Fiancee for One Night

by Trish Morey

  And maybe she didn’t want to to think about going home tomorrow and never seeing him again.

  But that was hardly the same as love.

  As for Leo, no way did he love her. He was merely acting a part, plying her with attention as a means to an end, certainly not because he loved her. Ridiculous. They’d only been together a couple of days after all. What Maureen was witnessing was pure lust. Leo just had a bit more to throw around than most. He didn’t do family and he didn’t want her thinking he’d change his mind. Why else would he underline every endearment, every tender moment with a stinging reminder that it would soon end?

  Sam oohed and pulled something from the sand then, shaking it, showing her what looked like some kind of shell, and she gave up thinking about questions she had no answers to, puzzles that made no sense. Tomorrow, she knew, she would go home and this brief interlude in her life would be over and she would have to find herself new clients and build a new fee base. And look after Sam. That’s what she should be worrying about.

  ‘Shall we see what it is, Sam?’ she said to the child, a launch catching her attention for just a moment as it powered past the bay, before taking Sam’s hand as they stepped into the shallows to wash this new treasure clean.

  ‘Boat!’ he said, pointing.

  ‘It is,’ she said. ‘A big one.’

  Her sarong clung to her where she’d sat in the damp sand, her ankles looked lean and sexy as her feet were lapped by the shallows, all her attention on her child by her side, guiding him, encouraging him with just a touch or a word or a smile, and he knew in that instant he had never seen anything more beautiful or powerful or sexy.

  All he knew was that he wanted her. He wanted to celebrate, knowing the deal was finally done, but he wanted something more fundamental too. More basic. More necessary.

  Except he also knew he couldn’t let that happen. He’d realised that during his walk this morning and as much as he’d tried to find a way around it all day, even when he was supposed to be thinking about the Culshaw deal, he still knew it to be true. He couldn’t take the chance.

  He watched, as mother and son washed something in the shallows, he couldnt tell what, and she must have sensed his presence because he hadn’t moved and she couldn’t have heard him, yet she’d turned her head and looked up and seen him. And he’d seen his name on her lips as she’d stood and she’d smiled, only a tentative smile, but after the way he’d abandoned her this morning, he didn’t deserve even that much.

  And something bent and shifted and warmed inside that he could treat her so badly and still she could find a smile for him. He hoped it meant she liked him, just a little, just enough to one day find a way to forgive him for the way he had no choice but to treat her.

  The wash was nothing really. No more than a ripple to any adult, and Leo had no idea it would be any different for a child, until he saw Sam pushed face first into the water with the rolling force of it.

  ‘Sam!’ he yelled, crossing the beach and pulling the child, spluttering and then squealing, from the water. ‘Is he all right?’ he asked, as she collected the wailing child, dropping to her towel, rocking him on her shoulder.

  ‘Oh, my God, I took my eye off him for a second,’ she said, her voice heavy with self-recrimination. ‘I’m so sorry, Sam,’ she said, kissing his head. ‘I should have seen that coming.’

  ‘Will he be okay?’ Leo asked, but Sam’s cries were already abating. He sniffled and hiccuped and caught sight of a passing sail, twisting in his mother’s arms as his arm shot out. ‘Boat!’

  She sighed with relief. ‘He sounds fine. He got a shock. I think we all did.’

  Leo squatted down beside them and they said nothing for a while, all watching the boat bob by.

  ‘You actually picked him up,’ she said. ‘Is that the first time you’ve ever held a child?’

  He frowned as he considered her question, not because he didn’t already know the answer but because this weekend suddenly seemed filled with firsts: the first time he’d thought a cotton nightie sexy; the first time he’d looked at a woman holding a baby and got a hard on; the first time he’d felt remorse that he’d never see a particular woman again…

  But, no, he wasn’t going there. What were his nightmares if not a warning of what would happen if he did?

  ‘It’s not something my job calls for much of, no.’

  ‘Well, thank you for acting so quickly. I don’t know what I was doing.’

  He knew. She’d been looking at him with those damned eyes of hers. And he hadn’t wanted to let them go.

  Sam soon grew restless in his mother’s arms and wiggled his way out, soon scouring the sands and collecting new treasure, keeping a healthy distance from the water, his mother shadowing his every movement.

  ‘So how goes the deal?’

  ‘It’s done.’

  She looked up, her expression unreadable, and he wasn’t entirely certain what he’d been looking for. ‘Congratulations. You must be pleased.’

  ‘It’s a good feeling.’ Strangely, though, it didn’t feel as good as it usually did, didn’t feel as good as he’d expected it would. Maybe because of all the delays.

  And then she was suddenly squatting down, writing Sam’s name with a stick in the sand while he looked on, clapping. ‘So we’re done here.’

  And that didn’t make him feel any better. ‘Looks like it. Culshaw is planning a celebratory dinner for tonight and tomorrow we all go home.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t have a home.’

  There was a lump in the back of his throat that shouldn’t have been there. He was supposed to be feeling good about this, wasn’t he? He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand, watched her write ‘Mum’ in the sand. ‘Mum,’ she said to Sam, pointing.

  Sam leaned over with his hands on his pudgy knees and solemnly studied the squiggles she’d made in the sand. ‘Mumumumum,’ sang Sam.

  ‘That’s right, clever clogs, you can read!’ And she gave him a big squeeze that he wriggled out of and scooted off down the beach.

  ‘Tell me about Sam’s father,’ Leo said, as they followed along behind.

  She looked up suspiciously, her eyebrows jagging in the middle. Where was this coming from? ‘Why?’

  ‘Who was he?’

  She shrugged. ‘Just some guy I met.’

  ‘You don’t strike me as the “just-some-guy-I-met” type.’

  ‘Oh, and you, with your vast experience of women, you’d know about all the different types, I guess.’

  ‘Stop trying to change the subject. This is about you. How did you manage to hook up with such a loser?’

  She stopped then, her eyes flicking between Leo and Sam. ‘You don’t know the first thing about me. And you certainly don’t know the first thing about him. He just turned out not to be who I thought he was.’

  ‘I know that he was a fool to let you go.’

  Wow, she thought, forced to close her eyes for a second as the tremor rattled through her, where did that come from?

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, still getting over his last comment. ‘But it was me who was the fool.’

  ‘For getting pregnant? You can’t blame yourself for that.’

  For ever imagining he was anything at all like Leo. ‘No. For believing him. He was an interstate consultant who visited every couple of weeks. Always flirting. We worked late one night, he invited me out for a drink afterwards’—and he had sexy dark hair and olive skin and dark eyes and I wanted to pretend…

  ‘And?’

  She shrugged. ‘And the rest, as they say, is history.’

  ‘You told him about Sam—about the pregnancy?’

  ‘I told him. I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing him again, but I thought he had a right to know. He wasn’t interested as it happened. He was more interested in his wife not finding out.’

  ‘Scum!’ he spat, surprising her with the level of ferocity behind the word.

  ‘It’s not so bad. At least I’ve got Sam. A
nd it got me motivated to start my own business.’ She caught a flash of movement in the crystal clear water, a school of tiny fish darting to and fro in the shallows. She scooped up her son and ventured to the water’s edge, careful not to disturb them. ‘Look Sam,’ she said, ‘fish!’

  And Sam’s eyes opened wide, his arms pumping up and down. ‘Fith!’

  She laughed, chasing the fish in the shallows even as she envied her young son his raw enthusiasm. She envied him his simple needs and pleasures. Why did it have to become so hard when you were a grown up, she wondered, when the world spun not on the turns of the planet and shades of dark or light, but on emotions that made a mockery of science and fact and good sense.

  Wanting Leo was so not good sense.

  Loving him made even less.

  Maureen was wrong. She had to be.

  The mood at dinner was jovial, the conversation flowing and fun. Only Leo seemed tense, strangely separate from the group, as if he’d already moved on to the next place, the next deal. The next woman. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, on the way back to their bure, his hand like a vise around hers. ‘Do you want to go take a walk first?’

  Hannah had taken Sam back earlier and by now he would be safely in the land of Nod. They didn’t have to rush back if he had something on his mind.

  He blew out in a rush. ‘I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight,’ he said almost too quickly, as if the words had been waiting to spill out. ‘It’ll be better that way.’

  And she stopped right where she was and refused to move on so he had no choice but to turn and face her. ‘You’re telling me that after three nights of the best sex of my life, on the last night we have together, you’re going to sleep on the sofa? Not a chance.’

  He tried to smile. Failed miserably. ‘It’s for the best.’

  ‘Who says? What’s wrong, Leo? Why can’t you tell me?’

  ‘Believe me,’ he snorted, ‘you really don’t want to know.’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know. What the hell changes tonight? The fact you don’t have to pretend anymore?’

  ‘You think I ever had to pretend about that?’

  ‘Then don’t pretend you don’t want me tonight.’ She moved closer, ran her free hand up his chest, ‘We’ve got just one night left together. We’re good together. You said that yourself. Why can’t we enjoy it?’

  He grabbed her hand, pushed it away. ‘Don’t you understand? It’s for your own good!’

  ‘How can I believe that if you won’t tell me? What’s wrong? Is it the dreams you’re having?’

  And he made a roar like a wounded animal in distress, a cry that spoke of so much pain and anguish and loss that it chilled her to the bone. ‘Just leave it,’ he said. ‘Just leave me.’

  He turned and stormed off across the sand towards the beach, leaving her standing there, gutted and empty on the path.

  Maybe it was better this way, she thought, as she dragged herself back to the bure, forcing herself to put on a bright face for Hannah who wasn’t taken in for a moment, she could tell, but she wasn’t about to explain it to anyone. Not when she had no idea what was happening herself.

  She checked Sam, listening to his even breathing, giving thanks for the fact he was in her life, giving thanks for the gift she’d been given, even if borne of a mistake. He was the best mistake she’d ever made.

  And then she dragged bedding to the sofa, knowing from the previous night Leo was more likely to disturb her if he tried to fit onto the sofa than because of any nightmare he might have. At least she knew he would fit on the big king sized bed.

  She lay there in the dark, waiting for what seemed like hours, until at last she heard his footfall on the decking outside. She cracked open her eyelids as the sliding door swooshed open and she saw his silhouette framed in the doorway, big and dark and not dangerous, like she’d always seen him, but strangely sad. He crossed the floor softly, hesitating when he got to the sofa. She could hear him at her feet, hear his troubled breathing.

  Come to me, she willed, pick me up and carry me to bed like you have done before and make love to me.

  And she heard him turn on a sigh and move away. She heard the bathroom door snick closed and she squeezed her eyes shut, wondering what he would do if she sneaked into the bed before he came back; knowing it was futile because he would straightaway head for the sofa.

  He didn’t need her any more. Or he didn’t want her. What did it matter which or both it was? They both hurt like hell. They both hurt like someone had ripped out her heart and torn it to shreds and trampled on the pieces.

  Could injured pride feel this bad? Could a miffed ego tear out your heart and rip it to shreds? Or had she been kidding herself and it had been Maureen who had been right all along?

  Oh god, surely she hadn’t fallen in love with Leo?

  And yet all along she had known it was a risk, the greater risk; had known the possibility was there, the possibility to be drawn deeper and deeper under his spell until she could not bear the thought of being without him. All along she had known he had a heart of stone and still she had managed to do the unthinkable.

  She’d fallen in love with him.

  She lay there in the semi-gloom, the once silvery light of the moon now a dull grey, listening to him climb into bed, listening to him toss and turn and sigh, wishing him peace, even if he couldn’t find it with her.

  The scream woke him and he stilled with fear, hoping he’d imagined it. But then he heard the shouting, his father’s voice, calling his mother those horrible names he didn’t understand only to know they must be bad, and he cringed, waiting for the blow that would come at the end of his tirade. Then it came with a thump and his mother made a sound like a football when you kick it on the street and he vomited right there in his bed. He climbed out, weak and shaky, to the sound of his mother’s cries, the bitter taste of sick in his mouth.

  ‘Stamata,’ he cried weakly through his tears, knowing he would be in trouble for messing up his bed, knowing his mother would be angry with him, wanting her to be angry with him so that things might be normal again. ‘Stamato to tora.’ Stop it now!

  And he pulled the door open and ran out, to see his father’s fist raised high over his mother lying prostrate on the floor.

  ‘Stamato to!’ he screamed, running across the room, lashing out at his father, young fists flying, and earning that raised fist across his jaw as his reward, but not giving up. He couldn’t stop, he had to try to make him stop hurting his mother.

  He struck out again lashing at his father, but it was his mother who cried out and it made no sense, nor the thump of a body hitting the floor and then a baby screamed somewhere, and he blinked into consciousness, shaking and wet with perspiration, and waking to his own personal nightmare.

  She was lying on the floor, looking dazed, tears springing from her eyes and her hand over her mouth where he must have hit her. And Sam screaming from the next room.

  And he wanted to help. He knew he should help. He should do something.

  But the walls caved in around him, his muscles remained frozen. Because, oh god, he was back in his past. He was back in that mean kitchen, his father shouting, his mother screaming and a child that saw too much.

  And he wanted to put his hands over his ears and block it all out.

  Oh god.

  What had he done?

  What had he done?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SHE blnked up at him warily, testing her aching jaw. ‘I have to get Sam,’ she said, wondering why he just sat there like a statue, wondering if that wild look in his eyes signalled that he was still sleeping, still lost in whatever nightmare had possessed him.

  ‘I hit you,’ he said at last, his voice a mere rasp, his skin grey in the moonlight.

  ‘You didn’t mean to,’ she said, climbing to her feet. ‘You were asleep. You were tossing and—’

  ‘I hurt you.’

  He had, but right now she was more concerned with the hurt in his
eyes. With the raw, savage pain she saw there. And with reassuring her son, whose cries were escalating. ‘It was an accident. You didn’t mean it.’

  ‘I warned you!’

  ‘I have to see to Sam. Excuse me.’ She rushed around the bed to the dressing room and her distraught child, his tear streaked face giving licence for her own tears to fall. ‘Oh Sam,’ she whispered, kissing his tear stained cheek, pushing back the damp hair from his brow and clutching him tightly to her as she rocked him against her body. ‘It’s all right, baby,’ she soothed, trying to believe it. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

  She heard movement outside, things bumping and drawers being opened, but she dared not look, not until she felt her son’s body relax against her, his whimpers slowly steadying. She waited a while, just to be sure, and then she kissed his brow and laid him back down in his cot.

  And then she stood there a while longer, looking down at her child, his cheek softly illuminated in the moonlight, while she wondered what to do.

  What did you do when your heart was breaking for a man who didn’t want family? Who didn’t want your love?

  What could you do?

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked when she emerged, watching Leo stashing clothes in a bag.

  ‘I can’t do this. I can’t do this to you.’

  ‘You can’t do what to me?’

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘Leo, you were in the midst of a nightmare. I got too close. You didn’t know I was there.’

  He pulled open another drawer, extracted its contents. ‘No. I know who I am. I know what I am. Pack your things, we’re leaving.’

  ‘No. I’m not going anywhere. Not before you tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I can’t do this,’ he said in his frenzied state, ‘to you and Sam.’

  She sat on the bed and put a hand to her forehead, stunned, while he opened another drawer, threw out more clothes. ‘You’re not making any sense.’