The Pregnancy Bond

‘Well, look your fill of the outside, because that’s all you’ll ever see again.’

His eyes glinted. ‘Wanna bet?’

‘Jake! Do I look as though I was born yesterday?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’

‘I’m warning you. Keep your distance.’

‘All right. Let’s get back to the subject. Toy boy.’

‘I don’t have a toy boy—yet. I was just planning for the future.’

‘And this?’ He’d found a new source of outrage in the book. “‘If you’re tired of the old self, try a new one—or several new ones.” Oh, that’s great. How the devil are you supposed to know which “you” is on duty today?’

‘Easy. You give them each their own name.’

‘So I see. You’ve written a list of names in the margin. Yvonne—’

‘Sporty,’ Kelly said at once. ‘Likes the wind in her hair.’

‘Helena—’

‘Soulful and dreamy.’ Kelly was enjoying herself. ‘An intense inner life and a hectic imagination.’

‘Carlotta?’

‘A party animal. Always ready for a new experience.’

‘Don’t the fellers get confused?’

‘Not if you keep one personality for each man.’

He stirred his coffee, not looking at her. Suddenly he growled, ‘So which of them are you sleeping with?’

‘What?’

‘Carl, or Frank? Or the mysterious Harry who “misses you terribly”?’

‘Get lost!’

‘Or is it one of the other guys who were undressing you with his eyes tonight? Not that that would take much doing.’

‘Now you’re being offensive.’

‘No way. I like a woman who’s wise to herself. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. You’ve got it—and, boy, do you know how to flaunt it! That’s OK. You missed out a whole stage of life by marrying me, I know. I don’t begrudge you your fun.’

‘It wouldn’t make any difference if you did,’ she said pointedly.

‘Not since ten-thirty this morning.’

‘Further back than that. In fact, not since— Oh, don’t let’s go down that path again. We’d end up quarrelling and what’s the point?’

‘So you’re not going to answer my question?’

‘What question?’

‘Who are you sleeping with?’

She turned slightly, resting her arm on the back of the sofa, and smiled. ‘Mind your own business, Jake.’

He acknowledged this with a quirk of the mouth. ‘I’m still in the habit of thinking you are my business.’

‘You’ll get used to things being different,’ she told him, charming and implacable.

He allowed one finger to trail across the bare skin of her shoulder. ‘I’ll say things are different,’ he murmured, his eyes on her breasts, their shape emphasised by the shine of the black satin. ‘I could get jealous.’

The admiration in his eyes was frank, and for a moment the old Kelly, the one who jumped for joy at his slightest attention, lived again. But the new Kelly firmly sat on her. She knew every trick in Jake’s book, and once you could see the strings being pulled you were safe. Right?

With a face full of amusement she said, ‘Don’t waste your time, Jake.’

‘Sure I’m wasting my time?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘So it is one of them?’

‘You’re wasting your time again.’

He removed his hand. ‘I guess things really are different. You used to tell me everything.’

‘That was when I never had anything interesting to tell. I’d hunt around in my mind trying to find something about the house or my job that wouldn’t bore you rigid when you’d just come back from Egypt or Burundi, or wherever. Then you’d go on TV and talk about fascinating things in faraway places, and I’d think, Heavens, I told him about my argument with the dustman!’

‘Maybe I liked hearing about the dustman. It was real. It kept me down to earth.’

‘And maybe I got tired of just being your “down to earth”. You did all the flying for both of us. I was just earth-bound.’

‘I didn’t even know you tonight,’ he complained. ‘I left a librarian and I came back to the last of the red hot mommas.’

‘Not mommas,’ she said quickly. ‘Not red hot or any other kind.’

He frowned. Then her meaning hit him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said with a sigh. ‘It slipped out without my thinking. I didn’t realise it still hurt you so much after all this time.’

‘Yes, it’s seven years ago. I should have forgotten all about it,’ she said tensely. ‘Like you.’

‘That’s not fair. I haven’t forgotten that we nearly had a child. A child I wanted very much, by the way.’