Page 29 of The Baby Behind Their Marriage Merger

She couldn’t see Jude spending his university years as a studious monk and told him so. He smiled. ‘The first year I went wild, I partied long and hard and had far too many one-night stands with women I barely remember. Grandfather, who kept tabs on me, was horrified. By the time Marina came along, he and I were barely speaking, and he was threatening to cut off my funding unless I returned to the straight and narrow.’

Marina? Who was she?

Jude thanked the waiter for his beer and picked off half the label before answering her unvoiced question. ‘She was this girl I met in a pub one night. Funny, gorgeous, intelligent. I fell—hard.’

She heard his voice crack and knew that, whoever this Marina person was, she’d hurt Jude badly. ‘How long were you together?’ Addi asked, trying to sound casual. She knew that if she threw a barrage of questions his way he’d shut down.

‘Nine months, maybe a little more,’ Jude replied. ‘I was so in love with her. I thought she loved me, but I was very, very wrong about that.’

This hadn’t been an ordinary youthful break-up, Addi realised. This hadn’t been a burn bright, fade quickly situation. No, something had happened that had caused scars on Jude’s psyche. Whatever had happened back then was still affecting the way he lived his life today. ‘Will you tell me, Jude?’

‘It’s a long, ugly story.’

She’d grown up with Joelle—ugly didn’t scare her. ‘Tell me anyway.’

‘My grandfather was already unhappy with me, furious that I’d spent my first year partying and that I’d barely scraped through. He didn’t like my friends, the way I dressed, my lack of seriousness.’

‘Did he keep that close an eye on you?’

‘He did,’ Jude confirmed. ‘I’m not sure whether he hired a private investigator, or paid my friends for information, but he knew what I was up to all the time.’

Addi grimaced. Jude must’ve felt so betrayed by his grandfather’s lack of trust. ‘I started pulling back from my friend group,’ Jude admitted. ‘I didn’t know who was feeding him information, so I cut everyone off. It was...hard.’

Of course it had been; at that age, friends were the lifeblood.

‘In hindsight, I was the perfect mark for someone like Marina: a lonely, rich kid.

‘I fell for her—hard,’ Jude admitted. ‘And we got serious fast. I saw myself being with her for ever. I thought that we’d finish our degrees, become independent and be stunningly successful together.’

‘But?’

‘But, as my grandfather took great pleasure in telling me, Marina tried to blackmail him. She said she’d break up with me and drop out of my life if he paid her off. If he didn’t, she’d tell everyone she was pregnant and that I wouldn’t let her leave. What she didn’t realise is that old Bartholomew would’ve rather cut off his hand than give into extortion. He, via private investigators he’d hired, started digging into her life. It turned out that I wasn’t the first, or the fifth, guy she’d pulled this stunt on. She was older—twenty-five—and mooching off rich boys was what she did.

‘I didn’t believe him, I believed her. I cut off ties with grandfather and refused to have anything to do with him,’ he continued.

Addi saw the pain and anger in his eyes and knew there was more. ‘Carry on, Jude.’

‘I wasn’t hopeful that Bartholomew and I would mend fences, so I picked up a job as a bartender. I was working and studying and trying to keep it all together, to look after her and myself. I came home after a shift and she had a pill in her hand. She calmly told me that I either had to get my grandfather to pay up or she’d abort the baby she was carrying. It was the first I’d heard mention of a baby.’

Addi’s mouth dropped open. ‘She waspregnant?’

‘That’s what she said,’ Jude muttered, bold and bright fury in his eyes. ‘I looked at her and knew, just knew, that she wasn’t. I knew she was lying, and I’d had enough. I was done being played. I tossed her, and her imaginary baby, out.’

Addi wrinkled her nose. ‘And you aresureshe wasn’t pregnant?’

He sent her a‘really?’look. ‘She admitted it and told me playing the pregnancy card was worth a shot. Also, I saw her about five months later and she was as skinny as a rake. Nope, she wanted money and was prepared to do, or say, anything to get it.’

Addi wanted to go back in time and slap the woman. How dared she have played with Jude’s emotions like that? And why was she feeling protective over this man? She only did that with people she loved...

She didnotlove him. That was too much, too soon...

You’re overreacting, Addi. Rein it in.

‘I’m sorry you went through that,’ she told him. She pushed her half-eaten plate of salad away and reached for her drink. ‘I know what being so disappointed by someone you love to distraction feels like.’

His head snapped up. ‘Your mum?’

‘Well, her too. No, I was engaged to a guy I met at university. I was due to marry him three months after the girls dropped into our lives. He decided they were more baggage than he could handle and he broke it off.’

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