The Pregnancy Bond

kitchen, where Frank was busily stacking the sink.

‘Push off!’ Carl told him. ‘I’ve appointed myself to washing-up duty.’

‘Nobody needs you,’ Frank objected. ‘Go home, there’s a good fellow, and leave everything to me.’

‘Leave Kelly alone with a predator like you?’ Carl demanded.

‘So who isn’t a predator?’ Kelly challenged, much entertained. ‘You?’

At once he slipped an arm around her waist. ‘I can be anything you want me to be,’ he said throatily.

‘Well, right now I need a kitchen maid.’

‘Great. You’ve got me. Tell him to go. We’ll do the most ecstatic washing-up the world has ever known, and afterwards-’

As he spoke he was gently pushing her backwards over his arm in a theatrical simulation of passion. He was about to drop his lips on her throat when Frank seized him by the back of the neck, howling, ‘Git outta here. She’s mine!’

‘Don’t stop him,’ Kelly begged. ‘I can’t wait to hear about afterwards.’

But Frank grasped her by the waist, pulling her free so firmly that she staggered and had to be saved from falling by both of them.

‘My afterwards is more interesting than his afterwards,’ he said.

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Carl demanded.

‘You pair of maniacs,’ she said, chuckling.

They stood holding her, one on each side, exchanging glares.

‘I wouldn’t trust either of them with your crockery,’ came a voice, and Kelly looked up to see Jake lounging in the doorway, grinning. ‘Clear off, both of you.’

‘I can give my own orders, thank you,’ Kelly said, ruffled.

‘Go on, then, tell them to go.’

‘When I’m ready.’

The movement of Jake’s head was barely perceptible, but Carl and Frank saw it and it was enough to make them shuffle their feet and cough.

‘Hey, hold on,’ Kelly cried as they edged to the door. ‘Ignore him. He’s had no rights since ten-thirty this morning.’

‘You don’t need them; you’ve got me,’ Jake said.

‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

‘’Bye, fellers,’ Jake said remorselessly.

Speechless with indignation, Kelly watched as her two admirers picked up their jackets and departed, for all the world as though Jake were the master of the house. At the door Carl turned to blow her a kiss and shrug helplessly, as if to say, What could you do?

Then she was alone with Jake.

‘You’ve got a nerve,’ she seethed. ‘Ordering people out of my home. Just who do you think you are?’

‘A few days ago I’d have known how to answer that, but when I arrive on our wedding anniversary and find my wife putting out the flags because the anniversary’s cancelled-’

‘Don’t talk as though the divorce came as a surprise to you.’

‘Let’s say it came as a surprise that you went through with it.’

‘Oh, I see. You didn’t think I had the guts.’

‘I didn’t think you had the stupidity,’ he yelled. ‘Or the pig-headedness, or the short-sightedness. Where would you like me to stop?’

‘Right there. You’re talking nonsense. Our divorce was inevitable from the moment you slept with Olympia Statton.’

Goaded, Jake roared to heaven. ‘How many times does it have to be said? I did not sleep with Olympia.’

‘Oh, sure, you just did a little detour via her hotel room in Paris, at three in the morning, and left an hour later.’

‘I’ve never denied I went to her hotel room-’

‘Or why!’

‘All right! I went in for reasons I shouldn’t have done, but I changed my mind almost at once. I didn’t want to turn and run like a kid who’d lost his nerve, so I hung around drinking and making excuses to talk. Then I told her I wasn’t feeling well, and left. How was I to know that it was a set-up and the entire damned crew was out there timing me?’

‘Luckily for me.’

‘Unluckily for both of us. I didn’t sleep with Olympia, but they think I did, and you listened to them, not me. Dammit, even Olympia denied it, and you as good as called her a liar to her face.’

Which was what she wanted, Kelly thought. Oh, yes, Olympia had denied it all right, but she’d done it in a way that was half an admission, shaking her head earnestly so that her blonde hair swung around her delicate features, as if to say, You don’t really think a man could resist this, do you?

And Kelly hadn’t thought anything of the kind, any more than she’d thought Jake could be alone in a bedroom with that seductive, half-clad body, and not take matters to an inevitable conclusion.

‘Olympia said what you wanted,’ she told Jake now. ‘And later you admitted it, have you forgotten?’

‘I never admitted sleeping with Olympia,’ Jake said swiftly. ‘In the divorce papers I admitted “adultery with an unknown woman”-’

‘So that Olympia’s fair name shouldn’t be sullied. You’re a real knight in shining armour, Jake, you know that?’

‘I didn’t do it for her, I did it for you-’

‘From the goodness of your heart,’ she said sarcastically.

‘You were determined to have that divorce, one way or another. It wasn’t Olympia. She was just your excuse to be rid of me. So I made it easy for you. If it hadn’t been her it would have been something else.’

‘Something or someone?’

‘Whatever you’ve decided in that stubborn head of yours.’

‘Skip it, Jake, that’s all in the past. We’ve left it behind.’

‘Oh, sure! You settled what you wanted to believe and moved on.’

‘Wanted to believe?’ She whirled on him, eyes flashing. ‘If you think I wanted to believe that a man I used to love went out tom-catting then you’ve got rocks in your head. I believed it when I had to. And that was after years of refusing to face facts.’

‘Facts? What damned facts?’ he roared. ‘Are you suggesting that I made a career of infidelity?’

‘I’ve always wondered. What I did know for sure was that I spent my time waiting for you while you took off around the world at the behest of Olympia, who always seemed to have some vital job for you when we had an anniversary or a birthday coming up.’

‘Olympia is my producer; she trusted me with the assignments that made my name. I almost owe her my career-no, dammit!’ He checked himself, muttering curses under his breath. ‘No! What am I saying? It’s you I owe things to, that time you supported me so that I had nothing to do but hunt for assignments-I haven’t forgotten.’

‘Yes, you have,’ she said, but without rancour. She’d calmed down now. ‘And why shouldn’t you? It’s a long time ago. Never live in the past.’

‘Kelly-’

‘I’m the past; she’s the present-’

‘Kelly, please-’

‘And all our divorce did was recognise that. Now, I’m going to put the rest of the things in the sink.’

CHAPTER TWO