The Midsummer Auction

by Pia Tremayne

  “Oh God,” he said, as soon as he could speak.

  “Shouldn’t that be ‘Oh, Nicola’?” she asked impishly, her hands stroking his as it lay across her belly.

  He gave a small shout of laughter and pulled her tightly to him. The next instant they were fast asleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  She awoke to a cacophony of birds singing a Jamaican serenade in the trees outside her window. His even breathing told her he was still asleep. Trying not to awaken him she turned in his arms, adjusted so she faced him and rested her head in the crook of his outstretched arm. She studied his face, noting the faint shadow along his jaw, a masculine day-old beard. With the lightest of touches she traced the outline of his mouth and, despite her intention to not disturb him, felt compelled to touch her lips to his. His eyes opened, enlarging with happiness.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “It’s okay. I was dreaming of you anyway and the reality is even better.” His eyes smiled into hers.

  She swallowed convulsively. “I have something to tell you, Anthony.”

  A spark flickered in his eyes and went out. “If it has to do with another man, don’t tell me,” he said quietly. “I don’t have to know. I’d rather not know, in fact. We begin now. We go on from here.”

  “It isn’t to do with anyone else. There has never been anyone else, in any way, shape or form, but I lied to you, Anthony.”

  “About what, Nicola?”

  “I lied when I told you I was on the pill. The truth is that I wasn’t. I’ve never been on the pill.”

  He remained perfectly still then let out a soft breath as the dread inside him metamorphosed into relief that that was all it was, nothing that would live in the recesses of his mind like a cancer, insidiously destroying him.

  She looked at him, waiting for it to sink in. “I wasn’t on the pill, Anthony,” she repeated.

  He stared into her eyes, until sudden comprehension dawned in his. “What are you saying?” he asked. His voice was very quiet but it seemed to vibrate. “Are you telling me what I think you’re trying to tell me?”

  “I’m pregnant, Anthony. I’m going to have a baby.”

  He couldn’t hear anything over the rushing noise that filled his head. He had made her pregnant. She was having his child. His child. He had never given any thought to fathering a child, had taken pains over the years to ensure it would not happen. He had always worn a condom, until Nicola’s sudden reappearance in his life, whereupon his brain had apparently ceased to function. But he could never have conceived of feeling anything that even came close to the indescribable joy that filled his soul on hearing her say those words. Her voice filtered through the buzzing noise in his head.

  “Are you okay with this?” she was asking, a faint smile on her mouth. The expression on his face told her it was a rhetorical question.

  He cupped her cheek with his hand, still at a loss for words. “I’m not okay with this,” he managed to say at last. “I am completely, totally blown away with this, overwhelmed by it. Mother of God, Nicola, you’re having my child?”

  “I take it you’re trying to say you’re happy?”

  “I am ecstatic. How long have you known?”

  “I think I knew the night it happened. My third night at the manor, after we had had dinner.” Her face colored faintly at the recollection of how she had set out to seduce him, had wanted him to take her for what might well have been the last time, had subconsciously wanted to get pregnant.

  “And now you’re sure?” he asked tenderly.

  “I was certain when I missed my first period, twelve days later. I’m never late. And I just missed my second. Yes, I’m sure,” she said, touching his face with reciprocal tenderness.

  “You shouldn’t have let me make love to you last night, like that,” he said suddenly. “It might not be good for the baby.”

  “You’re beginning to fuss already, aren’t you,” she teased. “I should have waited until I began to show before saying anything.”

  “Let me look at you,” he said, removing his arm carefully from under her head and sitting up.

  He studied her. Sure, now he could see faint signs of impending change. The breasts and belly just a shade rounder. It was infinitesimal, but he was sure he saw the difference. “I see it,” he announced, bending down to kiss her belly and then palming it tenderly.

  “No you don’t,” she told him. “It’s much too soon. You think you’re seeing it because I told you. But trust me, it’s just your imagination and we know how that works overtime,” she reminded him, holding his penis lightly and flicking her thumb over the soft head.

  He sucked air, caught her hand, and held it still. Then unable to stop himself he leaned down and awarded her breast a little reciprocal lick.

  She writhed in a sudden agony of extreme sensation, so acute that the pleasure almost veered into pain. Her fingers raked the back of his neck and upper back as she arched into him, breathing hotly into his hair, delivering up her whole body to his exquisite mouth.

  “Oh yes,” she breathed. “Don’t stop.”

  He switched to the other side, nibbled her nipple, and then took the whole breast into his mouth to relish its fullness. He felt his groin somersault with instant recognition. He slipped down beside her full length, his hard shaft throbbing against her haunches.

  “This is going to be a tough time, love,” he said, looking into her face. “I get hard for you every time I touch you.”

  “What’s tough about that? It sounds promising to me,” she declared.

  “Because now I can’t be getting at you whenever I happen to feel horny which, you may have noticed, seems to be almost any time I’m around you.”

  “Sorry you feel that way.” Her eyes glinted with mischief. “I hope that doesn’t mean I can’t be getting at you whenever I feel like it, because quite frankly, my dear,” she declared, maneuvering herself to lie on top of him, “I feel like getting at you right now.” She took his throbbing erection in her hand and positioned the head between the inner folds of her sex. “I want to do you, Anthony. Push it inside me,” she whispered meltingly.

  God, how he loved her, his sexy pregnant woman. His mouth opened on a strangled exclamation and he angled his hips, lifting her slightly. She jammed her groin into his and wriggled her sex against him till she felt something pop and he was inside her. She thrust her hips, urging him deeper and deeper inside. He swiveled his groin helpfully until he was all the way in. She covered his mouth with hers and engaged his tongue in a wild wet tango while her hips stoked their mutual fire to a roaring flame.

  When at last their passion was completely spent, he lay with his head on her breast. “Do you care whether it’s a boy or a girl?” he asked, his mouth moving against her skin.

  “No. I only care that it’s going to be your boy or girl,” she said.

  “I love you, Nicola Edgerton,” he said and held his breath.

  “I fell in love with you, Anthony, and I wanted you, right from the very first night.” His sigh of relief came all the way up from his toes.

  “I’m taking you back to England with me,” he said after a while. Lying across her belly he felt her become very still, and he turned his head to look at her. “What?” he said inquiringly. “Why are you so quiet all of a sudden?”

  “I…want to live in Jamaica,” she said.

  “I know you do, darling, but I want you with me, in England.”

  “In your home, Anthony, yours.”

  “It will be yours too,” he said gently. “And our child’s.”

  “I have a home, here. This is where I want to live, to raise my child.”

  “Our child,” he reminded her, taking her hand in his. “I have to go back, darling. For me, everything is there—my businesses, my property, my life.”

  “Why do we have to choose?” she asked, somewhat passionately. “Why can’t we live in both places, six months here and six months there?”<
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  “That wouldn’t be practical, love. I’d have to be getting on a plane every other week. And do you really want our child’s life to be so unstable, being transplanted every six months? It wouldn’t work,” he said firmly.

  “You won’t know until you try. Why can’t we just try it?”

  He shut his eyes as if in pain then reopened them. They were dark and somber. “I’m going to be as honest as I can, Nicola. The truth is that I cannot commit to spending long periods here. I cannot commit to raising our child here, in this place that feels so alien to me. If you have understood a word of what I told you last night, you must understand why. I just can’t do it, love.”

  “I know where you’re coming from, Anthony. I understood everything you said. But what I also understand now is that to be with you, I have to give up my dream of getting the Blue Mountain certification completely. It seems a very high price, maybe a higher price than I would be willing to pay.”

  “Becoming a coffee grower is more important to you than being with me, then?”

  “It’s what I’ve always dreamed of, Anthony, long before I met you. You’re asking me to give up my dream, but what are you giving up in return?”

  “Sweetheart,” he said patiently, “it’s lovely to have dreams, but think about whether your dream is realistic. You’re going to have a child in about seven months. How are you going to raise it if you’re in the fields half the time, and worrying about the price of coffee the other half. I don’t want our child to be raised by a maid or a nanny.”

  “You don’t believe I have what it takes, do you,” she challenged flatly. “You think I’m just dreaming in color. You’re as bad as the loan officer at the finance company, maybe even worse. I thought you were supposed to believe in me, but obviously you don’t. Not really.”

  Her voice broke a little, and his heart hurt that he was the one making her unhappy. “Darling, I believe you can do anything you set your mind to. Just not this dream, not now. Come home with me, to England. Let our child be born there,” he pleaded.

  “You go home to England, Anthony. It’s where you belong, just like I belong here. And I will make my dream come true, even if you call in your loan. I’ll start from scratch, get more land piece by piece, if I have to.

  “You’d better go,” she said dully, getting off the bed. “You need to pack.”

  He caught her hand, detaining her. “Don’t be silly, darling. I’m not going anywhere without you. And you paid off your loan last night, remember?” he said, trying to make her smile.

  “Go, Anthony,” she said, giving him a little push. “I have things to do.”

  He exhaled his frustration, running his hands through his hair. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going. To Kingston. I have a meeting with the lawyers and I have to go my hotel to shower and change first. I’ll be back tonight and we’ll talk some more.”

  “You don’t have to come back,” she said. “There’s no point.”

  “See you tonight, love,” he said. He longed to kiss her, but her face was closed. He parted the curtains, stepped over the sill, and was gone.

  After he left she climbed back up on the bed and sat in the middle of it, her legs drawn up, her arms clasping them tightly, her head resting on her knees. It was her containment strategy, the posture she always adopted to hold in her pain, so she wouldn’t disintegrate into little pieces.

  He didn’t care about what she wanted. He hated Jamaica more than he loved her. He didn’t even want to try. His way or the highway. He had grown accustomed to getting what he wanted. He wouldn’t give up easily. She knew he meant exactly what he’d said. He’d be back tonight to try to bend her to his will. She couldn’t let it happen because she had promised herself to realize Dad’s dream, the one that had become hers. She couldn’t let Dad down. But she knew that the second he touched her, she would puddle, drip all over him in sweet surrender. She would have to go somewhere where he couldn’t find her and wait it out until he had no choice but to leave the island and go back to his businesses, his property, his life, as he had enumerated. She would never be happy just giving up on the dream without even trying and if she wasn’t happy with herself, how could she possibly be happy with Anthony. Worse yet, how could he possibly be happy with her?

  She had to make some kind of plan, but the first item on the agenda was to wash his scent off her, so she could think straight. The combined scent of his body, his sex, his sweat, the lingering notes of his aftershave was too lethal a combination for somebody who was trying to run away from him.

  She climbed down off the bed, opened her bedroom door, and crossed the hall to the bathroom. She showered, dried herself off, and stood for a moment examining her naked body in the mirror. Maybe she was hallucinating or having a fat morning, but now, taking a good objective look, she thought she detected something different about her figure too, a softness that hadn’t been there before. Maybe he was right. She was showing already.

  She shut down something inside her that was attempting to rise up and choke her and walked over to the closet. She pulled on a pair of summer shorts and a tank top and went into the kitchen.

  Emma was seated at the kitchen table having a cup of coffee while she read the newspaper. She glanced at Nicola, folded up the paper and put it on a chair. “Did you want some breakfast?”

  She shook her head. “Just coffee.”

  “You should be eating more than that,” Emma reminded her. “As the old saying goes, you’re eating for two now.”

  She smiled briefly, poured herself a cup of coffee, pulled out a chair, and sat down. “I’ll catch up on my food intake later.”

  “I saw Anthony leaving,” Emma remarked casually. “Does he know?”

  “Yes, I told him.”

  “How did he react?”

  “He was…excited.”

  “Oh, Nicola! That’s fabulous. I knew he would be. So what’s going to happen now? Have the two of you started making plans?”

  “Not really. He wants me to come back to England with him, but I’m not ready to do that.”

  Emma’s smile faded slowly. “What are you talking about? Of course you must go with him.”

  “Why? Why must I go? I belong here, not there.”

  “What exactly do you have in mind to do?”

  “Build up the estate again, of course. You know that has always been my dream, Em. Ever since I was old enough to think Dad and I used to talk about it, talk about becoming certified Blue Mountain coffee growers.”

  “You’ll have a baby in seven months, Nicola, remember?”

  “You sound just like him. As though having a baby means you have to stop existing, stop having dreams, do nothing at all except take care of the baby. Well, I don’t think that’s how it has to be.”

  “I don’t want to burst your bubble, but a tiny baby is a very demanding person. It’s a full-time occupation, Nicki. And so is being a coffee grower. You can’t expect to do both.”

  “Lots of women have babies and go right back out to work. Why should I be any different? I thought you would help me.”

  “Of course I will help you, Nicola. Don’t be silly.”

  That was the second time she had been told not to be silly in the space of one hour and it was really beginning to get on her nerves. She finished her coffee and got up to pour herself another cup.

  “Don’t!” Emma said sharply. “Too much caffeine isn’t good for babies.”

  She slammed the cup down, went out on the porch, and leaned against the banister, looking up at the mountains. They were still a little shrouded in the cool mist that had gathered during the night. Once the sun reached its zenith, the mist would disperse, unveiling the majestic blue-green peaks that could tug so powerfully at her heart strings.

  Emma’s arm went around her waist and she leaned her head on her shoulder, allowing herself the luxury of leaning on her older sister.

  “Whose dream do you want to fulfill, Nicola?” Em said quietly. “Yours or Dad’s?”


  “We shared it, both of us. We felt the same,” she said defensively. What was Emma trying to say now?

  “Are you sure, or are you still the little girl trying to please her daddy even though he’s gone? Sit down, Nicola,” Emma said, pulling her down to sit on the wooden steps. “I want to talk to you.”

  She complied, sitting up straight, her arms folded across her body. Everyone was trying to talk her out of her dream. But she wouldn’t let them.

  “Mum and Dad were wonderful people, Nicola. So gay, so beautiful, both of them. They loved life so much. You were very special to them. Oh, I know they loved me, but I was the quiet one, the plain Jane. You were so much more like them, beautiful and lively. Remember how Dad used to pretend he was French and call you ‘ma petite belle.’”

  In spite of feeling so down, Nicola gave a little smile. She glanced at Emma, the smile tugging up the corner of her mouth at the recollection.

  “Dad was charming, and fun, but he was a dreamer, Nicki. He dreamed a lot of big dreams, but he was too focused on living from day to day, on enjoying life, to settle down and apply himself seriously to making those dreams come true. He talked to you all the time about becoming a Blue Mountain coffee grower, and he had years to fulfill his dream. But he never made it materialize. He wasn’t even a particularly successful High Mountain coffee grower. All that happened was that you began to believe that his dream was your dream too, and now that he’s gone, you feel you are the one responsible for carrying the torch, keeping the flame alive, making it up to him for what you think of as his disappointment. But he wasn’t disappointed, Nicki. Dad did exactly what he really wanted to do with his life. You have nothing to make up to him for. You don’t have to feel responsible.”

  Emma paused for a moment, looking pensive, before continuing. “You were just a little girl, Nicki,” she said. “You didn’t stand a chance against Dad’s charm. You were practically brainwashed into thinking that his dream was your dream too. He didn’t do it deliberately, but the result was the same.