The Baby Question

Was she having an affair? It was possible. Maybe her failure to conceive was deliberate. Perhaps she was on the Pill, or maybe her reluctance to have any tests was because she was happy as things were and didn’t want a child.

She’d said something about that in the kitchen. He hadn’t really taken it in at the time. He’d thought she was just trying to console herself, but maybe she really meant it. Maybe she didn’t want a child—or at least, not his.

It was a sobering thought. He lay there and let it sink in, slowly absorbing the implications. It seemed there was far more to her unscheduled disappearance than a simple flounce or a cry for attention. She really seemed to have deep, fundamental doubts about their relationship, and he realised he was going to have to listen to her, to talk it through rather than simply cajole her into returning home. For the first time he felt a seed of doubt that he would win her back, and something deep inside him clenched with fear.

He watched her sleep, the tears slowly drying on her cheeks, her hand hanging over the edge of the chair above the dog’s head. He was lying against the front of the chair, his nose on his paws, as if he’d just sunk down there from sitting under her hand. His eyes were closed, but Rob knew he was alert. One move from her and he’d be up.

He was her devoted slave, and Rob felt an irrational pang of jealousy. Not that he’d want to be her devoted slave, far from it, but he wouldn’t mind going back to the lively and productive partnership they’d had before.

She’d been so vital and alive, so funny, so sharp and quick-witted. He supposed she still was, but the vital spark seemed to have gone, extinguished by something he didn’t really understand.

He remembered the first time he’d met her, at Julia and Charlie’s wedding. He’d been Charlie’s best man, and she’d been the chief bridesmaid. He’d felt his heart kick then, seeing her behind Julia, and then during the reception he’d talked to her and got to know her a little, and discovered that not only was she very beautiful, she was also clever.

She had a mind, a sharp and incisive mind and the verbal ability to go with it, and they’d wrangled about everything from fashion to the state of the stock market.

‘So what do you do for a living?’ he’d asked, and she’d laughed wryly.

‘At the moment I’m temping in an office, but my secretarial skills are slight and that’s a bit of problem in the job I’m covering, so it won’t last long, but I have to eat and run my car and pay off my uni debts, so I can’t afford to be picky. I’m looking around, though, waiting for the right thing to come up. I’d like a job with a bit of responsibility—something to get my teeth into. I’m just bored to death at the moment.’

Without pausing to analyse his motives, he slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, then handed her one of his cards. ‘Here. Ring me. There might be something—I don’t know what, but we’ve always got room for good people. I’ll have a chat with my Human Resources team. Come in and see us.’

She looked at the card, plucked at the sides of her pretty, floaty bridesmaid’s dress with a smile and then tucked the card down the low front of her bodice, into her bra. He caught sight of a peep of pale ivory lace against pale ivory breast, and hot blood surged in his veins.

‘I knew having boobs would come in useful one day,’ she said with a throaty chuckle, and he had to shut his eyes and count to ten. He could think of all sorts of uses for her soft, full, ripe breasts, and tucking business cards into them was way down the list.

Unless he was doing the tucking …

The next time he saw her was a week later, and she was dressed in a demure business suit with a high-necked blouse, but he could still see the firm, ripe swell of her breasts in his mind and he had to force himself to concentrate on interviewing her.

Within moments he’d forgotten about her body and was fascinated by her mind, instead. They talked about the business, about investment analysis and the stock market and maintaining the right sort of client base, and he was amazed. Most of the women he knew of her age would have been totally out of their depth, or bored to death.

Not Laurie Taylor. She had views and opinions, and she wasn’t frightened to express them. They argued, they tore holes in each other’s arguments, and in the end they agreed to differ.

For a moment, then, her confidence had seemed to falter, as if by disagreeing with him she thought she’d blown the interview, but then he’d smiled and held out his hand.

‘Welcome to the team—if you’ll come?’

‘You mean you want me, after all that?’ she’d said, surprise in her voice and her eyes, and he’d smiled back.

Oh, yes, he thought, I want you. Do I want you!

‘You’re too good to pass up,’ he said. ‘I like the way you think.’

‘But you don’t agree with me.’

He smiled again. ‘But I can argue with you, and you don’t take offence. That’s very useful—helps me maintain a wider perspective. I think we need a new post. I’ll have an assistant—it’s probably about time. How much do you want?’

She laughed softly. ‘How much do you think I’m worth?’

He thought of a figure and doubled it, and she blinked.

‘Is that a yes?’

‘Absolutely.’ She gulped and nodded, and he just hoped she was worth it.

She was. By the end of the first week he wondered how he’d coped without her. By the end of the first month, their relationship had become more personal. Their wrangling over business issues had taken on the quality of a challenge—almost a game—and the stakes were rising.

One day, after a particularly long-running argument proved her right and him wrong, she crowed with delight and danced round the office, and he was suddenly, shockingly aroused.

‘OK,’ he said, retreating behind his desk for the sake of modesty. ‘I’ll concede—’

‘Concede? You’re mad! I’ve won—’

‘I’ll concede,’ he repeated with a slow smile, ‘on condition you have dinner with me. A sort of forfeit.’

She cocked her head on one side, hands on hips, sassy and luscious. ‘I thought you paid the forfeit if you lost.’

‘You do,’ he said, thinking quickly. ‘I lost. I have to pay.’

Her head tilted the other way. ‘I’ll want a good dinner—not just any old place.’

He gave a rueful laugh. ‘I never doubted it for a moment,’ he murmured. ‘So—are we on?’

She pretended to think for a moment, one luminous pink fingertip pressed against her pursed lips, then she sparkled and laughed. ‘We’re on,’ she said, and perched on the edge of the desk unconsciously revealing a great length of thigh. ‘So—where are we going?’

‘Don’t know yet. Dress up.’

‘Long? Short?’

‘Long,’ he said, knowing he wouldn’t get through the evening if he had to look at her legs, but his clever ruse didn’t work, because her gown was slit to the thigh and her sparkly, slinky tights were nearly the death of him.

‘Just do me one favour,’ he said as the waiter left them contemplating the menu. ‘Let’s not talk about work. I really, really don’t want to fight.’

She grinned. ‘OK. We’ll talk about you. How did you get to know Charlie?’ she asked, and so he told her about his childhood at boarding school, and then asked her about her childhood and was rewarded by tales of scrapes and close shaves, all the naughty little things that children did, but recounted with such mischief in her eyes at the memory that he just knew it was all still bubbling up inside her.