Page 22 of His Best Mistake

“You know I do,” she said, determinedly ignoring the memories of what had happened the last time he’d looked at her like that.

“So what will you do if something happens?”

“What’s going to happen?”

“That’s partly my point. You don’t know.”

Stella held up a hand. “Stop this, Jack, you’re alarming me now.”

“Good. Pregnancy is no joke.”

“I know that, but you’re overreacting.”

“I’m not.” His jaw tightened. “If there’s a problem with anything I need to know.”

Suddenly it was all just too much. The shock of the pregnancy, the fatigue, the nausea, this morning with the nerves, and now, this. Jack wasn’t giving an inch and she felt like she was being bulldozed. His eyes were dark and determined and blazing with an emotion she just couldn’t make out, and suddenly she couldn’t take the intensity of it, of him, any more. She was all over the place. She felt like she was suffocating. She could feel herself closing down. She needed some space, some room to breathe, to think through the options, and she just couldn’t do that

here, with him, like this.

Glancing over at the information board Stella stood up. “Thank you very much for the loan of your coat,” she said, slipping out of it and handing it back to him and not regretting the loss of it one little bit, “but there’s a train leaving in five minutes and I need to be on it because right now, Jack, the only problem I can see is you.”

Chapter Seven

It was nine in the evening when the downstairs door buzzer sounded in Jack’s kitchen. He ignored it, and went back to finishing off his fifth – or was it his sixth? – tumbler of whisky. He didn’t want to see anyone, and he was in no fit state to do so anyway.

After Stella had stalked off to catch her damn train he hadn’t bothered going back to the office. What would have been the point? His concentration was shot, and all the traits that made him so successful at what he did for a living – discipline, nerves of steel, emotional detachment – were history.

Briefly he’d contemplated going after her. He knew where she lived. It would have been easy enough to do. But even though by that point he’d been bordering on desperate he’d recognised that it would have been a deeply unwise move. Instead he’d headed home and cracked open a bottle of single malt and had then made a start on getting through it.

Stella’s parting shot kept reverberating around his head. So he was the problem, was he? She had no idea. No idea at all. She thought everything was going fine with the pregnancy, and maybe it was now, but what if tomorrow, the next day or at any time in the future, something went wrong? What then?

Helplessness and confusion swirled around inside him. All he wanted to do was make sure that didn’t happen, and for some reason she wasn’t letting him. She’d blocked every argument he’d made. Why? What would make her see? Was there anything? Or had he screwed everything up by being too heavy-handed in his approach?

Jack tossed back the remainder of his drink but it didn’t in any way alleviate the stomach-curdling feeling that everything around him was disintegrating. For the last three and a half years, with the exception of the one week out of fifty-two that he allowed himself to feel – his life had been calm and steady. Uneventful. Safe. Just the way he’d wanted it. Ever since he’d met Stella though, he’d felt like there was a dangerous current constantly tugging at him, threatening upheaval of epic proportions. Now the tsunami was upon him and he couldn’t ignore it because if anything went wrong, again, well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

The sound of a key being inserted into the lock of his front door jolted Jack from his thoughts, and he inwardly groaned. Only one person had access to his apartment and it was the one person he could really do without having to face right now. The door slammed and then came the sharp taps of footsteps crossing his wooden floor.

“So here you are,” said Cora, tossing her handbag on the coffee table then crossing her arms and glaring down at him with disapproval.

Unable to deal with his sister’s frostiness and censure on top of everything else that was hammering away at him, Jack dropped his head back against the sofa cushion and closed his eyes. “Where else would I be?” he muttered.

“Considering it’s Dad’s birthday today, how about The Ivy?”

Damn. Jack winced and pinched the bridge of his nose, yet more guilt spearing him in the gut. “I forgot.”

“Clearly,” said his sister witheringly. “We tried calling you. You didn’t pick up.”

“My phone was on silent.”

“Why?”

“Things on my mind. I’ll call them in the morning to apologise.” It seemed he’d been doing a lot of that lately. “How was the meal?”

“Delicious,” she said. “You were missed, although not by me, I hasten to add. Have you been drinking?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

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