By screwing you instead. Was that all he’d been? A way to be sure that she didn’t want to be with David?
It hadn’t felt like that to him.
‘Anyway, the point is, maybe you’re right. Maybe it is good I won’t be able to find anyone willing to date me within a hundred-mile radius of David. Because...’ She took a deep breath before continuing. ‘Because it’s time to stop looking for that happily-ever-after as if it’ll fix my problems. It’s time to make my life what I want it to be on my own, for a change.’
Ash swallowed. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Zoey to take hold of the reins of her own life. He did. So why did he feel as if he was being cast aside too?
‘That’s good. Really, Zo. Just...everyone needs a friend sometimes too, right?’ he said. ‘So don’t forget. You don’t have to do it all on your own. I’m here for you, if you need me.’
The smile she gave him was so soft and loving it made his chest ache. ‘I know. You’re my best friend, Ash. You’re all I have left now. Which is why...’
‘That’s all we can ever be,’ Ash finished, so she didn’t have to. ‘I get that. And I get you wanting to make it by yourself. But—’
She groaned. ‘Does there have to be a but?’
‘Hopefully not.’ Ash tried to find a delicate way to put what he had to say, and failed. ‘Look, I’m totally on board with the pretending last night never happened and going back to being friends.’ Well, not totally, since that meant never seeing her naked again. But he could work with it, for her sake. ‘But I have to say something.’
‘What, Ash?’ She tilted her head to the side as she looked at him, as if she were waiting for some poetic or romantic pronouncement.
Boy, was she going to be disappointed.
‘We didn’t... We were reckless. I didn’t use protection. Did you...?’
He knew her answer before she spoke. The colour drained from her cheeks, leaving her eyes huge in her face.
‘David and I were doing this stupid abstinence thing for six weeks before the wedding. Plus he said he wanted to try for a honeymoon baby. So I went off the Pill two months ago.’ Her words were a whisper.
Something seemed to freeze inside him at her answer. There could be a baby.
And of course Zoey wouldn’t want that, just when she was taking control of her life again. But part of him couldn’t help but imagine a whole new future for them, in that brief second before Zoey started talking again.
‘I’m sure... I mean, the chances have to be low. What with all the stress and so on. I think that makes this sort of thing more difficult, right?’ She looked up at him, chewing on her lower lip, and he realised that he was the voice of experience in this matter.
‘Uh, yeah. I think so.’ In truth, he could barely remember. After all, he and Grace had been focusing on trying to get pregnant, not hoping it wouldn’t happen.
God, this was such a mess.
‘Right. So, probably nothing to worry about.’ The frown line between her eyes said she was worrying anyway, though.
‘Probably not,’ Ash said, in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. She was right. Grace had spent months planning to get pregnant—working out optimal times and strategies, adjusting their diets and habits, reading everything she could get her hands on about maximising fertility. There had been thermometers every morning to check when she was ovulating, calls for lunchtime quickies on optimal days—and still it had taken them nine months to get pregnant.
The chances that he and Zoey had conceived in one accidental hook-up—okay, two—had to be low. Surely.
‘But...you’ll let me know?’ he asked, looking into her worried eyes. ‘If there’s, well, anything to know.’
‘Of course,’ she replied quickly. ‘Of course I will. But right now I’d better get to the airport.’
‘Can I take you?’ Suddenly, he didn’t want to let her out of his sight.
She shook her head. ‘I’ll get the hotel reception to help me. I’m hoping I can trade in my transfer and flight home from two weeks from now to today.’
‘If you need any help, or anything...’
‘I’ll phone,’ Zoey said. But he knew from the too-quick smile she threw him that she wouldn’t. ‘Give me a call next time you’re in London for more than a night, yeah?’
‘I will. We can...get dinner or something.’
‘Sounds good.’ Her smile grew strained. ‘Bye, Ash.’
‘Bye.’
And then she was gone. And Ash felt suddenly very, very alone again.
* * *
Pregnant.
The word echoed around Zoey’s head the whole way to the airport.
She heard it in the waves around the speedboat that took her from the hotel island to the mainland, and in the rumble of tyres on the road of the minibus that took her to the terminal. It was in the roar of the planes taking off and landing.
‘Pregnant?’ the girl behind the counter at the drinks stall in the airport said. Zoey blinked until the girl repeated what she’d actually said. ‘Coffee?’
Wasn’t caffeine bad for the baby?
No. Because there was no baby. Even she wasn’t that unlucky, right?
‘Black,’ she said. ‘And strong, please.’
Sitting cradling her cup of coffee, she tried to think through all the events of the last thirty-six hours without her head exploding.
It wasn’t easy.
But what it came down to was just what she’d told Ash. It was time to stop waiting around for someone to save her, love her, marry her, give her the family life she craved. Instead, she needed to fight for and carve out a life she could love for herself.
However hard that was.
That was why she hadn’t let Ash help her get home—or even see her off the island. She knew that if he’d come with her to the airport it would have been far too easy to start relying on him again. Even if she managed to avoid slipping into the casual relationship with him that she’d foreseen when she’d started planning her return trip, just needing someone else to save her rankled now.
She needed to go it alone. It was past time.
Which didn’t mean she wasn’t already missing him like crazy.
Zoey took another sip of coffee to stifle a groan. What had she been thinking? She’d screwed up in the past before, but never quite like this. Never ‘run out on a wedding thousands of miles from home, got shipwrecked and had unprotected sex with my best friend’ screwed up. This was a whole new level of Zoey catastrophe.
No wonder her parents drank so much.
She’d seen them again, on her way out of the hotel, and told them she was leaving. They seemed to agree that it was for the best. She expected they’d stay out there for the full week they’d planned—at David’s expense, actually.
Zoey winced. She was quite glad she was missing that too. And if she was lucky, she’d have found a room in a shared flat or something and moved in before they even realised she’d been staying at home.
She wasn’t particularly keen on the idea of going back to flat shares and tiny cramped accommodation after David’s luxury apartment, but she didn’t have much in the way of choices. She loved her job, but her salary didn’t stretch far in London. And part of going it alone meant she really couldn’t ask her parents for help, beyond a bed for a few nights while they were away.
She’d make it work. She always had before.
Stretching out her legs, Zoey stared across the airport terminal at all the holiday-makers coming and going. Happy families, loved-up couples, honeymooners, retirees, excited kids...all living the lives she wanted for herself. All with someone or a whole family of someones to love and support them.
And here she was, alone with her coffee and a sense of impending doom.
‘This has to be rock-bottom,’ she whispered to herself.
Th
en she straightened her back. Because if this was as low as she could get, that meant the only way forward was up.
Yanking her phone from her pocket, she opened up the notes app and started to type.
New Plan for Fewer Disasters
No disasters seemed a little ambitious, but fewer was surely doable.
1) Take responsibility for my own life and future.
2) Decide what I want from life that I can give myself, without needing someone else.
3) Quit dating for a while. Say, six months, minimum.
4) Say no next time someone proposes to me. Just for a change.
Hopefully number three would make number four a moot point for a while, but it still felt good to have it down there. Because it might have taken her a while, but she was finally ready to admit that marriage wasn’t the be-all and end-all she’d always treated it as.
Yes, she still hoped to have that happy marriage and family life one day. But she was done putting off all the other life she could be living while she searched for it.
From now on, she was living her best life, on her own, on her terms.
And she didn’t need anyone else to make that happen for her.
Zoey smiled. It felt good to be in control for once.
As the first boarding call for her plane went out, she stood in the queue, her bag at her feet, and started another list on her phone.
Zoey’s Best Life List
Now she had hours in the air to think of fantastically fun things to add to it.
Things that definitely weren’t Sleep with Ash Carmichael again.
CHAPTER NINE
HIS TRIP TO paradise was most definitely over, Ash decided, as he stared at the pile of paperwork sitting on his desk a week later. He’d headed back to the London office via a few other properties he needed to check, fully expecting to be sent straight back out on location to check on one of Carmichael’s other existing or potential properties somewhere around the globe. But instead he’d returned to find expenses needing to be filed, reports to be typed up and his assistant absent without leave.
Plus, he was still thinking about Zoey.
She’d texted to tell him she’d arrived home safely, but that was all he’d heard from her since he’d put her on the boat to the mainland. No video call to check in, no funny emails about what she was up to, no new address details, not even a group chat inviting him out for drinks if he was in town this weekend.
Nothing.
It was making him anxious.
Maybe he’d call her tonight, if he wasn’t preparing to fly straight back out again, as normal. They could have dinner, like they’d talked about. That would be good. And hopefully not too awkward.
Sinking into his swivel chair, he thumbed idly through the stack in his in-tray and considered how the paperless office had never truly evolved. He’d dealt with all his emails while he was away, like always, but somehow that never quite covered everything that came up in a business day.
And there were no trips scheduled in his calendar. No flights booked or e-tickets waiting for him.
For the first time in two years, since he’d returned to work after Grace’s death, he had nowhere to go.
He couldn’t help but think this was some sort of a hint. And probably a sign he should go and talk to his father.
Or Zoey.
But no, his father first.
Wandering past his assistant’s empty desk, he moved down the corridor, past wide windows showcasing the London skyline, towards the biggest office in the building. The office belonging to Arthur Carmichael, CEO of Carmichael Luxury Travel and very much still in situ as head of the company even at nearly seventy.
‘Is he in?’ Ash asked Moira, his dad’s long-suffering assistant.
She nodded sagely, as if she knew something Ash didn’t. Which she probably did.
Many things, actually. It was a standing joke that Moira knew the jobs of everyone else in the company better than they did.
‘He’s waiting for you,’ she said with a sympathetic smile.
Oh. That didn’t sound good.
Ash gave a perfunctory knock on the office door, then stuck his head around it. ‘Dad?’
‘Ash! Come in, son.’ His father seemed in a reasonably jolly mood at least, Ash observed as he carefully shut the door behind him. He was still apprehensive as he took a seat, however.
It definitely felt as if he was missing something here.
‘What can I do for you?’ Arthur settled back into his seat, folding his arms against his chest as he leaned back, studying his son across the large mahogany desk.
‘I was just checking in, really,’ Ash said. ‘Um, like I said in my email, the refurbishments on that one villa weren’t complete, but I can go back in a few more weeks when they are. And, uh, I don’t suppose you’ve seen my assistant, have you?’
It would help, Ash thought, if he could remember his assistant’s name. But, in his defence, he’d only met her a couple of times. He’d not exactly spent a lot of time in the office lately. And her email address only had her initials... R, he thought. Rachel? Rebecca?
‘Ruth has been reassigned,’ Arthur said casually. ‘Really, she was far too highly qualified to be just booking your flights and submitting your expenses.’
‘But wasn’t that sort of her job?’ Ash asked, confused.
‘Assistant to the company’s second-in-command?’ Arthur asked, his eyebrows raised. ‘I rather think she was hoping to be a little more involved, don’t you?’
This wasn’t about Ruth at all, Ash realised suddenly. It was about him.
He was the one who hadn’t been involved. Who hadn’t spent more than a night or two in London in two years.
Because London was where he’d lost Grace.
He’d been coasting along on his grief ever since, taking every opportunity to fly away, stay away. And yes, he was working—but that wasn’t why he’d been doing it. Not for the company. For the escape.
‘Ash, your mother and I know the last two years have been unbearable for you.’ Arthur bent forward, resting his forearms on the desk as he looked Ash in the eye. Ash made himself hold his father’s gaze, however much he wanted to look away. ‘And I appreciate that you needed time to grieve, to cope and move on. We’ve tried to accommodate that as best we can within the company. But your mother and I both think it’s time, son. Time to come back to us. Not just to work, but to yourself. Stop running away and start moving towards something again.’
‘So you reassigned my assistant?’ Ash raised an eyebrow. ‘Mum told you to talk to me about my personal life, so you gave Ruth a new job?’ How like his father to make the personal professional.
‘I figured taking away the person who booked the plane tickets might be the only way to keep you in the country long enough to talk to me,’ Arthur said.
Ash looked away, conceding the point.
‘It’s just...been easier to be away, for a while,’ Ash admitted. Then he thought about Zoey, picking herself up and starting over after the latest self-imposed implosion of her love life. She moved on, every time. Maybe his dad was right. Maybe it was time for him to do the same. He straightened up and caught his father’s gaze. ‘But I’m back now. And I’m ready to get back to doing the real work. Not just the busy work or travelling around checking on things that don’t need checking on.’
A slow smile spread across Arthur’s face. ‘Well, that’s good. Because I am rather hoping to retire one day, you know. And if you want to take this place over, we’ve got two years’ worth of work to catch you up on.’
Looked like dinner with Zoey would have to wait. ‘Let’s get started, then.’
* * *
Zoey stared at the pregnancy test in her hand and forced herself to acknowledge the information it was giving her.
Outside the bathroom door, she cou
ld hear her two new roommates having a row about who had drunk the last of the vodka the night before. She tried to tune it out as she focused on the word in front of her.
Pregnant.
It said it right there in actual letters and everything. No Is that one line or two? or Do you think that’s really a cross? questions about it.
And it wasn’t the only one. She had three other tests that all said exactly the same thing.
She was pregnant.
She, Zoey Hepburn, disaster magnet extraordinaire, was going to be a mother.
Just when she was starting to get a handle on things.
She’d put off taking the test for as long as she could, but by the time she was three weeks late she hadn’t even really needed the confirmation of the test. Her cycle might have been unpredictable since she came off the Pill, but not that unpredictable. And as much as she’d tried to ignore the exhaustion, the aching breasts and the nausea she felt in the early evening, she’d known what they meant—even if she hadn’t been ready to confirm it until now.
Zoey tucked the test into the bottom of the bin, along with the other two. She didn’t need anyone else finding out about this before she’d figured out what it meant for herself. Five weeks since she’d run out on her wedding. Five weeks since she’d decided to take control of her life and fight for the future she wanted and could make for herself.
And now this.
Zoey swallowed as tears burned behind her eyes. She’d only had four weeks of managing any semblance of a responsible grown-up life on her own. How could she possibly manage a newborn too?
She shook her head. There was no point whining about it. She’d made a vow to own her mistakes and take responsibility for her choices.
And she knew one thing for certain. No child was a mistake.
This was her baby. So she’d take responsibility for it. She’d love it and care for it and...and she should probably stop calling him or her it too, even in her head. She might give it—them?—a complex.
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