Juggling Briefcase & Baby

Lex pressed down a key with his forefinger, then another. ‘I thought I would feel good about telling him,’ he said abruptly. ‘I thought I’d have proved something, but I just looked at him and realised that he didn’t care. He’s dying.’

‘Oh, Lex.’ Without thinking, Romy put her hands on his shoulders, and just for a moment Lex let himself lean back against her. Then he remembered that she was leaving and straightened.

‘What about you? How did it go with Freya’s father?’

‘Fine.’ Romy let her hands fall and moved away to the window, too restless to sit down. ‘It was fine,’ she said again. ‘Michael was a bit stunned at first, understandably, but once he’d got used to the idea and met Freya he was quite chuffed. He said he’d like to get involved in her life.’

Lex raised his brows at her lack of enthusiasm.

‘That’s good news, isn’t it? Most single mothers would welcome some support from the father.’

‘I know.’ With a sigh, Romy threw herself down on the sofa. ‘I’m going to take Freya down again in a couple of weeks.’

‘To stay with him?’ Jealousy sharpened his voice, but she didn’t seem to notice.

‘No. Michael’s back with his fiancee and they’re getting married next year. Obviously he wants her to meet Freya, so I’ll stay with Jenny again, and we’ll have what I imagine will be quite an awkward get-together. But Michael seems to think Kate-that’s his fiancee-will be OK about it once she meets me and sees I’m no threat.’

‘And then what?’ asked Lex harshly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What happens once you’ve established a cosy relationship with this Michael and his oh-so-understanding fiancee?’

‘I come back here and we see out this farce we’ve started,’ said Romy. ‘Jo should be back from maternity leave soon, and then I’ll have to decide. I might move to Somerset. It’s a lovely area, and it would be cheaper than London. And if Michael does want to see Freya regularly, that would work quite well.’

‘Oh, I can see that would be the perfect set-up for you,’ said Lex, bitterness threading his voice. ‘Then you’d have everything you wanted, wouldn’t you, Romy? Freya’s father there for when you need him, but he’s nicely tied up with his fiancee so there’s no danger he’ll try and get too close to you. No danger that you’ll lose your precious independence!’

‘You’ll have everything you want too,’ Romy pointed out, caught unawares by the animosity that was suddenly crackling in the air. ‘You’ll have your precious deal and your nice, quiet life. What’s the problem?’

‘No problem.’ Lex pushed back the piano stool and got abruptly to his feet. He was going out. He didn’t know where. Just out. ‘No problem at all.’

Aren’t you going out tonight?’

Lex was thrown when he let himself into his apartment the following Friday to find that Romy was sitting on the sofa with Freya, reading a story-or, rather, counting caterpillars while Freya smacked the pages. He had been coming home later and later that week, to avoid spending too much time with Romy, but that night he had expected her to be at the acquisition team’s celebration dinner.

‘I’m not going,’ said Romy, looking up from the caterpillars. ‘It’s too difficult with Freya.’

Lex hung up his jacket and went back into the living room, frowning as he unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. ‘You should be there,’ he said. ‘You were an important part of the team, and if it hadn’t been for you they might not have had anything to celebrate.’

Now he said it!

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Romy managed a careless shrug, hoping to conceal her disappointment. She really liked everyone in the team, and it promised to be a fun evening. They had all been dismayed when she said that she wouldn’t be able to make it.

‘I can’t leave Freya,’ she said. ‘If I’d been at home, I could have asked my neighbour’s daughter to babysit, but I don’t know anyone I could trust around here.’

‘You know me,’ said Lex, and she stared at him, the book forgotten in her hands.

‘I can’t ask you to babysit!’

‘Don’t you trust me?’

‘Of course I trust you, but… I couldn’t ask you to do that.’

‘I don’t see why not,’ Lex said. He sat down on the sofa opposite her and there was a squeak. Leaning to one side, he pulled out a much-chewed teddy bear.

Freya gave a cry of recognition and held out her hands for it.

‘We’ve been looking for him,’ said Romy as Lex leant over and handed the teddy back to Freya, who immediately stuffed its arm in her mouth.

‘I’m just going to be here working,’ he went on. ‘As long as you put her to bed before you go, we’ll be fine.’

‘She doesn’t usually wake up,’ Romy agreed, weakening. It had been a long time since she’d been able to go out on her own, and she could already feel a lightening of her mood at the prospect. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?’

‘If I minded, I wouldn’t have offered,’ said Lex brusquely.

So Romy got to go to the celebration dinner after all. Barely had the door closed behind her than Freya woke up. Lex tried to settle her in her cot, but nothing would console her, and in the end he succumbed and lifted her out. He had seen Romy walking her around, rubbing her back and humming soothingly, so he tried that, and it seemed to work.

Until he tried putting Freya back in her cot. She screamed and screamed and only stopped when Lex picked her up again and set off round the apartment once more.

Romy rang from the restaurant. ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked anxiously.

Lex was holding Freya in one arm, and the phone in his other hand. He craned his neck to peer at the baby, who was snuggled into his collar. Ridiculously long lashes, still damp with tears, lay across her flushed cheeks. She seemed to be all right. If he admitted that she’d been crying, Romy would come home and miss the dinner after all. There was no point in both of them listening to Freya cry.

‘Everything’s fine,’ he said.

Lex didn’t even get to open his briefcase that night. Freya categorically refused to go back into her cot and he spent the entire evening walking her round and round the flat. He hummed and he sang and he rocked her gently, and at last, worn out, he stretched out on the sofa and let Freya sprawl on his chest, where she promptly dropped into a deep slumber.

When Romy came back, she found them both sound asleep. Held securely by Lex’s large hand, Freya lay flopped across his body, rising and falling with his chest.

Romy stood looking down at them, and her throat felt very tight. In sleep, Lex’s stern features relaxed, and he looked younger and infinitely more approachable than when those piercingly pale eyes were open and he had himself under rigid control. The normally hard mouth was slightly ajar, and a soft whistling sound came out with every breath.

I don’t want to fall in love with you, he had said. I just don’t want a baby.

And yet he had looked after Freya all night, just so that Romy could go out and enjoy herself. Very lightly, she touched his hair.

Was she doing the right thing in running away from any thought of commitment? Romy wondered. It would be so easy to slip into a relationship. If she had said yes when Lex suggested that they continue to sleep together, she would have saved herself all the itchy, prickly, churning frustration of not being able to touch him. She would have been able to take it for granted that Lex would look after Freya when she went out. Romy had clung to her independence for so long, it was second nature to her now, but, still, there were times when even she could see how appealing it would be to have someone else to share the responsibility, someone else you could rely on utterly.

The trouble was, she could also see how painful it would be when that someone decided they didn’t want to be with you any more. Romy’s thoughts went round and round in familiar circles. She and Lex might be sexually compatible, but a relationship needed more than great sex. It needed more than Romy could give. It needed