Page 11 of The Baby Behind Their Marriage Merger

‘You’re pregnant?’

She nodded.

‘And it’s mine?’

She lifted her chin at the note of disbelief she heard in his voice. ‘Well, since I haven’t slept with anyone else but you for years, I’d say the chances were high.’ She winced, wishing she didn’t default to sarcasm when she felt off balance.

Jude didn’t look as though he appreciated her attitude either. ‘We usedcondoms, Addison. Every time.’

Addi pushed a hand into her hair and tugged at the short strands. ‘I don’t know how to explain it, Jude, but one of them must’ve had a tear or a hole or something.’

‘I’ve been using condoms for too many years to count and I’ve never had so much as a scare,’ Jude told her, folding his arms across his chest.

She saw something flash in his eyes and frowned. Why did she think that something about his statement wasn’t true? It didn’t matter; they were dealing with the here and now, not the past.

‘I don’t know what to say, or how to explain how it happened,’ Addi replied, her voice creeping up in volume.

‘Are you sure you are...?’

‘Of course I’m sure! I’ve missed my period and I did three tests, Jude! I’m not making this up, I haven’t made a mistake and I wish I wasn’t!

‘I don’t want to be pregnant, Jude, I wish I was anything but pregnant because it complicates my life exponentially. It complicates my job situation; it might complicate getting custody of my half-sisters. It will definitely put a strain on what is already a difficult family set-up. I donotwant to be pregnant but I am. And I have to deal with it.’

Jude walked over to the lounge area and dropped to sit on the closest couch. He rested his forearms on his knees and lowered his head, looking as though she’d sideswiped him with a baseball bat.

She walked over to him and sat down next to him, keeping a foot between him. ‘I thought you should know, that’s all.’

He took a while to respond and when he lifted his head his eyes were granite-hard and a flat, dark green. The man who’d looked so concerned earlier had morphed into a ruthless businessman.

‘Okay, so what do you want, Addison?’ he demanded, leaning back and placing an ankle on the opposite knee. It was a casual stance, but she knew that he was a harnessed tornado, ready to touch down and create havoc. ‘A job? A cash pay-out?What?’

Addi stared at him, not knowing where his fierce words were coming from. She didn’t want money and hadn’t asked for a job. She’d just thought he needed to know, that he had the right to know. She wouldn’t even expect him to pay child support, because if a flake like Joelle could raise her two oldest daughters without receiving a bean from either of their two fathers, she could too. She was smart and resourceful and she’d do it on her own, without input from anyone.

She relied on herself. Always. And she was tired of this conversation, exhausted by the events of the day. She wanted to go home, have a warm bath and climb into bed with a cup of hot chocolate. But first she had to make the drive home.

And, the sooner she got started on that, the better.

Addi stood up, slipped her feet back into her heels and picked up her jacket from where she’d draped it over the back of the chair earlier. She removed the thick print-out from her tote bag and slammed it onto the wooden coffee table. Jude could whistle if she thought she’d spend another minute in his company discussing hotels. In a couple of days, she’d have to face him again—she still had a job to do—but for now she needed time and space. They both did.

After digging her car keys out of the side pocket of her tote bag, she pulled her bag over her shoulder and walked to the front door, leaving Jude where he was. He didn’t deserve a goodbye, he’d chosen to believe the worst of her. Making a buck and working an angle was something Joelle did, not her. She might look like her mother, but she tried to be as little like her personality-wise as possible.

She’d sort this out herself, forge her own path and plough through it. She was better off on her own. She always had been.

It took Jude ten minutes to make sense of what Addi had been trying to say, another five to realise she’d left his house.

He couldn’t believe that this was happening to him. This was his worst nightmare. Apart from the fact that he was freaked out that his mum had died because of a pregnancy—what if that happened to Addi?—he was once again, after sixteen years, talking to a woman about her being pregnant, trying to make sense of her words.

Jude placed his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, memory after sour memory rolling in. He’d met Marina at university a few weeks into his second year, and she’d been the first woman to capture his heart. He’d been ridiculously, crazily in love with her, and he’d danced to her tune. Marina’s friends had become his, he’d neglected his studies and he’d pulled away from his friends. She’d been all that was important, all he’d been able to think about.

She’d also single-handedly caused him more problems than anyone before or since. Admittedly, he’d been a spoiled student, one of the wealthiest at the upmarket university, and had had unlimited spending power thanks to the credit card his grandfather had handed him. He’d driven a soft top, been good-looking and, yeah, he’d been the big man on campus. Perfect bait for the money-and-status-hungry Marina.

She’d looked like a doll, dark-haired and dark-eyed, and had barely weighed a hundred pounds. But she was possibly the smartest woman he’d ever encountered—street-smart, not book-smart—and she’d seen him coming. Used to girls falling over him, it had taken him six weeks to get her to notice him and another month to get her to agree to a date. The adage ‘treat ’em mean and keep ’em keen’had worked on him, and he’d revelled in the chase, thinking he would win the biggest prize.

Soon after they’d started sleeping together, he’d decided she was the woman he’d marry, the future mother of his kids, his for-ever life partner. His parents had died when he’d been a kid and his grandfather, Bartholomew Fisher, had obtained custody of him. With Bart being a workaholic, he’d had a lonely and isolated upbringing. Boarding school had been a life saver, and when he’d gone to his school friends’ homes for the weekends and holidays he’d discovered real families, noise and laughter, teasing and the affection. He’d wanted that, with all the desperation of a lonely kid, lost and lacking in affection, could.

His grandfather had been a hard, impatient man, one who hadn’t accepted foibles and failures. They were Fishers, and they had higher standards than most, and Jude was expected to exceed those standards. He’d had to be academically successful, a good sportsman—luckily for him, he was better than average—and socially charming. Fishers were gentlemen—they said and did the right thing. Or, more importantly, wereseento do the right thing. Bart had blithely told him he had mistresses, he occasionally cut legal and financial corners and he didn’t shy away from a dodgy deal—the trick was not to get caught. And Fishers never aired their dirty linen in public.

Like Jude, Marina didn’t have a family—she’d been raised by an elderly aunt and she’d attended university on a scholarship. He’d been a rich kid, she’d been a poor girl, but they had been what the other needed. Or so he’d thought.

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