‘Back to my room.’ Tugging on her clothes, she fisted tears away.
‘Claire, stay here.’ It was the first time he’d ever raised his voice around her.
But she needed some space. ‘I can’t.’
* * *
A baby?
What the actual hell? Ethan couldn’t get his head around that thought. And yet his eyes had kept darting to Claire’s belly as if staring at it for long enough might give him some answers. For the record; it didn’t.
But if Claire was pregnant then life would never be the same again.
He bunched up the sheets that smelt of her and tried to make sense of it all. He’d always prevented this happening in the past, so why it had happened now, with Claire, was beyond him. They’d been careful. He’d been careful that night and ever since. The moment he’d realised he’d been getting in too deep with her he’d ramped up the barriers. She’d broken them down with a smile. He’d refortified them, she’d shattered them with a kiss. And then last night she’d come to him, sensing he’d needed to talk, and making love with her had blown his heart wide open.
But this? A child? This was another level of complication.
He wasn’t father material, he certainly wasn’t husband material. A nomadic life in an African desert wasn’t the right place for a family. But neither was France. Not for him. She’d want to go home, for sure, to be surrounded by the people who loved her.
And what the hell did he know about childrearing? Paediatrics, yes, he’d written papers on the damned subject. But being a father? Nothing at all.
He threw the pillow that was imprinted with Claire’s citrus shampoo across the room. There was no way he was going to get any sleep now. If ever.
Because, despite the panic, deep down in a corner of his heart a light had flared when she’d said the word pregnant. A light that had given him the first sense of hope he’d had in a long time. But the hope had wilted as he’d worked through the ramifications.
He tried a warm shower. A run. A cold shower. But nothing stilled his mind. He was too jittery for meditation, too wired for more alcohol. Too strung out for a conversation with anyone else but Claire.
* * *
He didn’t see her at all the next day or night, even though he’d knocked on her door and half expected to hear from her. His text suggesting they talk went unanswered, so he presumed she’d done the sightseeing thing with her friends and was keeping her distance. He didn’t see Chase again either, so early on the last evening on shore he took to pounding the streets once more, trying to see if exercise might help get his mind straight about any of it.
It didn’t. Fifteen kilometres, three babies in pushchairs, a toddler gleefully splashing in a fountain and one set of identical eighteen-month-old twin boys tottering along La Corniche later, he arrived back at the hotel. Suddenly the world was full of babies everywhere he looked.
And each step had stamped out a regular beat: Claire and a baby. Claire and a baby.
It wasn’t helping. A father? Like his own? Distant and difficult?
But that was the only way. Surely? It was all he knew.
As he ran up the fire exit stairs he examined the adrenaline flowing through him and was surprised to feel excitement there as well as panic. Had his own father ever thought about Ethan like that? With some excitement?
Don’t get ahead of yourself.
After a quick shower and change he was examining his dinner options when his phone beeped. It was a message from Kristina.
There’s a visitor for you in reception.
From Kristina and not from Claire, he noted. She was hurting and it was his fault. He should have reacted better, but he’d been too shocked to temper his response. Not that that was a justifiable excuse for freezing her out like he had, and for being cold and short-worded instead of supportive. After all, not that he would but if he chose to he could walk away from this, but Claire had to live with it for ever. And what then of her bucket list of plans and dreams?
He headed down to Reception and found himself face to face with ‘Mariam? Hello! And little Awate. Good to see you both.’ It really was. He didn’t often get the chance to catch up with his old patients.
And there was Claire. His heart panicked at the sight of her, so beautiful, hesitant, wary. So unlike the free, uninhibited Claire he’d made love to twice. And, judging by the way his body prickled and his heart squeezed, wanted to make love to again.
But her eyes darkened when she looked at him and, in contrast, shone brightly as she turned and gazed at the bundle in Mariam’s hands. With his careless, unrestrained reaction to her news he’d done a lot of damage to her heart.
Fatima was there too. She smiled and stepped forward to translate. ‘Mariam heard the ship was in dock and went down to see if you were there. The crew told her to come here.’
‘Is she okay?’ He did a visual assessment. Mum and baby looked fine. Claire didn’t.
Always Claire. His first thought in the morning, the last image in his head before he slept, not that he’d been doing much of that recently.
Fatima smiled. ‘Mariam is doing well. She just wants to say thank you to you both for saving her child.’
Claire threw him a hooded look that said, See, we do get to find out what happens. And, probably, also a whole lot of curse words. ‘And Awate? How is she?’
‘Here.’ Mariam grinned. ‘Hold her.’
‘I’d love to.’ Claire took the baby from Mariam’s outstretched arms and her eyes misted. ‘She’s adorable. She’s put on a good amount of weight. I can’t believe how much she’s grown.’
He watched as she cooed at the baby, the whispered voice, the softened features, and he imagined a future. His heart twisted. Not a future that could include him.
He snapped back to reality. They hadn’t had a positive result. No result at all, in fact. They were living in limbo. ‘So, Mariam, how are things for you?’
He waited as she spoke and Fatima translated. ‘They were discharged from hospital two days ago. Awate is doing fine. She’s still tiny, as you can see, but she’s going in the right direction. Mariam has to take her to the clinic to be measured and weighed three times a week and her milk is coming through well. Baby is hungry.’
Claire nodded. ‘Excellent. Where are they staying?’
‘In the refugee centre. She says it’s okay. She’ll be fine. She’s hoping to look for a place to live and get a job if her asylum request is granted. She has strength for her child.’
‘I know she has.’ Claire gave the new mother a wobbly smile and Ethan wondered exactly what was running through her mind right now. ‘Tell her I’m so pleased to see her and that I’ll call in to see her next time I’m in Marseille. I’ll give her my number in case she needs anything, or just a friend. We can all do with those, right?’ After she handed little Awate back to her mother, Claire wrote down her number on a piece of paper.
He wanted to tell her again about not getting involved, but it wasn’t his business. Yet he felt a responsibility to her. And who was he to advise against involvement when he’d gone and done it himself with her? And whose life he’d mess up if he allowed things to get any more serious between them. He could possibly navigate being a father, but being her long-time lover? Husband?
But his heart fisted at the thought of walking away from her.
‘Mariam says she’s tired now. I’ll walk her back to the centre.’ Fatima smiled. ‘It’s not that far. Then there’s the group dinner at Rafael’s. See you there?’
Claire glanced at Ethan and then back at Fatima. ‘Not sure.’
Fatima looked from one to the other and he wondered whether Claire had confided in her or not. ‘Okay. See you bright and early back on the ship, if not before.’
Then it was just the two of them standing in the reception area. He didn’t know what to say next so he waited. But
Claire just looked at him, her eyes smudged and sad, and he felt a thick weight crushing his chest. He grasped at something. ‘What did you do yesterday?’
‘I showed Kristina the sights, had an early night. Shopping today. You?’ Her tone was clipped.
‘Thinking. Running. Sleeping. But not sleeping.’ He paused, not knowing where to begin. Then decided to just talk about it. ‘It’s not what you wanted.’
‘No, having a baby at this point in my life isn’t on my bucket list, Ethan. But we don’t always get what we want, right?’ She shrugged resignedly and he ached to hold her tight, but got the feeling she didn’t want that from him. ‘But the good thing about being a human is that we can be flexible and respond to circumstances when they are thrown at us. If it turns out there is a child in here, I’ll adapt.’
She patted her belly and something fierce bloomed inside Ethan’s chest. He stepped towards her. ‘I want to—’
She put her hand up. ‘Please don’t talk about it any more, not until we know for sure. It’s all I can think about and I’m so tired. This is supposed to be a nice break before we get back on the ship to work non-stop for another three weeks, and I’m not relaxing at all. I need a distraction.’
There were so many ways he could relax her, but he doubted she’d agree to any of them. ‘Maybe we can find some common ground to just relax without being stressed? You want to take a little time out from it all?’
She looked completely lost, her eyes lined with shadows. ‘If only that was possible.’
‘You said something about the best chocolatier in town?’
‘With you?’ There was a glimmer of lightness in her eyes for the first time since he’d held her tight against his chest the other night. ‘You want to actually leave the hotel?’
It hadn’t occurred to him that he’d be out there doing things in France, his only impulse had been to make her smile. He was a lost cause. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Of course? You don’t sound so sure.’ She looked at him with narrowed eyes. ‘And you honestly like chocolate?’
‘It’s my one vice.’ He smiled, because smiling was easy when he was with Claire, even when everything else was difficult. ‘And gelato, of course.’
She smiled back at him. Finally. ‘And cognac.’
And you.
Trouble was, she was his vice and his virtue. And he was stuck between the two, not knowing where to go next.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS STILL light as they strode through the La Plaine district of the city and the last dying rays of the sun had a little warmth left in them. Claire was surprised she’d even agreed to come with him after the way he’d reacted to her pregnancy suspicions, but here was the thing—something about Ethan made her heart sing and she needed a little of that right now.
Being with her new friends had been lovely, and they’d laughed a lot, but everything had been marred by her lack of a period. Somehow she felt she could bear the grumpiness and lack of focus on anything else with him, because it was as much his fault as it was hers. They were united in one big fat mistake that was going to change the course of their lives. Or hers, at least.
And she was supposed to be distracting herself from all that.
‘There’s a lovely morning market here with food from all corners of the world. You name it, we probably have it.’ She pointed out the closed stalls in the square and the fruit and vegetable shops spilling out onto the pavement. Then another shop front with huge bowls of ruby-and jade-coloured olives glistening in oil and another with brown hessian sacks holding as many different spices as there were days of the year. Basically, she was using her hands to point to as many things as possible to stop herself from grabbing his.
His eyebrows rose a little and he smiled. ‘It’s not like the France I remember. This is warm and dry and buzzy.’
Good. She wanted to help him have better memories of her home country. ‘France isn’t just mountains and snow.’
‘Of course I know that. I just...’ He shrugged. ‘Funny how one thing can colour your life in so many ways.’
Don’t I know it? She rubbed her tender breast, believing now that these weren’t her normal PMS symptoms.
‘Can you smell the cinnamon?’ Her stomach growled loudly. ‘Not only is this the place with the best hot chocolate in the world, there are amazing Moroccan cafés here too. They made me want to visit Morocco and North Africa just by their cooking smells and flavours.’
He laughed. ‘I’m getting a hint here, aren’t I? Do you want to eat something? Is that why you’re talking so lovingly about food?’
‘Yes, I’m starving, and then I feel sick and then I’m starving again. Sometimes only chocolate will do.’ She grabbed the last vacant table on the terrace and signalled to a waiter to bring over a menu. ‘I don’t know why I’m asking for a menu. I know it off by heart. Un morceau feuilletée du chocolat lait, s’il vous plaît. Deux chocolats chauds. Sorry, Ethan, I’m a philistine. Only milk chocolate will do and I’ve ordered you a drink. Don’t argue about that. You’ll never want anything else for the rest of your life.’
‘I doubt that.’ His eyes were all tease and she imagined what was going round in his head. It hurt that the sexual attraction was intense, along with a tenderness borne from their intimacy, but it also hurt that she couldn’t see how they could get over this massive hurdle.
‘Ethan Reid, honestly. When I said I wanted a distraction I didn’t mean that.’
‘I want to make you smile.’
‘You do. Mostly. Which is why all this is so hard.’
‘Okay, stick to food.’ His eyes glittered as he smiled and she knew how they’d got to this point from that first smile in the bar. His smile was everything; a joy, a picture, a pleasure. ‘I’m not a chocolate purist. To be honest, I’m grateful to get decent chocolate at all.’ He sipped his drink and sighed as if he’d fallen in love. He probably had, the owner really did have the best ingredients here. ‘Do you know Marseille well? Did you train here?’
‘Yes, it’s like a second home. I was here for four years on and off, then I went back home.’
‘Which is where? I can’t believe I don’t even know that about you.’
She laughed. ‘We missed the getting-to-know-you stage, didn’t we? I’m from a commune on the edge of the Gorges du Verdon. It’s called Moustiers. Moustiers Sainte Marie, to be precise.’
‘Verdon? Near the mountains?’ He visibly shuddered.
‘Oui. It’s beautiful—if you like nature and churches. But a little dull after you’ve lived there your whole life. I’m not a country girl, I don’t think. I don’t know. This is all I’ve ever known. The road from here to home and back again.’
‘You didn’t travel on holidays with your family?’
She laughed, incredulous. ‘There are five kids, Ethan. We couldn’t afford to travel. Our holidays were spent running around the fields and mountains and messing about in the river.’
‘Sounds idyllic.’
‘So does sailing in the Greek islands, seeing kangaroos in the wild and riding horses in California.’
‘You can still do it.’ He paused for a minute and they both knew what he was thinking about. Suddenly the conversation became serious again. ‘You can do anything you want.’
Claire’s stomach churned and she wasn’t sure if it was the prospect of what she was facing or genuine morning sickness but in the evening. Or maybe just too much chocolate. ‘When you spoke to Chase, did he mention anything about Kristina?’
Ethan frowned. ‘So we’re not talking about you?’
She ignored his question, hoping he’d take her lead. ‘Only whenever they’re in the same room they seem to take it in turns to look at each other, then quickly look away. I thought maybe he might have mentioned something. Kristina’s never said a word.’
‘He didn’t mention anything. But,
then, talking about his private life isn’t exactly the kind of territory we’re in. Early days and baby steps, I think.’ Ethan drained his cup. ‘It is perfectly possible to travel with a child, Claire.’
‘I know that. It just isn’t on my radar.’ Freedom had been.
Across the square a man started to play a guitar, slow, sultry music befitting the clammy evening. They stopped talking for a moment to listen. An old couple walked into the middle of the square and started to waltz, laughing, whispering, so sweet. As she watched them Claire wondered how many obstacles they’d overcome. What they’d had to give up to get to this point of dancing close, grey-haired and still together.
She’d never been together with Ethan. This hadn’t been a courtship, it had been lust a million times over, but he was right, they hadn’t learnt about each other. And now they were going back onto the ship and any intimacy would have to cease. Again.
He was sitting so close to her, his hands inches away from hers. Yesterday he’d been inside her and today she felt like a teenager with her first crush, not knowing where she stood or what to do with her hands.
He glanced at her. ‘You want to dance?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know. It’s all so complicated.’
‘It’s just a dance.’
‘It isn’t. Be honest, Ethan, you know it isn’t just a dance. It’s connection and kissing and getting closer and closer and then there’s this huge problem we can’t ignore. And I didn’t want to talk about it, but everything circles back to that in the end. What if the test is positive?’ She looked deep into his eyes, trying to find answers she knew he wasn’t capable of giving. ‘What then?’
One man had already let her down badly. She couldn’t stand it if another one swore to be with her and then just couldn’t let go of his nomadic life. And what would that mean for a baby? A father who randomly dipped in and out of their lives? She didn’t want that.
He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘We’ll work it out.’
And it was so tempting to believe him.
Saved by Their One-Night Baby Page 14