Page 31 of The Baby Behind Their Marriage Merger

‘After the Marina incident, I left South Africa, went to the UK and enrolled in the London School of Economics. That’s where I met Cole. I thought it would be a fresh start, that no one would be interested in me. Unfortunately, my grandfather was an internationally famous businessman and people paid interest.’

‘By “people”, you mean the press?’ Addi said, turning to face him.

‘Yes. Because he was so vociferous in his views, so uncompromising about his values and had a habit of lecturing anybody and everybody he met, many people, especially journalists, wanted to see his feet of clay. But, as hard as they looked, they couldn’t find any dirt on him.’

‘So they turned their attention to you.’

‘I think they sussed, somehow, that my failures would be a thorn in his side. But I’d realised that already.’ He dropped his arm and tucked his hand behind his head. ‘I kept a very low profile. I had few friends and Cole was one of my best. After six months, the press realised that I was boring and moved on. I graduated, joined Fisher International and ran the company’s international interests from London for five years. My grandfather and I worked better together when we lived a continent apart.’

Addi sat up and crossed her legs, her elbows on her knees, her eyes steady on his face. ‘I started seeing someone—Jane—after uni, and we were together for a couple of years. I thought that I could put Marina behind me, that it was a youthful misjudgement. I was older, better and wiser. Jane moved in with me and we lived together for a year, maybe a bit more. She worked in finance in the city, and was hugely ambitious, but she had no sense of fair play. Her actions started to worry me. I wasn’t comfortable with how she conducted business, and there seemed to be no lines she wouldn’t cross.’

Addi pulled a face and a wave of embarrassment swept through him. ‘I know how to pick them, right?’ he asked, trying to sound upbeat but missing by a mile.

Addi didn’t comment, and he didn’t see any judgement on her face. ‘I found out that she’d slept with her boss for a promotion. Fidelity was, is, important to me, so I told her it was over. She told me that I was overreacting, that it wasn’t a big deal.’

‘But it was to you.’

She got it. Jude nodded.

‘I asked her to move out and she wasn’t happy being downgraded from a penthouse apartment to what she called “a poky flat at the end of the world”. It wasn’t—she rented a flat on Canal Walk, one of the most expensive areas in the city—but it wasn’t Knightsbridge. She begged to come back, said she was sorry, but I was done, you know?’

‘Mmm...’ Addi nodded. ‘What did she do then?’

Sometimes he forgot how smart she was, how she could connect dots at the speed of light. Jude dropped his eyes and looked past her. ‘One night, a while before we broke up, after a party and having far too much to drink, I’d told her about Marina and explained how I was played. Jane later sold the story to the press, telling them that I was a terrible partner and that I was cold and unfeeling. She also said that I had a terrible relationship with my grandfather. That, admittedly, was true. She also pointed out that my grandfather didn’t trust me and was unhappy about passing the company on to me. Cue share prices dropping, shareholder uneasiness.’

Addi lifted her hand to her mouth, obviously horrified. ‘What a horrible woman!’ she snapped, her voice hot with anger.

‘A few months later my grandfather died, and I discovered he’d added some codicils to his will, hoops I had to jump through, the biggest of which was that a board of three trustees had to approve all my Fisher Holding decisions for ten years. There were also clauses in the will about my behaviour and what he expected from me.’

‘Well, obviously I know about the fact that you can’t have an illegitimate child, but what else?’

Jude rubbed the back of his head, mentally translating the legalese into everyday language. ‘No drugs, gambling, illegitimate kids. I’ll only gain full control of the business next year, shortly after you give birth.’ He pushed his fingers through his hair, feeling on edge, as if he was walking a tightrope over a thousand-foot canyon.

‘I’m surprised nobody knows about the board of trustees,’ Addi commented. ‘How have you managed to keep them a secret?’

‘My grandfather insisted they sign a non-disclosure agreement, which I tightened up after I took over. I also pay them a huge yearly stipend as an added inducement to keep quiet. And we’ve fallen into a pattern over the years: I only ever consult them when there are massive decisions to be made. They couldn’t be bothered with approving the day-to-day decisions; it would adversely affect their golf game.’

Addi flicked her thumbnail against her bottom lip. ‘I now understand your reluctance to trust anyone a little better—it’s because you’ve been badly burnt twice.’

‘Three times, if you include my grandfather, who couldn’t forgive me for misjudging Marina.’

‘Your hatred of the press and your wanting to keep a low profile now makes sense. You don’t want to rake up old stories.’

He also didn’t want Addi to be tainted by the shouted questions, their demands for information, their nosiness and by the press putting their spin on a situation they didn’t understand. This was between them; nobody else had a right to comment on what they had.

Whatever it was...

A repeat of being hounded by the press would be a nightmare scenario. He’d spent the past nine-and-a-half years keeping his head down, avoiding anything and everyone that would make headlines, and he had no intention of reliving that awful experience. He didn’t want Addi to experience it either.

Neither did he want to be conned again, be betrayed, be screwed over.

Life had been so much easier when he’d lived it solo. But now he had a baby on the way, so that was impossible.

Maybe. Yes, Addi was the one person he trusted more than anyone else. Not fully, not yet—he didn’t know if he could ever get there with anyone—but more than he had with anyone for a long, long time. It was a strange, weird, exciting thought. And one he shouldn’t be having.

‘I still think you should trust more, Jude.’

‘Trust me’—that was what she’d meant but hadn’t said. ‘I know,’ he murmured. ‘I’m trying, Ads.’

---