Page 15 of His Best Mistake

And so, so had she. Feeling remarkably upbeat about everything and mentally patting herself on the back about how well she’d got over Brad, she’d decided to give her life an early spring clean. Determined to consign the last two horrible months to history she’d been about to empty her voice mail and delete her text messages when she recalled Jack’s triumph when he’d asked her to prove what she claimed and she hadn’t been able to, and archived them instead. Then she’d cleaned the house from top to bottom, reacquainted herself with her neighbours, hit the phones and lined up work.

She’d barely thought about Jack. She hadn’t had time. The first job she’d been given was a last-minute fill-in on a high-profile murder trial, which had taken all her concentration to zone out of, and anyway she didn’t want to think about him. She preferred to pretend that it had never happened, thank you very much, even if it had been the best sex of her life.

She wasn’t remotely pissed off that she hadn’t even merited a farewell. No. She was glad he’d spared them a brutally awkward aftermath. Truly. Well, she was now. When she’d woken up she’d been mildly disappointed and faintly insulted but she’d got over that swiftly enough. And who cared whether Jack had passed on her version of Brad’s shenanigans to his sister? She didn’t. She didn’t need anyone else to grant her absolution, she’d come to realise recently. She could do that all on her own. She knew she was innocent, and that was all that mattered.

Jack Maclean didn’t require a moment’s consideration so Stella didn’t give him one. She didn’t dream about him and she didn’t google him. Any lingering mortification she still felt with regards to how ravenous she’d been for him, how desperate, she buried beneath a ton of denial, along with the niggling guilt that somehow she’d sort of stabbed Cora in the back all over again, which was ridiculous. It certainly hadn’t seemed to bother him.

No, Jack had been a blip, one that had to be forgotten, and so Stella did exactly that. She focused on getting on with life, entirely content to wipe that whole weekend from her mind, and everything was fine.

Until it wasn’t.

Two days ago she’d woken up feeling sick, and had only just made it to the bathroom before throwing up the contents of her stomach. Sitting on the floor, head back against the tiled wall of her en suite, her skin clammy and her head spinning, she’d attributed it to the prawns she’d eaten the night before. It simply couldn’t be anything else because she and Jack had used protection all four times. But she’d thrown up yesterday morning too, and again this morning, and, then, despite the unlikelihood, there seemed little point in not addressing the possibility of the obvious.

Which was now no longer a possibility but a certainty, she thought, staring shell-shocked at the stick she’d just peed on, the evidence there in black and white. Or, in this case, in blue. She was pregnant. How, she had no idea, but while one test might possibly be faulty she doubted six would be.

For a moment, Stella just sat there, her head swimming and her heart racing, but then she somehow managed to dredge up an inner strength from who knew where and pulled herself together. Everything would be fine, she reminded herself, her breathing steadying and her vision clearing as the seconds ticked by. She’d considered the consequences of this outcome at length. Since yesterday afternoon, when she’d forced herself to face the facts, she’d thought about little else. She’d spent hours considering the situation from all possible angles and weighing up the pros and cons of every course of action, and she more or less had a plan.

The situation was far from ideal, but with her track record on the man front this might be her only chance to have a much longed for family. She’d love this child. Even though it was only the size of a lentil she already did. She’d never neglect it the way her parents had her. She’d never make it feel worthless and hollow or allow it to wonder what was wrong with it. She’d give it all the devotion and support and unconditional love she possibly could. It wouldn’t be easy but she’d figure it out. She’d never been more certain of anything.

First of all, though, she had a visit to pay.

*

The last few weeks had not been the best of his life, thought Jack grimly, sitting at his desk and watching the Euro/yen market career off in the opposite direction to the one he’d anticipated and thereby losing him a cool fifty million.

Following his return to London he’d thrown himself back into work, but for the first time in a long while he seemed to have lost his knack for reading the markets. His objectivity was shot. His self-discipline and patience, crucial in this business, were history. It was annoying and frustrating, and the worst of it was that he knew perfectly well that the reasons for his game being off were entirely of his own making.

Guilt.

/> That was the trouble.

Or rather, yet more guilt.

What had started as a niggle when he’d climbed into the Land Rover and driven away from the cottage, away from Stella and away from what they’d done, now came at him from all sides, at all times, and just wouldn’t let up. It was fresh and virulent, and unlike the low-level variety that he lived with on a daily basis and was now used to, pretty bloody inescapable.

Initially, it had been all about Mia, his wife, his teenage sweetheart, the love of his life. He hadn’t planned on living like a monk since her death four years ago, but that was just the way things had panned out since he hadn’t met anyone who’d made him want to change the status quo. Until he’d met Stella with whom he’d lost his mind and had had the kind of hot and explosive, frantic and sweaty sex that made him feel as if somehow he’d betrayed Mia’s memory.

On arrival home, that guilt had then transferred itself to his sister when it had finally sunk in that he’d absolutely betrayed her too. He still couldn’t believe he’d disregarded her with barely a qualm. Cora wasn’t currently speaking to him, although that wasn’t entirely surprising given the way their conversation after he’d come down from Scotland had gone. Ruthlessly shutting out the Saturday night he’d passed on Stella’s version of events of the Brad saga and had told Cora that he believed it and the reasons for that belief.

His sister had not been impressed. How could that cow have seduced him into believing her? she’d asked. How could he have let her off scot-free? For some reason Cora preferred to cling to the fact Brad had been blameless in the whole thing and nothing he said seemed to be able to change that.

Thank God his sister had been too fired up with indignation to probe into his stay in Scotland further, or she might have seen right through him when he’d described Stella as average and nothing special. Not that there was anything above average or special about her, of course, but still.

And then there was Stella herself. Try as he might, and despite the guilt raging through him, he couldn’t regret sleeping with her when the experience itself had been so sensational. What he did regret was his manner of leaving. The relief he’d felt at having escaped had quickly turned into self-disgust and now, four weeks later, he still couldn’t believe he’d just left her like that after what they’d done. It might have been his first one-night stand and so he wasn’t up on the etiquette, but he was pretty sure a thanks and a goodbye were requisite.

So what had he been thinking? Where the hell had his spine gone? Had he had some kind of mini breakdown, brought on by stress and the fear of upheaval she’d triggered in him? He hadn’t a clue. All he knew was that having marched out of the house, he’d got to the Land Rover, silenced the alarm and then fiddled around a bit. Without any expectation whatsoever, he’d shoved the key in the ignition and to his astonishment the engine fired, and then suddenly, heart-thumpingly, he’d realised that he had a way out of it all. It wasn’t right but the need for self-preservation had been drumming away inside him, obliterating manners and decency, building and spreading until it was the only thing he’d been able to focus on.

Even accounting for the time of year he didn’t recognise the Jack of those twelve hours, he thought darkly, frowning blankly at the screens and twiddling a pen between his fingers. He didn’t much like him either. He couldn’t imagine what Stella thought of him, although he doubted it was anything good. Driving away like that had been a deplorable thing to do.

So why hadn’t he done anything about rectifying it in the interim? He could easily have called her. Or emailed. He had her contact details. Yet shamefully, he’d done neither, and the hole it was burning in his conscience was growing too great to ignore.

It was time to get over that weekend in the Highlands, he decided, sitting up straight and ignoring the niggling sensation that somehow Stella Grant could be more lethal than a rip tide. He’d spent way too much time dwelling on it. He’d even bloody dreamed about it. One quick phone call, and that would be it. Apology given. Conscience clear. Done. And then he could put it all behind him and get back to doing what he did best: surviving.

Mind made up, Jack clicked on his in-box in search of the email from Lucas Hart, the friend he’d originally had track Stella down and, ah, there it was. He opened it, downloaded the attached document and scrolled through it, skimming the pages of the report and totally ignoring the temptation to stop and try to compare the dry words on the page with the vibrant, passionate woman he’d met. He found her number and entered it into his mobile, steeling himself for what was no doubt going to be an uncomfortable conversation, but then whose fault was that?

He was just about to press the button that would connect the call when the phone on his desk buzzed, making him start and nearly drop his mobile.

The phone on his desk buzzed again. “Yes,” he snapped after answering it, tension making his voice uncharacteristically sharp.

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