Jack Riordan's Baby

‘You’re not dressed for the office,’ she said now, and Jack knew he had to turn and face her.

‘I was hungry,’ he said, even though the thought of the omelette Mrs Grady had offered to make for him was making him feel sick.

Rachel’s lips tightened. ‘I suppose you can’t wait to see her, can you?’ she said, and Jack blinked at the sudden attack.

‘To see her?’ he echoed. ‘Who the hell are you talking about?’

‘This woman,’ she persisted. ‘She works in your office, doesn’t she?’ She paused, and when he made no reaction she went on, ‘Karen Johnson? Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten her.’

Jack swayed back on the heels of his loafers. ‘How the hell do you know about her?’

‘I know.’ Rachel refused to tell him the woman had been here.

‘I can’t believe you were interested enough to investigate my life.’

‘Can’t you?’ His words pained her, but she managed to hide it. ‘I guess we don’t know one another very well anymore.’

‘And whose fault is that?’ he countered, feeling his heart quickening in tune with his rising agitation. ‘For God’s sake, Rachel, I didn’t move out of your bed!’

‘You know why I did,’ she cried, stung into defending herself, but Jack wasn’t in the mood for compromise.

‘They were my babies, too,’ he said savagely. And then, feeling as if he’d pass out if he didn’t get some air, he walked unsteadily across the kitchen floor. ‘Just go to hell, Rachel,’ he muttered, going out of the door.

Jack was sitting in his office in Plymouth, slumped over his desk, when the intercom buzzed. Scowling, he pushed himself up and pressed the answering button. ‘Yeah?’

‘You’ve got a call, Mr Riordan.’ His secretary sounded apologetic. ‘I know you said you didn’t want to be disturbed, but it’s your wife.’

‘My wife?’ Jack was stunned. He had no idea why Rachel should be ringing him after their altercation that morning. But he was ever the optimist, he thought dourly. ‘Put her on.’

‘Yes, Mr Riordan.’

The line went dead for a moment, and then a voice said, ‘Hello, Jack.’

It wasn’t Rachel. That was his first thought, and his spirits foundered. And because of that his response was savagely blunt. ‘Karen,’ he said, recognising her voice instantly after what Rachel had said. The way he was feeling now, if the woman had been in the immediate vicinity he’d have wrung her neck.

‘Darling—you remember me!’ she exclaimed, and Jack wondered how she expected him to forget. She’d been ringing him off and on for the past three months—ever since she’d been fired, actually. So many times, in fact, that he’d had to ask his secretary to monitor all his calls.

‘Don’t call me darling,’ he snapped, wondering why he didn’t just slam down the receiver. He’d done it before. ‘Do you want to tell me what you’re doing? Impersonating someone else is a criminal offence. If you ring this number again I’ll have you arrested. There’s a word for what you’re doing, Karen, and it’s harassment.’

‘Oh, Jack, don’t be so stuffy. You didn’t used to be like this when we were together.’

‘We were never together, Karen.’ Jack was wearily aware he’d said all this before. ‘We went out together once. And believe me, that was a mistake.’

Karen only laughed. ‘You don’t mean that, Jack.’

‘Yes, I do. And I mean it when I say I’m going to report you to the authorities. I should have done it before. But I guess I felt sorry for you.’

‘Don’t feel sorry for me, Jack.’

Her tone had altered now, and he could tell he’d annoyed her. Well, good! Way to go. He hoped she’d got the message at last.

‘Feel sorry for yourself, Jack,’ she went on sharply. And then, her tone softening again, ‘We need to be together. You know that. You can fight it if you like, but it won’t do you any good.’

‘For God’s sake!’ Jack lost patience. ‘Get a life, Karen. One that doesn’t include stalking me!’

He would have slammed the phone down then, but she must have sensed it, and rushed into speech. ‘We’re going to have a baby, Jack,’ she burst out wildly. ‘That’s why I’ve been ringing you. We have to talk.’

Rachel spent the morning in the studio Jack had had built for her in the garden. It was on the far side of the property, with a magnificent view of Foliot Cove. The cove was at the foot of the cliffs that etched this part of the coastline, and could be reached by a flight of stone steps some previous owner of the land had had carved out of the rock.

Rachel was quite a gifted painter, using both oils and charcoal in various forms. But her favourite medium was watercolour, and she’d created quite a name for herself in recent years, illustrating children’s books for the London publisher who’d recognised her talent.

Today, however, it was hard to concentrate. She kept thinking about what she’d done the night before, and remembering Jack’s face when she’d told him she knew about his affair with Karen Johnson.

He hadn’t admitted he was having an affair with Karen, but then he hadn’t denied it either. Instead, he’d accused her of abandoning their marriage. Of moving out of their bed and effectively putting an end to their relationship.

Yet surely he should be able to understand how she’d been feeling at that time? Three times she’d become pregnant, three times she’d felt the miracle of life inside her, and three times she’d lost the baby in the third month. All right, perhaps she hadn’t given enough thought to how Jack was feeling. Perhaps she had been totally tied up with her own emotions, her own grief.

But Jack had always seemed so strong, so impervious to anything life threw at him. The eldest son of an Irish labourer and his wife, who had emigrated to England in the sixties, he’d worked hard to get his degree in civil engineering. He was the only member of his family who’d ever gone to university, and although one of his brothers and all three sisters were settled now, with families of their own, for years Jack had helped to support his siblings, doing two jobs even when he was at university so that he could send money home.

She couldn’t help wondering now if she’d been too quick to put his behaviour down to disappointment. Disappointment that he wasn’t going to be a father, and disappointment in her, too, as a woman. She’d believed he thought she’d let him down—not once, but three times. And when she had refused to let him near her again, he’d turned to someone else.

It had all seemed so simple—and so sordid. She hadn’t been able to believe that a man like Jack could exist without some woman in his bed. The fact that it had taken her almost eighteen months before she found out about his involvement with Karen Johnson didn’t reassure her. Karen wasn’t the first, she was sure. But she was the only one who’d got pregnant with his child.

At lunchtime, Rachel abandoned any attempt to continue with her painting of Benjie Beaver and went back to the house. She had still to explain to Mrs Grady why her bedroom had been littered with burnt-out candles that morning, and why Jack’s bed hadn’t been slept in.

However, Mrs Grady was out. She usually went shopping on Thursday mornings, Rachel remembered, finding even normal events as difficult to concentrate on as anything else. Karen Johnson’s visit the day before—and her own shameless behaviour—had left her in a state of confusion. She knew that she’d seduced her husband. She just didn’t know why.

Oh, there was the obvious reason: she wanted to get pregnant. But where was the sense in that? Why should she believe that this pregnancy—if indeed there was to be one—would be different from any of the others? Wasn’t she just building up a whole lot of heartache for herself?

She shook her head. She only knew she’d had to do something to stop that woman from stealing her husband. Despite everything, she still loved him—although she had no intention of telling him that. But if she was expecting his child it would prove to Karen that they were sleeping together. And it gave her an added advantage. After all, she was still his wife.

To her surprise, Mrs Grady had left a cold lunch for two in the morning room. Chilled asparagus soup, a Caesar salad—Rachel’s favourite—and strawberry shortcake for dessert. Rachel wondered if the housekeeper expected her to ask Lucy to join her. Her best friend, Lucy Robards, only lived half a mile away.

Rachel hadn’t mentioned having a guest, so that seemed unlikely. But Jack never came home for lunch these days. It was a stretch if she had his company for dinner. Which was just as well, because they rarely had anything to say to one another.

An uncorked bottle of wine was standing in a cooler, and Rachel picked it out and poured some into a long-stemmed crystal glass. It was Chablis, she noticed as she tasted it. A wine that Jack had chosen. Was that relevant? Had he told Mrs Grady he’d be back for lunch?

It seemed unlikely. After the way he’d left the house earlier she was fairly sure she wouldn’t see him again that day. But that wasn’t entirely Jack’s fault. She was going to bed earlier and earlier these days, escaping into oblivion to avoid the inevitable questions Jack’s absence always created.

The roar of a car’s engine in the drive caused a sudden quiver in her stomach. It could be Mrs Grady, of course, but she didn’t think it was. Mrs Grady drove a Ford, not an Aston Martin. And this definitely sounded like a powerful car.

Rachel’s nerves tightened instinctively, and she took a gulp of wine to calm her racing pulse. There was no reason to get all chewed up, she told herself. Jack had probably forgotten something. He’d probably come in and go out again without her even seeing him.

A car door slammed, and in spite of her assurances Rachel’s mouth felt dry. She took another sip of wine, just to irrigate her throat, and then almost choked when Jack appeared in the open doorway.

She should have shut the door, she chided herself, still convinced he wasn’t staying. But Jack had other ideas.

‘Hi,’ he said civilly, much to her surprise after the way he’d left the house. ‘Good. I’m just in time.’

Rachel swallowed. ‘This—’ She gestured towards the round table, with its green and yellow place mats, its Villeroy and Boch china, its silver cutlery. ‘This is for you?’

‘For both of us,’ amended Jack, taking off his charcoal suit jacket and dropping it over the back of one of the ladder-backed dining chairs. He loosened the top button of his shirt and pulled the knot of his silver-grey tie away from his collar. Then he approached the wine cooler where Rachel was standing, her wine glass forgotten in her hand. ‘Is that Chablis?’

‘Don’t you know?’ She couldn’t keep the resentment out of her voice. ‘I imagine you must have arranged this with Mrs Grady before you left.’

‘I phoned,’ he corrected her again, a flicker of his eyes registering the way she moved around the table to put some space between them. He helped himself to a little of the wine. But only a little, she noticed. Whatever else he’d come home for, it wasn’t to drown his sorrows. He took a mouthful. ‘Mmm, that’s pretty good.’

Rachel shook her head, putting her glass down on the table with a slightly unsteady hand. She mustn’t let him do this to her, she told herself. She wasn’t going to let him behave as if nothing had happened. They both knew it had. Karen Johnson was part of their lives, for better or for worse.

All the same, as Jack stood there regarding her from beneath lashes any woman would have died for, Rachel was unwillingly reminded of the concern she’d had about him earlier. There was something different about him today. She didn’t know what it was, but it troubled her.

‘Shall we sit down?’

Jack spoke, and in spite of her thoughts Rachel gave a careless shrug. ‘If you like.’

Jack waited until she’d taken the chair opposite before joining her. He wondered if she thought he hadn’t noticed her edging her place setting around the table so that there was no way their elbows would touch, but he didn’t comment on it. It was enough that she wasn’t sniping at him—yet, anyway. No doubt that would come when he told her about Karen’s call.

Rachel reached for the wine and refilled her glass. She felt as if she needed some false courage, and one glass just wasn’t doing it. Despite her determination not to do so, she couldn’t help wondering why there were those lines of strain beside his mouth. However strenuous last night had been—and she coloured at the memory—he had been as eager to satisfy his needs as she had been.

Realising he was waiting for her to have some soup before helping himself, Rachel lifted the lid of the tureen and ladled a spoonful into her bowl. Then she pushed the handle of the ladle in Jack’s direction.

Judging by the little he took for himself, his appetite was as non-existent as her own, and once again she fretted over the reasons why. Last night he’d seemed exactly the same as usual; but then, last night she’d been intent on achieving her own ends, not his, she assured herself grimly.

Of course, his haggard appearance might have something to do with his guilty conscience, she thought, dipping her spoon into the soup with more force than enthusiasm. He was thirty-seven, for God’s sake. What else could it be?

‘Did you sleep well?’

His words took her completely by surprise—as they’d been meant to do, she guessed, annoyed that she’d been caught out. ‘Not very,’ she said, not altogether truthfully. After she’d left him sleeping soundly in her bed, she’d crashed in one of the other guest rooms. She must have been exhausted, because she hadn’t been aware of anything until the morning sun had poured in through the uncurtained windows and she’d realised what she’d done. After that, sleep had definitely been out of the question.

Jack arched a disbelieving brow. ‘Shame,’ he said, putting his spoon aside. ‘I slept like the dead.’

It was an unfortunate choice of words, particularly in the circumstances, and Jack hoped they weren’t prophetic. But Rachel was immune to their relevance.

‘Now, why am I not surprised?’ she asked scornfully. ‘It comes of not having a conscience, I suppose.’

‘I have a conscience.’ Jack was stung into a retort. ‘Do you?’

‘Me?’ Rachel was taken aback. ‘Why should I have a conscience?’

‘Well, let me see…’ Jack lay back in his chair and toyed with his wine glass, but his eyes never left her flushed face. ‘You don’t think last night’s play was just the tiniest bit unethical?’

Rachel moistened her dry lips. ‘You’re my husband. What was unethical about it?’

Jack let out a short laugh. ‘Oh, baby, you don’t really expect me to answer that?’

‘Don’t call me baby.’

‘Why not?’ Jack gave her an innocent look. ‘Like you just said, I am your husband.’

Rachel pushed back her chair and got up from the table. ‘If you’ll excuse me—’

Jack got up, too, and blocked her exit. ‘I won’t,’ he said, aware that he was probably blowing any chance of appealing to her better nature by acting this way, but he couldn’t let her go like this. ‘We’re not finished yet.’

‘I don’t want anything more to eat.’

‘I wasn’t talking about the food.’

Rachel looked up at him with angry eyes. He guessed it was annoying her that in spite of her height he still had several inches on her. ‘You can’t keep me here.’

‘Oh, I think I can.’ Jack sidestepped—first one way, then the other, successfully preventing her from getting past him. ‘Now, why don’t you go and sit down again, and we’ll talk?’

CHAPTER FOUR

‘I DON’T WANT to talk to you.’ Rachel was scowling now, and he could feel her frustration. The perfumed heat of her body was rising off her in waves, and after last night it was all he could do to keep a sense of perspective. ‘And I don’t want to sit down,’ she added tersely. ‘I want to go to my room.’

‘Works for me.’ Jack was willing. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘You won’t!’

‘No?’ Jack adopted a puzzled look. ‘It was okay for me to go there last night.’

‘Last night was a mistake.’

‘Right.’ Jack pretended to consider it. ‘So the whole scene: the absence of any electric lights, the incense-scented candles, you virtually naked, I’m to believe it was all a mistake?’

Rachel’s chin dipped. ‘Yes.’

‘Why don’t I believe you?’

She sniffed. ‘Because you’re too arrogant to think anything else?’ she suggested, and he sighed.

‘What are you saying? That it was for someone else?’

That thought had just occurred to him, and he didn’t like it. But to his relief Rachel was too desperate to defend herself to lie.

‘No,’ she said fiercely. ‘I don’t sleep around.’

‘Meaning I do?’

‘If it fits.’

‘It doesn’t,’ he snapped, momentarily angered by the unjust accusation. Then, calming himself, he went on, ‘So it was all for my benefit?’

Rachel shifted uneasily. ‘If you want to think that,’ she muttered.

‘What else am I supposed to think?’ Jack lifted his hand, and in spite of her instinctive withdrawal he caught a strand of her silky hair and tucked it gently behind her ear. ‘I didn’t realise you were so needy.’

Rachel caught her breath. ‘I’m not needy!’

Jack’s fingers trailed from her ear down the smooth column of her throat to the low vee of her vest. ‘You can’t deny you wanted me last night.’

Rachel lifted her head. ‘I—wanted a man, yes.’

Jack shook his head. He badly wanted to untie the shirt that hugged her midriff and slip his hands into the low waist of her trousers. But in spite of what she’d said he didn’t think she’d let him do that, and he didn’t want to destroy this tenuous relationship by rushing things. Instead, he contented himself with watching the way her nipples hardened against the fabric of her vest, remembering how delicious they’d felt rolling against his tongue.

‘Look,’ he said, after a moment, ‘we have to talk about this. You can’t expect me to ignore what happened and go on as before.’

‘Why not?’

‘Why not?’ He stared at her frustratedly, his eyes darkening to the deepest shade of jade. ‘Because it was good between us,’ he said thickly. ‘And I want to do it again.’

‘No.’

Jack lifted his hand then, but although Rachel took an involuntary step back all he did was rake back his hair with an angry hand. ‘So what now?’ he demanded. ‘Do I wait until the next time you feel like screwing me? Or do I get a say in the matter?’

Rachel’s face burned. ‘Don’t use that word.’

‘What word? Screwing? Well, that’s what it was, wasn’t it? I made love to you, but you screwed me!’

‘No!’

‘Yes.’ Jack closed his eyes for a moment, striving for control. ‘I should have known better than to think it was anything else.’

Rachel quivered. ‘Well, what did you expect?’

Jack scowled. ‘And that means what, exactly?’

Rachel took a deep breath. ‘Haven’t you forgotten Miss Johnson? What is she now, by the way? Your secretary? Your personal assistant? Oh, yes. Personal assistant just about covers it. She—’

‘Karen doesn’t work for the company any more,’ he interrupted her.

Rachel stared at him disbelievingly. ‘Since when?’

‘Since George Thomas fired her.’ Jack hadn’t wanted to get into this right now, but he knew it was inevitable in the circumstances. ‘What can I say? She was no good at her job. We had to let her go.’

‘So how did she—’

Rachel had started to ask how Karen had known where Jack was and what he was doing, but then stopped herself. How silly was that? Just because the woman didn’t work for Fox Construction any longer it didn’t mean that Jack had stopped seeing her. He must think she was stupid if he thought that by telling her Karen had been dismissed she’d believe he’d ended their affair.

‘How did she what?’

Jack had picked up on her unfinished question, and Rachel spent several unfruitful seconds trying to think of something else to ask.

‘Um—how did she manage without a reference?’ she asked at last. Then, seizing on his look of incredulity, ‘Oh, right. You wrote one for her. What did you say, Jack? Performs poorly in the office but makes up for it in bed?’

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