by Zee Monodee
“She won’t really be as long as she thinks she doesn’t deserve you.”
What did he answer to that? It had been Jane’s decision to leave. All she needed to do now was speak to him. They could work things out if only they talked. He knew he needed her. However much he wanted to obliterate the thought, she had wormed her way into his life and heart, and the place she had occupied and left would forever leave a void inside him.
“I have to go now.” He stood and started towards the entrance hall.
Umberto stood, catching up with him when he was opening the front door.
“Don’t give up on her, Michael.”
Don’t give up on her, son, he thought he heard. He froze.
Father. He just had to say the word.
But he couldn’t. Not yet. He only looked up into Umberto Rinaldi’s face. “Thanks.”
***
“Good grief, Jane. What have you been eating? That dress fitted you fine just a few weeks ago. Now they have to let out the seams.”
Jane sighed as she stood on the platform at the designer’s workshop. “I’m in my last trimester, Marenka. I’m supposed to be going up a size or two.”
She did wince, however. The dress was tight. Blame it on Mrs. P’s cooking. She plied Jane with home-cooked comfort food, and in her current state, taking comfort in potpies and Sunday roast with all the trimmings proved a necessity.
“How on Earth will you lose all this weight when the baby is here?” Marenka ranted on.
Jane rolled her eyes.
Why was she even here? She’d make a ridiculous bridesmaid with her yard-wide belly. Not even the empire line of the dress would hide that. But being at the workshop on a Saturday afternoon sure beat being alone on a Saturday afternoon downing wholesome food by the pie dish at Charles’ house. She’d also needed a breather, and even if it had come in the form of a fitting for Marenka’s wedding, that escape route had been better than nothing.
“And if I don’t want to lose it?” She winced when a pin pricked her waist.
“Sorry.” The seamstress continued using Jane as a model stand.
“You can’t be serious.” Marenka glared from the other side of the room where the designer was adjusting the folds of the train on her wedding dress. “You know what your problem is? You have no man to seduce again and win back once you deliver. Why would you fight back for a nice figure, then?”
“That’s a tad too simplistic, don’t you think?”
The women who were busy working on their garments continued with their jobs as if they didn’t hear what was transpiring between their clients. Maybe they did lend a deaf ear. Who knew what sort of stories they had heard in this very fitting room?
“Jane, darrrling, I admit I didn’t teach you much ...”
Well, that’s a first. Her mother was owning up to something less than flattering?
“… but if there’s one thing I thought you had learned from example, it’s how to catch a man when you set your sights on him.”
She should’ve known Marenka’s poisonous tongue would strike again.
“And your point would be?” She sighed. The trace of apathy would be effective in countering the venom of the scarcely veiled accusation.
“Stop being such an idiot, Jane. To think that you’re my daughter.” Marenka shivered. “You want Michael? You go get him.”
I would if I could. She closed her eyes with real weariness this time. “Just leave it, okay?”
“I didn’t know you gave up so easily. Do you mean to say you felt nothing for him?”
This isn’t the place to talk about this, she wanted to say, but would Marenka acknowledge her request? Hens would grow teeth before that. She wanted nothing more than to be done with this conversation, and her mother wouldn’t let her off the hook before she had thoroughly humiliated her. “I know what I felt for him. And it’s none of your damn business.”
Marenka remained silent, and Jane was surprised she had given up so easily. Or had she finally managed to shut the older woman up? She risked a glance up into the heavily Botox-ed face.
Shrewd eyes watched her, and she squirmed under the intensity.
“Say this to him.” Marenka pointed at her. “Not to me.”
Jane gasped. Behind the barb, she thought she’d actually heard some semblance of caring. Was she getting delusional? Pregnancy might make one a bit loopy, but did that include hearing voices, as well?
“I beg your pardon?”
Her mother watched her for a long time. “You won’t tell him.”
“Oh, Marenka, you look absolutely ravishing in this dress. And Jaaane! Look how you’re showing.”
The twins burst into the room and filled the air with their scatter-brained, endless chatter. All opportunity to talk to her mother further was lost.
Jane felt a soft flutter in her belly. After a few seconds, the movement became a hearty kick against the wall of her womb. Again and again and again.
She sighed and brought a hand to her swollen middle. Her daughter was awake, and if the little git kept up with her antics in the previous days’ manner, her insides would turn into a cramped football pitch within the hour.
She sure knows how to garner all the attention, this one. What had she expected, though? Her daughter was Marenka’s granddaughter, after all. Insanity skipped generations, didn’t it?
If this was true, she was going to give birth to a little diva.
Jane sighed. When had she thought her life would be simple?
***
His father’s words haunted him for a long time. They danced before his eyes, wiping out everything else to the point where he couldn’t concentrate on anything.
Don’t give up on her.
How? He wanted to know how. Could he risk going to see her? What if she slammed the door in his face? Or worse, if she refused to even see him?
Pushing the front door of his house open, he stepped in and headed straight for the study. After sending his briefcase to land on a settee near the entrance, he walked to the desk and slumped onto his seat. Michael closed his eyes and winced at the tension pulling at the muscles in his neck.
He sighed. Jane. Why had he met her? Nothing had been the same since she’d stepped into his life.
And nothing would be now that she was gone.
He’d always thought people who moaned about losing a dear one must be rambling fools. He’d been wrong. It wasn’t the person’s fault. Becoming a lovelorn idiot happened without your permission and unbeknownst to you.
He also had to think of something else. Jane hadn’t contacted him, either. She hadn’t even made an attempt to come pick her things from his place, as if she had wiped him and everything pertinent to him from her life.
He chuckled. She wanted a clean slate for her daughter, didn’t she? Seemed like she was adamantly pursuing that avenue.
He opened his eyes, and his gaze landed on the envelope Wickham had entrusted to him.
Every time he acknowledged the content of the documents, daggers ripped into his gut and came up to slash at his heart. Thanks to these papers, he could have become a father to the child he’d already started to care about.
He’d never acknowledged it, thinking it had been all about falling in love with Jane all this time, but an inherent part of Jane had been very much part of the deal. The baby she carried.
He’d never given the notion much thought before, but seeing his best friend morphing from a stupid drunk into a responsible man right before his eyes at the hospital had tugged at his own awareness.
If this could happen to Phillip, it could happen to him, too. And he had to admit it had happened. He’d begun to think about Jane’s child, and when Umberto had told him it was a girl, he’d had an image of a sweet, pink-cheeked baby girl in Jane’s arms.
In his own arms.
Bloody hell. He brought his hands up and covered his face. He wanted to be a father, but not to any other child. He wanted Jane’s daughter as his. He wanted Jane as
his, too.
Naught but a dream, mate. You need to join the living again.
A loud beeping grabbed his attention. He stood and went to the security console in the hallway. The noise indicated someone was at the gate and had buzzed the intercom.
He pressed the button to activate the communication line. “Yes?”
“Good day, sir. Ms. Marenka Maurel to see you.”
Marenka? He cursed and winced. What was she here for?
Throwing a glance at the screen connected to the camera above the main gate, he could indeed see her stretch black Mercedes. And bloody hell, her chauffeur not only sounded like a posh uptight stiff lip, but looked like one, too.
They were waiting for him to open the gate, and with a sigh, he activated the control to set the wide metal panel sliding into motion.
The car sped into the property and came to a stop in front of the porch. He was at the door when her driver stepped out and opened her door. Marenka emerged like a queen, her bearing poised and regal. She lifted her face and saw him standing there, watching her.
“Darrrling, you look like death warmed over.” She brushed past him into the house.
“Good day to you, too.” He stifled a curse under his breath.
“The lounge is this way?”
Make yourself at home already, will you? Now he understood what Jane meant. Marenka did things as and when she wanted. Easier to go with her flow than fight. And frankly, he was in no mood to fight. He was also curious why Jane’s mother was at his house.
“Nice place you have here.” She took a seat on a leather armchair.
He shrugged, perching on the arm of the sofa opposite the older woman.
Marenka kept her piercing blue eyes on him, but he didn’t squirm. He’d wait her out. She was bound to grow tired after a while, wasn’t she? Somehow, he didn’t want an argument with her, but he couldn’t bring himself to smooth the way for her, either. So he waited.
“Still strong-willed, I see.” She pursed her red lips. “Too bad you’re not putting it to better use.”
He raised an eyebrow, not certain he could talk without swearing. She was in his house, and she thought she could insult him? Maybe she did that with Jane, but not with him.
“This is for you.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a pale pink envelope.
“What is it?”
“An invitation to my wedding this coming Saturday. Security won’t let you in without one.”
A short laugh escaped him. Was she delusional? “You want me to attend your wedding?”
She stiffened. “Jane will be there.”
“Exactly. She and I are no longer together, and you’re her mother. Do you want to throw oil on the fire or something?”
“No, darrrling. I meant, Jane will be there. It will give you two an opportunity to meet, since you’re both so daft that you stay away from one another when it’s obvious you desire nothing else than be a couple again.”
Hold it, he wanted to say. Hold it, stop, and rewind. “I beg your pardon?”
“Have you ever seen Jane eat, Michael? Really eat?”
What was she getting at?
“No.”
“Well, you’d be surprised to know she’s been eating so much lately, she looks like a beached whale.”
“God, Marenka—”
“She’s not okay, and it’s all got to do with you.”
“Pray tell how.”
“My daughter is many things, Michael, but discerning the actual truth is not one of her fortes. She thinks she’s responsible for everything that goes wrong around her.” Marenka paused, her face growing contemplative. She actually frowned. “It might have all started when Charles and I divorced. Jane thought it was her fault. I told her to brush her concern off. She was, after all, eight at the time. I guess she didn’t let go of the guilt, and she takes the trip down that avenue every time something goes wrong around her.”
He was surprised by her perception. A human actually lived inside Marenka. Who’d have thought? “Have you ever told her that?”
She gave a small cackle. “Does she ever listen when she’s got it all twisted and warped inside her head? No, Michael. I never told her.”
She grew silent, her gaze losing itself in the distance. “There comes a day in every parent’s life when she wakes up and realizes the child she gave birth to doesn’t live inside a bubble. That outside factors affects them, too. That day, you suffer, because you know there’s nothing you can do.”
He remained silent at her disclosure. He’d never have credited her with such depth.
“I realized that a tad late, but I hope it’s not too late.” She nodded towards the invitation on the coffee table between them. “Come talk to her. She’ll never take the first step because she thinks there is no road open to her.”
Easy to do, but what if she shut him out?
“And if she doesn’t want to talk to me?”
Marenka rolled her eyes. “You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? Worm it out of her. She’ll thank you for it later.”
With that, she stood and pinned her sparkling gaze on him again.
“This Saturday. The reception is at five.” She stepped away. “I know the way out.”
He heard the front door close and the car start a few seconds later. He didn’t bother to get up. The motion sensor on the inside of the gate would pick up that a car was approaching, and the panel would open automatically.
He stared at the shimmery envelope in front of him.
What would he do?
Use me, the card seemed to scream at him.
He remained pensive for a long time. Umberto’s words came back into his mind along with Marenka’s talks.
Closing his eyes, one thing crystallized with utmost certainty in his gut, his heart, and his soul.
He wouldn’t give up on Jane, because he couldn’t.
Suddenly, he had an idea, the perfect strategy.
He knew just how to broach the topic with her.
***
Jane tried to blank out the clamour around her, but she wouldn’t be able to unless she was away from this crowd.
Trudging to the farthest table under the marquee, she carefully lowered herself into a chair and pressed her back against it. Her belly bumped against the table, and she slid on her arse so she could better accommodate her position.
Goodness. She had one more month to go before she delivered. Would she end up looking even more like an elephant?
The sound of laughter drifted to her, and she peered towards the pastel-coloured line-up near the entrance of the marquee.
Marenka stood in all her bridal splendour. Jane didn’t think a woman her age would look good in a light pink and poufy dress worthy of a princess’s ball, but Marenka carried the outfit off with panache and poise. Next to her, her new husband beamed with the blissful pride of a happy groom. The twins stood next to him. As bridesmaid, Jane, too, was supposed to be at their side, but her ankles felt like logs, and she’d used the excuse to come sit down.
She grimaced at the other reason why she had moved away. Everyone who saw her just exclaimed over her bump.
If one more person tells me I’m showing big-time, I swear I’ll kill him.
She closed her eyes when the thrum of a headache started to resound at her temples.
“My goodness, you’re really showing now, aren’t you?” A lilting female voice resounded behind her.
Jane cursed under her breath.
Go away, she mentally screamed, but of course, no sound escaped her lips.
A shadow fell over her, and she glanced up, into the smiling face of the tabloid reporter covering the wedding. One of the papers had bought the exclusive rights to pictures and coverage, and for most of the afternoon, Jane had been trying to evade the vicinity of the barracuda.
The woman perched herself on the chair next to her, turning her back to the entrance and in the process, closing the world to just her and her next victim.
“So
I’ve been trying to catch your impressions of the wedding all through the afternoon, but we just haven’t had the chance to chat.”
Don’t tell me you don’t know I was skirting you. “The wedding is just lovely. Ileana and Ilyanka did a wonderful job with the whole event, and I’m glad things went without a hitch.”
Now get lost.
“Okay.” The woman scribbled away in her little pad. “Now, what our readers want to know is if you’re happy for your mother and new stepfather. Tell me.”
Jane winced, but forced herself to smile. “I wish them all the best.”
The reporter rose sceptical eyebrows. “Well … I imagine it must not exactly be easy for you to be here today given your current situation.”
What the hell are you getting at? Warning bells rang in her head. Don’t take the bait.
“In case you haven’t noticed, everyone invited is present here today, and I was definitely invited.” She infused a note of humour in her tone.
The woman gave a shrill cackle that sounded evil. “Of course you were. What I mean is, it must be hard for you to see your mother getting married when you yourself just went through a bad breakup.”
Oh, goodness!
Without allowing herself to as much as blink, she smiled more forcefully at the shark. “I believe this is none of your business. You’re here to cover the wedding, not anything else.”
“But still, just between us and off the record, doesn’t it feel like the world is coming to a standstill when you have to watch what you yourself could’ve had and lost?”
“If you value your job, I’d take that question back right this minute if I were you,” a rich, deep voice cut through. An unmistakable, soft growl layered the man’s tone, pushing forward an underlying hint of frost and menace.
Jane felt her eyes widen. Here she was, imagining voices now. Michael was the last person she expected to see at her mother’s wedding reception. She might’ve prayed beyond hope that something or someone would come along and take the heat off her neck, but to the extent that she’d conjure up Michael’s intervention? Weary, she closed her eyes.