Will you—can you give up everything here for the man you love, knowing that he wants you to only because his desire for your body has not yet worn out?
Not that Leon saw any of that as a reasonable excuse not to give him an answer straight away. ‘What is there to think about?’ he’d demanded when she’d asked for time to do just that. ‘Either you want to be with me or you do not. It really is as simple as that!’
‘Is it?’ she’d mocked, then sighed heavily. ‘You’re asking me to uproot my whole life for you, Leon!’ she’d cried. ‘I would have to be crazy not to think carefully before making that kind of decision!’
‘Or not crazy enough about me to know instinctively that where I am is where you want to be!’ he’d suggested, his pride touched.
‘And for how long would I be welcome there?’ she’d thrown back. ‘I am to uproot while you simply exchange one of your many addresses for another. What happens to me when you grow tired of me and find someone to take my place?’
‘That can work both ways, you know,’ he’d countered. ‘I am not so conceited that I don’t see the way you can enjoy other men’s company!’
‘Nor am I so conceited that I don’t see how you enjoy other women!’ she had snapped.
‘I am not promiscuous!’ he’d stated haughtily.
‘And neither am I!’
He had sighed. ‘No, I know you are not,’ he’d agreed, then sighed again, heavily this time. ‘Look,’ he’d said, ‘I am not ready to lose you, my darling! Do you think I would be making a proposition like this one if I were?’
She’d thought about that, and had to decide that no, Leon was nothing if not scrupulously fair. He would not be asking her to change her whole life for him if he did not think the change worth her making it.
It had been her turn to sigh, to soften her manner. ‘You’re right,’ she’d conceded. ‘And I apologise for implying that you would. But you must see, Leon,’ she’d gone on quickly before the triumph grew too bright in his black eyes, ‘that I have to have time to think about this!’
A point he had conceded grudgingly. ‘Next week,’ had been his parting shot. ‘I will be here next week and I will expect your answer then.’ The kiss he had issued then had been so sweetly possessive that she had almost caved in and said yes there and then. But something held her back, she wasn’t sure what.
Just as something held her back from telling Trina, she acknowledged with a frown, wondering if it was the same elusive ‘thing’.
Sighing, she turned over and punched her pillow into a more comfortable shape. She didn’t know what she was doing, lying here in the middle of the night wondering about what she was going to do when she already knew, if she was honest, how she was going to say, Yes, please, to him, because, from the first time she’d ever seen him, she had not been able to deny him anything.
Then, two things happened in quick succession during that week to change her mind irrevocably.
The first was on Wednesday morning, when Josh came striding into the office with all of his old energy back. Instead of stalking straight by her desk with a grunted ‘hello’ as had become his habit, he stopped in front of her, leaned down and banged the desk-top in exhilaration.
‘She got rid of it!’ he announced in gleaming triumph.
‘Got rid of what?’ she frowned. ‘Who?’
‘Cassie!’ he cried. ‘She got rid of it, and I suddenly feel so free it’s like walking on air!’
She didn’t know where it came from, but, on an acid surge of bitter, vile-tasting disgust, she shot to her feet, a dark red tide of anger swimming across her vision as she struck out with the flat of her hand.
‘You bastard!’ she breathed out contemptuously as he leapt back in stunned amazement. ‘You nasty—selfish—evil bastard! How dare you come in here dancing with joy when you should be huddling in some dark corner somewhere cringing in shame? God, you make me feel sick!’
And she was, violently sick, only just making it to the bathroom before she threw up. When she went back to her office, Josh wasn’t there, the door to his office firmly shut. She didn’t even think twice about it. She just gathered her personal things together and walked out. She could not go on working for a man who could behave like that. It went against the grain of every moral code she believed in.
Trina was in the flat when she got in, working on her books at the kitchen table.
‘I’m ill,’ was all Jemma could manage to say. ‘I’m going to bed...’ She turned away, her senses still too sickened by Josh to want to talk even to Trina about it.
But Trina had other ideas. ‘For God’s sake, Jemma!’ she snapped out impatiently. ‘Don’t you think it’s about time you faced it? If you leave it much longer, the shock of it could do you some physical harm!’
‘What shock?’ she asked blankly. ‘Face up to what, for goodness’ sake?’
Trina stared at her, her expression almost comically tragic. ‘Come on, sweetheart,’ she sighed. ‘You’re not that thick! He’ll notice if you’re not careful, and then where will you be?’
Notice? she repeated in her head. Notice what?
But even as she was thinking it, she was beginning to tremble, her body lowering itself carefully into a chair, eyes going dark with horror.
‘Oh, God!’ she choked, and buried her face in her hands.
Pregnant. The elusive little thing which had held her back from giving Leon an answer to his proposal. The same elusive little thing which had held her back from telling Trina what he had offered. And the same elusive thing that had made her react so violently to what Josh had said.
Pregnant. Her body had known for weeks, her mind probably for just as long! Only she’d blocked it out, refusing to so much as think about it—not daring to think about it because she knew exactly what it would mean to her relationship with Leon.
‘Oh, God!’ she whispered again and slipped into deep, silent tears.
‘Oh, Jemma!’ Trina sighed, coming to squat down beside her. Then, exasperatedly, as if she couldn’t help herself, ‘What did you think was happening to you when you’ve gone two months without a period?’
‘One,’ Jemma choked.
‘Two,’ insisted Trina, then very gently, ‘Darling, you haven’t had a period since you started going out with Leon! Think about it—that’s been over two months now!’
Two—two months? She stared unbelievingly into Trina’s anxious eyes, then burst into tears again. She was right—so damned right! And she’d just thrust the knowledge away as if doing so would make the situation go away! But it hadn’t—well, it couldn’t!
Oh, what was she going to do?
* * *
‘When will you tell him?’ Trina asked quietly later when the storm of shocked weeping had abated and she’d managed to get Jemma undressed and into bed.
‘I’m not going to,’ Jemma said thickly. ‘How can I, Tri?’ she demanded at Trina’s expression. ‘After going through all of this with Josh and Cassie, he’ll think I’ve done it to him deliberately!’
‘But this is nothing like the situation which developed between those two fools!’
‘Isn’t it?’ It looked exactly the same to Jemma.
‘I just knew he was too much for you to have your first love-affair with—and I was proved right, wasn’t I?’ Trina said angrily. ‘I mean, look at you!’ she sighed, glaring down at the pathetic picture Jemma presented huddled beneath a mound of blankets with her face all swollen and pale. ‘Heartbroken and pregnant. It couldn’t be worse!’
‘Call a spade a spade, why don’t you?’ Jemma muttered, then felt the rise of fresh tears again. ‘I love him, Tri!’ she whispered. ‘I just couldn’t do it to him!’
‘All right—all right!’ On another sigh, Trina sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked a soothing hand over Jemma’s tumbled hair. ‘So,’ she murmured. ‘What will you do?’
‘I don’t know yet.’ Jemma made an effort to control herself, pulling herself up into a sitting position an
d wrapping her arms around her bent knees. ‘I just can’t think yet—how could I have been so stupid as to ignore what was happening to me?’ she choked out contemptuously, lowering her head so that the curtain of hair tumbled about her face.
‘Maybe it isn’t what we think,’ Trina suggested. ‘Maybe I’ve jumped to the wrong conclusions about what’s wrong with you.’
Jemma’s face came up again, blue eyes stark with tears and mockery. ‘Do you honestly believe that?’ she drawled.
‘No.’ Trina shrugged, so did Jemma, and a silence fell around them for the space of a few dull minutes.
‘How the heck did it happen, anyway?’ Trina demanded suddenly. ‘I thought you were being careful.’
‘We were!’ Jemma declared. ‘But that first time, I—we—’ She stopped and blushed, then went on huskily, ‘After that he used something—’
‘Do you mean to tell me that that—highly experienced rake took you without protection that first time?’ Trina jumped in in disgust.
Several times, Jemma corrected silently, unable to keep the soft smile from her lips when she remembered that first earth-shaking night in his arms. They’d both been too lost in each other to give protection a single thought!
‘But that alters everything, Jem!’ Trina said eagerly. ‘It means that he is as much to blame as you are! And even Leon himself can’t deny that!’
Jemma stiffened, her vulnerable face closing up suddenly. ‘I will not trap him into a situation he has no wish to be trapped into,’ she said firmly.
‘Marriage, you mean? It’s what you deserve.’
‘Any kind of situation!’ Jemma declared. ‘Marriage and babies are not what Leon wants from me,’ she added dully.
‘Yet he has invited you to go and live with him in New York!’ Trina persisted. ‘That has to mean he cares something for you, doesn’t it?’
‘Nothing alters the fact that I will not trap him with this baby,’ she stated stubbornly. And was glad she had the rest of the week to come to terms with what she must do instead.
CHAPTER SIX
JOSH rang the next morning, asking stiffly if she was returning to work or not. Trina spoke to him. Jemma couldn’t. And he took her resignation without argument, promising to send her what he owed her in the way of salary by post. Jemma suspected that after what she’d said and done yesterday he was probably as relieved to see her go as she was to leave.
Leon rang each evening as he always did. And Jemma used these calls to begin distancing herself from him. He noticed. He had to do. She was cool and polite and rather vague if he touched on anything too intimate—and cried herself to sleep every night.
By Thursday his voice was terse and aggressive. ‘I will be arriving back about five tomorrow night,’ he informed her. ‘Shall I expect you at your usual time, or not?’ His sarcasm cut, even though she knew it was well deserved.
‘Of course,’ she said, biting down on her bottom lip to keep the ever-ready tears out of her voice. ‘I’ll be there about six.’
She spent Friday reinforcing her resolve to finish this with as much style as she could manage. Luckily the dreaded sickness seemed to be leaving her alone today, so she felt and looked a lot better—physically, that was. Inside was a different matter. Inside she felt as if she was splitting slowly into two.
She took nothing with her to the house, simply because she was not intending staying long.
Leon opened the door to her knock. He looked deeply into her sombre eyes and his own expression closed up tightly as he stepped to one side to let her go by him.
He barely gave her a chance to remove her coat before he got ruthlessly to the point. ‘I presume by your manner all week that you have decided to remain here in London.’
She paused in sliding the cream raincoat from her shoulders, a pang so painful that it held her breathless for a moment, slicing right through her. He looked so wonderful to her hungry senses, so big and dark and achingly withdrawn. He had showered recently, and his hair lay in a sleek, damp gloss flat against his well shaped head. And gone were the business clothes he would have travelled home in and instead he was wearing a casual pale blue cotton shirt and grey trousers that hung loosely over his flat stomach from the fashionable pleating at the waist. His eyes were so dark that she couldn’t see anything in them but a grim reflection of her paler self, his mouth a thin straight line that told her that, like herself, he had prepared himself for this meeting.
Despair suddenly drenched her, and she remained standing there, wanting to run to him, wrap her arms around him, soothe that closed expression from his face, make him smile, laugh, pick her up and hug her tightly while he gave her that first long satisfying kiss they usually shared at this moment.
But, ‘Yes,’ she answered him huskily, and followed him with her eyes as he simply grimaced and walked into the book-lined room to pour them both a stiff drink.
She shook her head in refusal when he offered her a glass, unable to hold his gaze when he remained standing in front of her, sipping out of his own glass while he studied her pale face narrowly.
‘Have you found someone else?’
‘No!’ Her head shot up, sheer surprise at the question making her answer honestly, but later she realised it might have been easier on both of them if she’d had the foresight to lie and use another man as her excuse. As it was, things only got worse.
‘Leon—you knew last week that I wasn’t very—enthusiastic about the idea of leaving everything I know and feel safe with, to go to New York with you!’ she reminded him with an appeal in her voice. ‘And the more I’ve thought about it, the more sure I’ve become that it just isn’t the right thing for me to do!’
‘Why not?’ Nothing else, just the blunt enquiry.
Jemma swallowed on her dry and tense throat. He was not going to make this easy. ‘There’s no future there for me,’ she said dully.
He took his time absorbing that reply, his eyes so black they were impossible to read. Then his mouth tightened again and he said coolly, ‘If you’re angling for a marriage proposal, Jemma, then you’re in for a disappointment. It is an institution I have no intention of joining, whoever I have to sacrifice to keep that vow.’
That brought the sparkle back into her eyes. She glared at him angrily. ‘And I never for one moment so much as considered marriage as an option!’ she snapped with an honesty he would never be able to appreciate. ‘But neither am I prepared to become any man’s mistress! At the moment we share a relationship,’ she went on more calmly, ‘in which I have a job and a home of my own and a level of independence which allows me to keep my pride and self-respect. But the word “mistress” is an ugly one, Leon. Yet that is exactly what I would become if I agreed to come and live with you in New York.’
Silence met that, and it came down around Jemma like a death-knell, sinking her into a helpless despair because she knew, as she watched Leon turn slowly and go over to pour himself another drink, that she had achieved exactly what she had set out to achieve.
The end to their relationship.
‘So, this is it.’ It was he who put it into words.
‘Yes,’ she answered huskily. ‘You said no commitment, Leon,’ she reminded him, seeming to need to hammer the point home for her own benefit as much as his. ‘Honesty and loyalty, you said. Well...’ She took in a deep breath, her voice beginning to tremble along with her body. Inside she was weeping just as she had wept every night this awful week. ‘You’ve h-had my loyalty, and now I am giving you my honesty.’ Liar, a small voice jeered inside her head. You’re lying to him with every word you say! She flinched but ignored it. ‘I c-care for you deeply, but...’
‘Not enough to trust yourself to me,’ he finished for her.
She shook her head, the tears managing to find a crack in her defences and creep into her eyes. He saw them and sighed, slamming down his glass to come striding over to her. ‘No,’ he muttered as he took her into his arms. ‘Forget I said that. It was unfair and unworthy. In fact,
when I have had time to come to terms with your decision—’ he was deliberately instilling a lighter tone into his voice ‘—no doubt I shall even learn to admire you for it. But,’ he sighed, lowering his head so that he could kiss the trail of salty tears away, ‘at the moment I see only the end to a very special period in my life, and for that I hurt too, just as these tears tell me you are hurting.’
He hurts, she repeated achingly to herself, and wanted to hold him tightly to her until his hurt went away. Her arms went around his waist, revelling in the feel of warm, taut skin beneath her fingertips, her face burrowing into his throat on this one last surrender to this weakness she had which was him.
‘Ah, Jemma,’ he murmured heavily. ‘Are you sure I cannot change your mind?’
She shook her head, but held him all the closer, and he laughed softly. ‘But maybe it would be enjoyable if I were at least to try?’ he suggested.
He lifted her chin, his eyes dark and intent as they ran over her pale, unhappy face, then he sighed again, and his mouth came down to meet with hers. His hunger and her need met in a powerful kiss which verged on desperation.
Their tongues tangled, their bodies melting together as though they were drawn like that by some power beyond their understanding. It wasn’t sexual, it was something else far more disturbing. With the prospect of a final parting and the emotion which came with such an end, it was as if each fine nerve-end was pushing its way up to the surface of her skin in an effort to absorb every last ounce of him into her.
A muffled sob broke in her, and Leon groaned, his mouth hot as it buried itself in her throat. ‘Change your mind,’ he murmured huskily. ‘Neither of us is ready to give this up.’
Jemma came spiralling down from whatever heights she had been flung to, with a shiver that racked her whole frame. ‘No.’ She shook her head, having to force her fingers to break the anguished grip they had on him.
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