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‘Thanks. I appreciate it, but—’
Jack raised his hand to stop her protest. ‘No arguments about this at least. You’re still my wife and even if you weren’t, do you really think I’m the sort of man to turn my back on someone being hounded so brutally?’
Bess snapped her mouth shut.
She’d spent so long dwelling on Jack’s flaws she’d forgotten the other side to his character.
He hadn’t hesitated to step in when they’d taken a shortcut down an alley a year ago and come across a distressed woman being pressed up against a wall by an abusive man. When words hadn’t worked, Jack had physically pulled the man away. There’d been a scuffle, and to this day Bess was sure she’d seen the glint of a knife in the other man’s hand, but in a few quick moves Jack had disarmed him and bundled him away while she supported the crying woman.
Then there was the time they’d dined at a renowned Parisian restaurant and witnessed a young waiter’s distress after spilling food over a client. It hadn’t been his fault for another diner had barged into him. But as they were leaving, they’d overheard a staff member whispering that the waiter had been sacked. Jack had made it his business to recommend the young man to a celebrity chef acquaintance who was opening a new restaurant.
Her husband was good at rescuing people.
Except, she reminded herself, she only needed rescuing fromhim. Or more precisely, herself and her treacherous emotions.
She met his stare and nodded. ‘I appreciate the breathing space while I decide what to do next.’ Because she’d lost her job and, at least temporarily, her home. She felt utterly adrift. It would take a while to regroup.
Jack opened his mouth as if to speak, perhaps tell her what she should do next, but didn’t say anything.
Where would she go? She had friends in London but she guessed the press would find her if she stayed in the city and she didn’t want to bring this circus down around their heads. She’d given up her chance of another overseas job, wanting to stay in the UK with access to good medical facilities, through her pregnancy.
Going to her old home wasn’t a possibility. Jillian, her stepmother, had made it clear that while Bess could visit for short,veryshort, stints, anything longer would be inconvenient. Bess’s father, while he loved her, didn’t love her enough to stand up to his wife.
Familiar pain wrapped around her heart and for a second it stole her breath. But she refused to let it overwhelm her.
She turned back to Jack, so still and watchful. Her heart beat once, twice, three times and she realised her pulse was slowing. Her earlier panic edged away. She felt safe here with him, despite all the reasons she should spurn him.
Finally, almost gently, he said again, ‘So, talk to me, Elisabeth.’
Everything stilled inside her. The whirling thoughts and half-formed plans. The clamouring press wasn’t important, not in the long term when her whole world had shifted and would now take a whole new course.
Now, finally, they came to it.
‘I’m pregnant.’
She exhaled slowly and held his stare, feeling anew the sheer wonder of it. She hadn’t told anyone else yet, had barely had time to process the news herself, but saying it aloud made it feel real.
She lifted her chin. ‘With your baby.’
He nodded and surprise beat through her. She’d been prepared for disbelief and accusations that the child wasn’t his. Surely pride alone would urge him not to believe the woman who’d walked out on him.
Her brow scrunched. ‘You believe me? Just like that?’
Jack shrugged, those straight shoulders looking impossibly wide under tailored white linen. A tickle of heat threaded through her body but Bess ignored it. This was more important than desire. It was desire that had led her into this fix.
Except, despite the poor timing and the unexpectedness of it, she couldn’t quite bring herself to think of this baby as a problem.
She’d never been baby-mad like some women. Yet she’d understood in her heart of hearts that one day she’d like children. She wanted to pass on that special love she’d shared with her mum. That was a bond she missed terribly yet still felt sometimes on the darkest days. Her mother had been a special woman and had cherished her. She’d imbued in her daughter a confidence, a caring and curiosity about the world that Bess prized. Her father’s love, by comparison, didn’t feel quite so profound.
Jack leaned forward in his seat, his expression intense. ‘We had sex. Lots and lots of sex.’ His slow, deliberate words evoked vivid memories of their week together. Those threatened to unearth the terrible longing for him that she’d buried as deep as she could. ‘That can have consequences.’
Bess shook her head. He seemed so impossibly calm. ‘So you’ll take my word for it that the baby is yours?’
It was as if she needed to push him, prod him into argument. Anything to keep them in conflict, because conflict she could handle. She’d learnt to her cost that when it felt like they were on the same side, with the same needs and goals, this man made her far too weak.
‘You came to me a virgin the first time.’ His voice was low and blatantly appreciative. The ardent gleam in his eyes played on every feminine weakness and she felt that slow twist of awareness low in her body. ‘You admitted you hadn’t been with anyone else after you left Paris. And,’ he continued before she could interrupt, ‘what we shared in the Caribbean was too profound for me to believe you returned to England and instantly took up with someone else.’
She blinked. Jack had thought it profound too? The idea undercut so many assumptions. She’d assumed he’d used sex as a deliberate ploy to bind her to him and make her return to his cosy world.
