Page 12 of The Baby Behind Their Marriage Merger

While he’d been planning their life together, she’d been planning something totally different. Unknown to Jude, Marina had contacted Bartholomew and demanded a substantial amount of money for her to disappear from his life. If he didn’t pay up, she would accuse Jude of coercing her into a relationship and claim she was pregnant.

Bart had rolled into the university town on a cloud of black smoke and brimstone and accused him of being the stupidest creature in the history of the world. Reeling at the barrage of information, Jude had listened, stunned, as he was told of the blackmail attempt. Bart had had his ‘people’—private investigators, Jude assumed—do some digging and it had turned out that wasn’t the first time Marina had put her hooks into a wealthy student—she’d done it at the University of Johannesburg and at the University of Cape Town. Bart had told him that she wasn’t nineteen, like Jude, but twenty-five and was an old hand at scams.

Rocked to his core, but in love, he’d defended Marina and had told his grandfather he was wrong, that he was mistaken. Being young, dumb and far too proud, he’d chosen to stick by Marina. In retaliation, Bartholomew had cut off his allowance. Too proud to go and ask for money from his cold, unfeeling and harsh relative, he’d found a job as a bartender at a popular club to meet Marina’s and his bills.

He’d been confident and desperately naive: they loved each other and they could make this work if they pulled together—if Marina got a job. But working for a living was not what she’d wanted, and it became clear if Jude couldn’t get his grandfather to reinstate his allowance she’d be out of there. He’d refused—the very first time he’d refused her anything—and had left for his bar-tending shift.

He’d returned home around one-thirty that same night to find her awake, sitting cross-legged on the bed. She’d told him she was pregnant and had opened her hand, revealing a pill. She’d told him she would abort his baby unless he arranged for her to receive a substantial pay-out. She’d said, if he couldn’t give her the life she wanted, then she wasn’t going to give birth and raise a child she didn’t want—there were other guys out there who could give her what she wanted and deserved.

Two things happened that night, almost instantaneously. The scales fell from Jude’s eyes and Jude realised she’d never loved him and he’d been just another mark. He knew instinctively that she wasn’t pregnant and, when he called her bluff, she shrugged and told him the lie was worth the shot.

After kicking her out of his flat—at that point he didn’t care where she went or what she did—he sat on his shower floor. He’d had a couple of moments of sheer terror before his brain had kicked in, and he vowed that he would never again allow a woman to put him in that untenable position. He would be ultra-careful about protecting against unwanted pregnancy and he’d never allow a woman to trap him again.

It took another eighteen months, and a stint at the London School of Economics, for him to mend fences with his grandfather. But there was always a barrier between them—a lack of communication, and on Bart’s part a distinct lack of trust. Jude took his place at Fisher International, but Bart made a habit of looking over his shoulder and double-checking his every move.

Jude put up with it, knowing that dealing with his irascible grandfather was a small price to pay to inherit the company he truly loved. As the years passed, the sting and embarrassment of Marina’s treachery passed too and he started dating again, and even flirted with the idea of living with, and perhaps eventually marrying, a British banker called Jane. That idea was kiboshed when he discovered she had flexible views on fidelity, and he called it quits.

What he didn’t expect was for her to spillhisstory about being scammed by Marina—told to her under the influence of too many whiskies—to one of her friends working on Fleet Street. Thank God he hadn’t told her about the fake pregnancy threat because that would’ve made the papers too.

Was it any wonder he had difficulty trusting anyone?

Bartholomew abhorred the negative publicity and raked him over the coals for being an idiot, embarrassing him and revealing family secrets. He died about three months after the tabloid article was first published and Jude discovered he’d amended his will the day after the story broke. Fisher International would still be his but, because Bart couldn’t trust his judgement, all major Fisher International decisions had to be approved by a board of trustees for ten years. But Bart hadn’t stopped there: if Jude fathered a child out of wedlock, or was involved in any more scandals that might tarnish the Fisher name, the trustees would remain in place for another ten years.

He was so close to being free, to being able to run his company the way he wanted to. But if Addi gave birth to his child, and the trustees were presented with that information, he would be constrained and hamstrung for another ten years. He couldn’t do it; he couldn’t allow the Council of Three to have the final say for another decade.

There was only one thing he could do.

Addi pulled into her space under the steel car-port adjacent to her house and sat in her car, watching the rain fall in a steady sheet. It was bucketing down now, and the storm had followed her all the way home. She shuddered as a bolt of lightning lit up the sky, quickly followed by deep, rolling thunder. It would storm and then it would drizzle for days.

Winter was well and truly on the way.

Addi looked at the house and knew she should go inside, listen to Nixi and Snow ramble about their day and be a good sister. But, after the day she’d had, she felt depleted. She didn’t even have the energy to feel guilty about not wanting to be with them right now. If she knew she wouldn’t freeze, she’d curl up in her car seat and go to sleep.

She was tired on a whole new level.

Addi heard a knock on her window and jumped, whipping her head round to see her sister’s freckled face on the other side of the window. Lex wrapped her arms around her slim torso and bounced up and down, raindrops glistening on her red curls.

As soon as the window dropped, Lex spoke. ‘What on earth are you doing, Ads? You’ve been out here for ages!’

Had she? She hadn’t realised. ‘Hey, Lex.’

Lex frowned at her. ‘Are you okay? You look terrible.’

Fantastic.Addi nodded, sighed and wondered whether she should invite Lex into the car and tell her the entire story. Lex was not only her sister but also her best friend and they’d been a team all of their lives. They were in this together. But telling Lex that she was pregnant was so much harder than she thought it would be. They’d promised each other that they’d be radically over-cautious about protection, that they’d never bring an unwanted child into the world.

That they wouldn’t, in any way, follow in Joelle’s footsteps.

But here she was...

And by falling pregnant she’d jeopardised her job, their income and perhaps their continued, albeit casual, custody of the girls. If Joelle’s lawyer used the argument that Addi had her own child to look after and raise, and that she couldn’t give the girls all the financial and emotional support they needed, a judge might think they’d be better off with their mum.

And, while she really wanted to share her burdens with Lex, she couldn’t—not just yet. She needed to have a plan first, to know where she was going, before she told her sister the trio of bad news. If she had a plan, she could cope. Without one, she’d flounder.

‘Am I coming in there or are you coming into the house?’ Lex demanded.

‘I’ll be there in a sec, Lex, let me grab my stuff.’

Lex nodded. Addi reached for the tote bag and her phone fell to the floor. She picked it up and saw that she had a dozen missed calls and text messages. Strange, because she hadn’t heard any of them come through.

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