Page 19 of His Best Mistake

He steeled himself for the pain and grief he knew was going to come, and shook as a wave of it washed over him. Four years and it still robbed him of breath, still cleaved his heart in two. It still made him want to shake his fist to the skies and yell, why? Not all the time and not with nearly the same intensity as before, but the shadows of those dark, tortured few months still lurked at the back of his mind, rising up and swallowing him whole just when he thought he had them under control once and for all.

And now it all could happen again. Different woman, different circumstances, but there remained the same danger. The same odds. The same potential outcome…

His head pounded and his body shook as dread gripped him at the thought of it. His blood iced. His stomach rolled. It couldn’t happen again. It just couldn’t. He would tell Stella not to go through with the pregnancy. He’d make her see the risks and advise her that it was too dangerous. For her own sake, it would be for the best. He’d find the best place and the best doctor. He’d even book the appointment. Then the danger would be gone and the status quo would be restored and he’d never have sex again.

But no, he thought suddenly, a cold sweat breaking out all over his skin as it hit him. He couldn’t do any of that. Stella wanted the baby. She’d said so and she’d sounded resolute. So she’d be appalled by the very suggestion of ending the pregnancy. She certainly wouldn’t agree. And what if, in her horror, she decided she wanted nothing more to do with him ever again? How would he make sure she was all right then? And he had to make sure she was all right, didn’t he? Stella was pregnant and if she was going through with it, it was his responsibility to make sure she stayed safe.

It wouldn’t happen again, he thought, fighting back the fear and the panic in order to be able to think straight. Not if he could help it. No. He’d do everything in his power to prevent it this time. He’d keep Stella close, so close that he’d know immediately if there was something wrong. He wouldn’t be on the other side of the world, unaware of what was happening back home. He’d be right with her, hauling her to the hospital, commanding attention and demanding answers. In fact he could hardly believe he’d allowed her to walk out of here in the first place.

Leaping to his feet and stalking to his desk Jack snatched up his phone, which still had Stella’s number on the screen. He hit the button and paced, waiting for her to pick up, the tension gripping his body growing with each passing second. He hadn’t exactly covered himself in glory when it came to Stella, and he didn’t yet have a plan, but he’d figure something out because he was not screwing things up again.

*

It was a good thing Stella hadn’t had any expectation that Jack would be over the moon at the news he was going to become a father. If she had, she thought, stepping off the Tube and heading for the escalators, she’d be really rather devastated right now.

His reaction had been, well, horrendously awful, actually. She’d expected him to be shocked. Heaven knew she had been, and still sort of was even having lived with the knowledge for two days now. But he’d gone as white as a sheet. He’d looked as if he’d seen a ghost. For the briefest of seconds pure terror had flashed in his eyes. She’d never seen anything like it. She’d thought he was going to pass out. Then, when he hadn’t, she’d given him a moment to pull himself together and make some sort of comment, whether encouraging or otherwise, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t said anything. It was like he’d just sort of shut down.

Not one iota of his response boded particularly well for the notion of shared parenting, which was fine because she’d meant what she’d said about him being as involved as he wanted to be. She wasn’t disappointed by his lack of interest in and enthusiasm for the prospect of impending fatherhood. She didn’t know where she’d got the idea he was someone who’d step up at least a little bit to his responsibilities. She hardly knew him at all. If she’d ever entertained the insane fantasy of them being in it together and somehow sorting something out, well, that was entirely natural. But clearly that was all it was: a fantasy.

In reality, she had to move forward on the assumption that she was going to be doing this on her own. And it would be fine. She could do this. She was not going to screw up – at least, no more than the average parent. There were thousands of single mothers out there in far worse situations than her. She had resources. She’d muddle through. She might even go and see a therapist again just in case. She and the lentil would make the best of teams. They would be fine.

As she emerged from the Tube, her phone rang and having pulled it from her bag, she saw that the call was from a number she didn’t recognise.

“Hello?” she said.

“Stella, it’s Jack. Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling you solidly for the past twenty minutes.”

If she hadn’t been so immediately incensed by his censorious tone, the sound of his voice in her ear would have made her recall all the other things he’d once very intimately done to her with his mouth. She would very probably have melted. However, she wasn’t melting. She was bristling from head to toe because what was this? How dare he be all aloof and monosyllabic one minute and all fired up and demanding the next? “I’ve been underground,” she said flatly. “On the Tube.”

A pause. The sound of a breath being slowly and steadily let out. “Right,” he said, clearly having regained a grip on himself. “That makes sense. I’m sorry. I was worried. Where are you?”

“Paddington Station,” she said, not allowing the fact that he’d been worried to affect her one little bit.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Find a café and wait for me. We need to talk.”

The line went dead and Stella stowed her phone. Hmm. She could just ignore his request – no, demand – and get on her train, but perhaps she ought to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’d obviously been in shock earlier. He deserved a second chance.

Spying a café she made her way over to it, pushed through the door and tried not to vomit at the stench of coffee that hung about the place. As quickly as she could she ordered a ginger tea to take away, took it to a bench on the concourse and sat down. She huddled into her jacket, which frankly wasn’t really up to the job of keeping out the cold, wrapped her hands around the styrofoam and took a nice warming sip.

So Jack wanted to talk. Well. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? Or was it? Whatever. This time she wasn’t going to let her head run away with what ifs. This time she was going to wait for the facts and then assess the situation.

Thankfully, since it was proving remarkably hard to keep a lid on her little fantasies, she didn’t have long to wait. A mere five minutes after sitting down, her skin prickled and she looked up to see Jack striding across the concourse, his jaw set and a scowl on his face, and her heart sank a little because, oh dear, he did not seem happy.

“What are you doing out here?” he said, looming over her and frowning down at her. “It’s bloody freezing.”

“At the moment,” she said a touch archly, “the smell of coffee churns my stomach so I thought it better to wait out here rather than decorate the café’s floor tiles.”

His scowl deepened but now she thought she could see concern there too and she made herself calm down because all this stress and tension could not be good for the lentil.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. It’s just a bit of sickness. It’s getting less and less every day. Ginger helps,” she added, holding up her cup with a slight smile, which turned to a grimace the minute icy air hit the exposed skin of her wrist.

Jack was right, she thought, shivering and pulling at the cuffs of her jacket, it was bloody freezing. More so here than back at home, otherwise she’d have come better prepared. There was a flurry of movement above her and she glanced up to see him shrugging off his coat. A second later, barely before she could register what he was doing, he’d put it round her shoulders.

“Now you’ll freeze,” she said, the residual warmth from his body and the trace of his scent doing mad things to her thought processes and wiping away any feeble protest she might have made.

“I’m not pregnant.”

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