Juggling Briefcase & Baby

He made himself look away. ‘I’ve never been taken for a father before,’ he said, his voice desert dry. ‘I’ve always assumed it would be obvious that I wasn’t.’

‘It’s an easy enough mistake to make,’ said Romy. ‘We must look like an ordinary family.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘I SUPPOSE so.’ For some reason, the thought made Lex uneasy. He felt ridiculously thrown. He wanted to rush after the couple and ask them how they could possibly have thought that he was Freya’s father. What did he need to do? Have never in a million years tattooed across his forehead?

Romy’s smile still curved her mouth as she picked up her knife and fork once more. ‘I don’t think they were very impressed by your hands-off approach, though. I could see them watching you while I was trying to entertain Freya. They obviously thought you should have been helping me instead of making phone calls. I suspect that was why she thought she should remind you how lucky you are to have us.’

‘Dear God.’ Lex glanced at Freya, who had gone back to smearing lunch over her face, and shuddered. ‘I’m glad to have amused you,’ he added austerely when Romy started to giggle again.

‘Oh, you have. It was worth the rush this morning just to see you!’

Freya was clearly a baby who enjoyed her food. There was a lot of gurgling and squealing and squeaking, with much smacking of lips together and banging of spoons. And the mess…indescribable! Lex decided, eyeing Freya askance as he put his knife and fork together.

‘I just hope she’s not going to be eating in front of Willie Grant!’

‘Don’t worry,’ Romy soothed. ‘I’ll make sure he knows you’re not responsible for her in any way.’

Lex pushed his plate aside. ‘Who is responsible for her, Romy?’

‘I am,’ she said instantly.

It was none of his business, Lex knew, but he couldn’t help asking. ‘What about her father?’

The last amusement faded from Romy’s face. ‘I thought we were sticking to business?’ she said, disliking the defensive note in her voice. She busied herself filling the spoon and offering it, without much hope, to Freya, who took it and wiped it on her nose.

He shrugged. ‘I’m just interested in why you’re having to do everything yourself.’

‘Because I want to.’

Edgy now, Romy picked up her mat. It showed an unlikely hunting scene, with red-coated riders hallooing and urging their horses over a hedge, while the hounds bounded alongside. In spite of herself, Romy shrank a little at the sight of their lolling tongues and great paws. No one would think of putting spiders or snakes on a mat, would they? So why were dogs different? If she had noticed the dogs before, she wouldn’t have enjoyed her pie nearly so much.

She twisted the mat around so that they faced Lex instead.

‘Doesn’t he get a say?’

‘He doesn’t know.’ Romy balanced the mat between her hands, turned it so that it sat on the shorter edge. ‘I haven’t told him yet.’

‘He doesn’t know?’ said Lex, incredulous.

‘Look, it was just a fling,’ she said, not looking at him. ‘A holiday romance. I was running a dive centre in Sulawesi, Michael was travelling… He’s an artist, very laid-back, very charming.’

Very everything Lex wasn’t.

Round went the mat. ‘We had a good time. Neither of us wanted any more than that. Michael was on the rebound. He’d been dumped by his girlfriend a couple of months earlier, and I…well, you know how I feel about commitment.’

Romy looked up then, and looked straight at Lex. The pale eyes were shuttered, his expression indecipherable.

‘It wasn’t just you, Lex,’ she said, since they seemed to have abandoned the pretence of sticking to business. ‘I don’t want to marry anyone. I certainly didn’t want to marry Michael. It was never a big deal for either of us. I liked him—he was great—but there was never any question of anything more than that.’

‘So how did Freya happen?’ asked Lex.

‘The usual way,’ said Romy with a touch of her old tartness. Then, when he just met her gaze, she bit her lip and went on. ‘We took precautions of course, but…well, sometimes it happens. By the time I realised that I was pregnant, Michael had already left.

‘He sent an email when he got home, just to say hello, but I knew that he wasn’t interested in me beyond a fling. I had another message a couple of months later, telling me that he was back with his girlfriend, so an email from me saying that he was going to be a father would have been the last thing he wanted.’

Lex frowned. ‘Wouldn’t he want to know anyway?’

‘I don’t know…’ Romy sighed. ‘Sometimes I thought he would, and that it was wrong not to tell him, but then I thought of him being with his girlfriend, and I didn’t want to spoil that for him. It’s not as if he made any promises. Michael talked about Kate a lot when we were together, so I know how much he wanted to be with her. When he emailed, he sounded so happy—’

She broke off, flashing Lex a look. ‘Would you have wanted to know?’ she asked abruptly.

‘Yes.’

‘Just like that? No thought about how having a child would turn your life upside down?’

‘I’d still want to know,’ said Lex. ‘If, after Paris…’ He didn’t finish the sentence, but she knew what he was thinking. ‘I’d have wanted to know,’ he said. ‘I’d have thought I had the right to know.’

Romy eyed him in dismay. Of all the people she would have expected to understand, she had thought it would be Lex! Lex, who hated chaos and was clearly appalled by Freya.

‘Maybe I was wrong,’ she said, chewing her lip. ‘It just seemed to me that learning that you’re a father is such a big thing. Having a child.it changes everything. Everything. I imagined how I would feel if I was Kate, finding out that it wasn’t just Michael any more, but Michael and a baby. It would have changed things for her too. Oh, I’ve been round and round about this so many times since I found out I was pregnant!’

Tiring of the mat, Romy let it drop to the table and started fiddling with a spoon instead, spinning it slowly between her finger and thumb. ‘Should I tell Michael? Should I not? What if he didn’t want anything to do with Freya? What would that do to her, to know that her father never wanted her? Would that be better or worse than not having a father at all?’

‘That’s not really the point,’ said Lex severely. ‘The point is that this Michael is partly responsible for her, and that means he should help support her.’

‘I don’t want help,’ said Romy stubbornly. ‘I don’t need it.’

She caught the echo of her own words about Freya, and grimaced a little. ‘I don’t want to rely on anyone,’ she tried to explain. ‘It was my choice to have a child, my choice to bring her up on my own. Telling Michael wouldn’t be about the money.’

She had begun to irritate herself with her fiddling and she made herself stop and put her hands in her lap. ‘I expect he would want to support Freya if he knew,’ she said. ‘Michael’s a decent man. He wouldn’t run away from the responsibility.

‘I’m the one that has done the running away,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t want to upset things between him and Kate, but the truth is that I used that as an excuse. I was afraid that if I told Michael he might want to be involved in Freya’s life. He might want to see her, and she…she might love him.’

Romy’s eyes rested on Freya, who was absently wiping a spoon in her hair and wearing a pensive expression. ‘Children do love their fathers.’

Her voice was very sad, and Lex’s expression changed. ‘There’s no reason to think that he would be like your father, Romy.’

‘No, but what if he was? What if he disappointed her? What if he didn’t love her the way she deserves to be loved?’

She had been such a daddy’s girl. Her whole world had revolved around her father. She couldn’t wait for him to come home at night and drove her mother mad, jiggling up and down with excitement. There was no joy to compare with that of seeing him appear, of running into his arms, of being swept up into a hug and swung round and round until she was giddy and giggling.

‘Who’s my best girl?’ he would ask.

Romy would shriek, ‘Me! Me!’

‘And who do I love best in the world?’