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Juno shook her head. She hadn’t wanted to tell Daisy this.
It had hurt terribly to hear what Mac had said on their last night together—because it had reminded her so forcefully of what Tony had said all those years ago when she’d told him she was pregnant—but at least Mac had been honest and made it absolutely clear he had no desire to father a child with her. The reasons why hardly mattered now.
‘If I told him, he would expect me to have an abortion. And as I’ve decided not to, I don’t see much point in telling him.’
‘How could you possibly know that?’ Daisy demanded.
Juno looked up to see her friend’s horrified expression. This was exactly what she had wanted to avoid. She had no desire to make Mac look bad in front of his family. Maybe, one day, he’d want to contact Daisy and Connor again, and she didn’t want to sour the relationship.
‘Because he told me so.’
‘Are you sure?’ Daisy didn’t look convinced.
‘Yes, I’m sure.’ Or sure enough. He hadn’t loved her the way Connor loved Daisy. So why should he want her to have his baby?
Daisy blew out a breath. ‘I find that incredibly hard to believe. But even so, how on earth do you propose to keep it a secret?’
‘He won’t contact me again.’ Of that one thing she was absolutely sure; that vain, foolish hope had died a death days ago when she’d received no word from him. ‘And I don’t think he’s going to contact you again either. If he does I’ll handle it.’
Would he want to have a relationship with the baby once it was born? The question had plagued her ever since she’d made the decision to try and carry the baby to term. She’d eventually come to the conclusion that the answer was certainly no. He didn’t believe in love. And he’d told her he wasn’t interested in playing happy families. How much more conclusive proof did she need?
‘What about the press?’ Daisy said. ‘What if they find out?’
‘They’ve moved on. No one’s contacted me in over a week. As long as there’s no sign of Mac I have no celebrity value.’ Which was one major plus.
She settled her hand on her stomach. Make that two major pluses.
‘I have to move on, Daze. I have to handle what I can control and forget about the rest. Having a healthy baby is all I care about at the moment.’ It was all she could allow herself to care about.
Mac was her past. The baby was her future. And right now she had to concentrate on not panicking herself to death. On getting through the first three months of this pregnancy safely, so she could start to get excited about the prospect of becoming a mother.
Daisy gripped her hand, squeezed hard. ‘I understand that. But we do have one other major problem on our hands.’
‘Which is?’
‘What Connor’s going to make of all this when he gets back from Berlin this afternoon. He and Mac were hardly on speaking terms when Mac took you off to LA. I’ll be honest and tell you we had a bit of a row after you’d gone to the airport. You know how overprotective he can be.’
Juno huffed out a breath. Connor was another thing she didn’t want to think about. The business trip that had kept him out of the way for the last two days had been one small blessing in the massive mess she’d made of her life.
‘Do you want me to talk to him?’ she asked. Would nothing in her life ever be simple or straightforward again?
Daisy patted her hand. ‘It’s okay, you’ve got more than enough on your plate. Leave Connor to me. But I’m just warning you, I can’t make any promises.’
Juno sighed. She didn’t expect promises any more.
A full twenty-four hours without having to deal with any major emotional upheavals would be more than enough.
Mac trudged up the steps from the beach and glanced at the pedometer on his wrist.
Ten miles. He’d run ten miles, pushing himself to the limits of his endurance after another sleepless night. And he still felt like crap. Usually the endorphins kicked in and gave him at least a small lift as he showered and changed and got ready to drive to the studio for rehearsals. Rehearsals that so far had been a total disaster. He hadn’t been able to find the character, not even a glimpse of it, for the first time ever.
Over the last week he’d been running further and further every morning but the exercise wasn’t doing the trick any more.
Stepping onto the terrace, he lifted his sodden T-shirt to wipe his dripping face. And paused to stare at the sun-lounger where Juno had often lain in the shade to welcome him back from his jog. He cursed quietly and let the T-shirt drop.
Who the hell was he kidding? The aching pain, the loneliness hadn’t got any better in the month since she’d left him. If anything it had got a great deal worse. The house that had once been a sanctuary had become a prison. Everywhere he looked he saw her. In the pool in that damn yellow swimsuit. At the breakfast table eating her morning muesli. In his bed and in the shower, her lithe body responding to his touch. She was like a ghost, taunting him to try and forget her.
It had got so bad he’d even toyed with putting the house on the market this past week. But what would be the point of that? The memories would still be there, dogging him wherever he went. He didn’t need a new home. What he needed was her.
