.

A harsh look crossed Fraser’s face, and Elspeth realised that somehow she’d touched a nerve.

‘Of course I want to be involved. What kind of person do you think I am?’

She raised her palms. ‘I don’t know what kind of person you are, Fraser. All I know so far is that you get bored at weddings and what you like to do in bed. How am I meant to know what you think about kids? So far, this conversation isn’t filling me with confidence.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s a shock.’

‘I know that.’ She replaced her cup rather too emphatically on the table and reached for a napkin as the liquid sloshed over the side. ‘It wasn’t exactly easy for me to find this out either. I had plans, you know. I have plans. I have responsibilities that don’t exactly fit well with an unplanned pregnancy.’

‘Of course—your permanent role at work. Have you had any news? I guess a baby’s going to throw all your plans out of whack.’

She wasn’t sure whether to be impressed that he’d remembered or annoyed that he was making light of the massive upheaval her career was going to have to go through. She decided quickly on the latter. ‘Don’t you dare be flippant. I need this job, and my career plans are important. I have responsibilities. Responsibilities and a career that are going to be hard enough to make work without you cracking jokes about it.’

Saying the words out loud was making the reality sink in. How on earth was she going to cope? She’d spent the last God knew how many years asking herself that same question. How was she going to care for her sister when her mum was gone? Or when her mum was older and needed a lot of care too? And now a baby in the mix? It was just too much.

She took a long drink of her tea, letting it wash away the lump that was threatening to form in her throat.

‘So—what? You want me to take the baby?’ Fraser asked.

‘What? No. Are you deliberately making this harder?’

How could he jump to that conclusion? It made her realise that he really didn’t know the first thing about her. Any of her friends, her colleagues, anyone who had met her for more than a random night at a wedding would know that she would never let someone else raise her child. And here she was, planning on co-parenting with a man who didn’t even understand the basics about her.

‘What I want, Fraser,’ she said, slowly and deliberately, knowing that her temper wasn’t going to help this situation, ‘is some sort of plan for co-parenting this child that doesn’t completely derail everything I need to happen in my life.’

‘Well, it might be a bit late for that. Babies have a habit of derailing things.’

It was Fraser’s turn to shrug, and she narrowly avoided the temptation of throwing her tea at him. How could he be so damn casual about it? Simply brush away her concerns?

‘Well, in this case it can’t.’ She ground out the monosyllables, her temper still on the up.

At some point she was going to have to tell him about her life. Her responsibilities. The reason she had called off her engagement. And what would she see in his eyes? Pity? Fear? Horror at what he had got himself involved in?

‘Okay, are you going to tell me what this is about or do I have to read between the lines and guess? Are you going to throw me a clue?’

Well, it looked as if she was about to find out.

‘It’s not a secret,’ she said. ‘I already have caring responsibilities. I have a sister with a disability and a mother who’s getting older, whose arthritis is getting worse by the day. I need to get ahead with my career now, because the time will come pretty soon when I’ll need the money I’ve banked, and I’ll need to have reached a point in my career when I can work flexibly.’

‘You were engaged before?’ Fraser said thoughtfully.

Elspeth bristled. ‘I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. I’m talking about the baby, here. I’m not proposing.’

‘I’m just saying you must have thought at one time that you could have both. I don’t want to marry you, Elspeth. I just want to understand you.’

She tried to throw off the feeling that he was criticising her and answered as calmly as she could. ‘You’re right. At one time I thought that things could be different, and then I proved myself wrong. When my family and my relationship were both suffering because I was being pulled in opposite directions I had to choose, and I chose my family.’

Fraser’s face creased, and Elspeth had a moment to see pain in his eyes before he wiped his expression clear.

‘What?’ she asked, when Fraser’s silence stretched.

‘Nothing,’ he replied.

But she could tell that something she’d said had touched him. Had resonated with him. She knew he was keeping things from her. But why shouldn’t he? He barely knew her. Other than the cells dividing and multiplying inside her, they shared nothing in their lives. They might as well be strangers.

Not quite strangers.

Not when she knew the curve of his buttocks and the scratch of his stubble. The deep, bass notes of his groans and the gentle huff of his breath while he slept.

But not familiar either. Unfamiliar enough for her skin to tingle when it sensed him close. New enough for her heart to pick up its pace a little every time her eyes flickered to his face. Enough of an unknown that she had to resist the temptation to reach out and touch his mouth, just to remind herself of how it had felt pressed hard and hot against hers among the giant trees of the botanic gardens.

Elspeth finished her tea and replaced her cup and saucer on the table, wondering where they were meant to take this next.

‘So, what do we do now?’ Fraser asked.

Elspeth wondered why she was meant to have all the answers. Just because she was the one doing the gestating? But the answer suddenly seemed straightforward enough—not that that made it easy.

‘Well, if we both want to be involved in this baby’s life, then I guess we ought to get to know one another,’ she said.

Then Elspeth’s phone buzzed; she glanced at it and gave a start.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I have to get back to the surgery. I’ll call you soon and we can arrange something. We’ve got lots still to talk about.’

* * *

Fraser stood as Elspeth did, and for an awkward moment he didn’t know whether to offer his hand or lean in to kiss her cheek. A look of alarm on Elspeth’s face betrayed that she was as confused as he was and she took a step backwards, making either action impossible.

‘We’ll speak soon, then,’ Fraser said. ‘Look after yourself,’ he added.

And look after our baby.

He didn’t say it out loud, but she must have known that he was thinking it. He was still trying to get his head around the fact that he was going to be a father. What would his mother say? She’d be excited—he had no doubt about that. But he was pretty sure that this wasn’t how she’d imagined it happening, with a woman he had only known for one night of passion, and with whom had he had no intention of settling down.

Not that Elspeth wanted to settle down either. He’d breathed a sigh of relief over that—the fact that she didn’t want a relationship any more than he did. But there was no question that it would make the whole ‘practicalities of parenting’ thing harder. He had no intention of being an absent father, but he didn’t want to live in the city either. Which meant he’d better get used to being in his car, driving in and out of Edinburgh’s busy roads on a—what? A weekly trip to see his child?

It wasn’t going to be enough, he realised. He didn’t want to miss a day of his child’s life. He wanted to be there for all of it.

A shudder went through him as he thought about what his father had missed out on when he’d chosen his stepmother over him. All those years he had lost that couldn’t be retrieved. Fraser was not going to let that happen to his baby. His child would always know, unquestioningly, that his father loved him. His child would always come first.

At least he and Elspeth saw eye to eye on that one. He thought back to what she had said about her family—her responsibilities. He had to respect the choices she had made. They were the choices he wished his father had made. Choosing family and responsibility over the passion and lust that everyone knew would fade a couple of years into a relationship.

Emotions like that could not and should not be trusted. They certainly shouldn’t be the basis of important life decisions.

So why did his mind and his body have to torment him with reminders of just how much passion and lust he had felt for Elspeth? He was trying to make smart decisions. Trying to do the right thing, But all his brain cared to remind him of was how good it had felt to be with her. How satiated and content he had felt, exhausted and sweaty, with her lying in his arms. How still he had felt in that moment, just holding her close.

But it couldn’t happen again. Because he’d seen how the lure of those feelings clouded judgement and screwed up priorities. His only priority now was his child. And that meant that any thoughts of a rematch of that wedding night had to be shelved. If there was one woman in the world that he couldn’t have, it was Elspeth.