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‘I thought of that.’ Greg sat down on a pretty little window seat that looked out onto the garden and pulled an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘Here.’
‘What’s this?’ Jess almost didn’t take it. She really didn’t like the look of it.
‘It’s a formal offer. I want to support you a
nd the baby, and I want that support to be legally yours. If anything happens to me, I don’t want anyone to be able to take it away from you.’
‘Greg.’ If he had been trying to make her feel miserable and embarrassed, he couldn’t have done a better job.
‘Look, Jess, I heard what you said about being independent. I understand that you don’t want our relationship to affect our child. This means that it doesn’t. It gives you a place to live and an income, no strings attached. It’s a good place to start from.’
‘Greg, no.’ This was all too much. He’d sprung it on her so quickly and she couldn’t think straight.
‘Just read it. It gives you a much better income than you have now and is index-linked. There’s provision for school fees, a college fund and a small trust fund for our child. A place to live—here if you want or wherever else you choose.’
He could do this. He could buy her, and her child, so easily. ‘And what about the things I said I really wanted, Greg? What about your time? Your love? A father to go to for advice when our child needs it? Are they itemised in here too?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘You can’t make those things part of a contract, Jess.’
‘Right. Absolutely right.’ She proffered the envelope back towards him and he didn’t move to take it so she laid it on the window seat, next to where he was sitting.
‘Jess, I know that I’ve been busy recently.’ His face was stony now. She was alone in the house with a complete stranger. ‘But things will be different. Everything will settle down in time.’
That was another piece of advice that her mother had drummed into her. Never go into marriage thinking that you can change a man, because it won’t happen. Her mother had learned that the hard way with her father. This wasn’t marriage, it was a contract. One that would bind her, and her child, to him. ‘I don’t want this, Greg.’
‘You mean you don’t want me.’
How could he think that? ‘I mean that I don’t want my life, my child’s life, to be spent waiting for you. However much you can provide in a material sense, if you can’t be there, it means nothing.’ Tears began to trickle down her face. She was being inflexible, she knew that. But clinging to what was familiar was all she knew how to do right now. It had been her mother and herself, just the two of them. She had the blueprint right there.
‘Jess, you’re being impractical. What’s wrong with accepting an easier life?’
‘That’s it, though. It’s not an easier life, or a better one.’
‘And what is? Living in a flat that’s too small, counting the pennies? If that makes you feel virtuous, fine. But I’m not going to let you limit my child’s opportunities.’ There was no anger in his voice. Just a flat assertiveness that was colder and crueller than any emotion.
‘Not going to let me? Greg, listen to what you’re saying, please. My flat is perfectly adequate for me and the baby. You can’t make me move.’
‘No?’
This was how he did business, then. Jess supposed that he’d learned this kind of attitude in the boardroom. He’d become used to getting whatever he wanted.
‘Just try it.’ She turned on her heel and made for the front door. Behind her she could hear his footsteps.
‘Jess.’ His hand appeared over her shoulder, holding the door shut. ‘Look, I didn’t mean that. But think about this. It’s all very well to be independent, to be able to fend for yourself if you have to, but this is crazy. I have a right to give my child a decent place to live. You can’t just throw that back at me and tell me that you’re all right on your own.’
She turned to face him, her back pressed against the door. ‘You’re wrong, Greg. You think that spending money is going to absolve you of every other responsibility. Well, it doesn’t. My child can’t be bought. That’s nonnegotiable, and if you want me to sign something then you can put that in your contract.’
‘Ah. So all of a sudden it’s your child. I don’t have to be a doctor to know that you didn’t manage to conceive it all on your own.’
She’d had enough of this. She’d tried not to be angry and resentful, but these days rage seemed to be simmering beneath the surface most of the time. And now it had broken free, like some living, breathing being.
‘You don’t need to be a doctor at all, do you? You’re determined to throw away your career for the sake of Shaw Industries. What else are you going to throw away? Me? Our child? You’re not going to get that opportunity, Greg. I’m not going to let you tie me up with contracts and agreements so that I lose who I am. Because who I am is all I have to give to my child.’
‘You think it’s so easy.’ He almost spat the words at her.
‘No. I think it’s hard. You’re the one who’s taking the easy way out, and that’s your prerogative. But don’t expect me to just fall into line and support you in it any more, because I can’t. I don’t want it for you, or for me, or for the baby. That’s the end of it.’
They stared at each other. The lines had been drawn and there was no going back now. He was too like his father. She was too like her mother. It had never had the faintest chance of working, they’d just been beguiled by friendship and great sex.
