The Best Man for the Job Read online

  ‘You don’t have to justify your decision, Celia,’ he cut in, thankfully putting an end to her rambling, which was in danger of becoming faintly hysterical.

  ‘Don’t I?’

  ‘No. Because I happen to agree with you.’

  She blinked. Sat back. A little bit stunned and a whole lot relieved. ‘You do? Really?’

  He nodded. Once. ‘Really.’ He leaned forwards and looked at her, his gaze intense and unwavering. ‘You wanted to know my take on it? Well, this is my take on it. I don’t want a child either. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted. While the timing is neither here nor there for me I think we’re both well aware I’m hardly father material. We’re not in a relationship. And when it comes down to it I’m not sure we really even like each other.’

  Oh. That took her aback, although she didn’t really know why, because he was right. She might still be fiercely and annoyingly attracted to him but did that constitute like? She didn’t think so.

  ‘So what kind of people would we be bringing a child into that situation?’ he continued.

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ she murmured, and wondered if he’d somehow been able to read her mind because so many of his arguments were hers.

  ‘We’d both end up miserable and God only knows what effect that would have on a child.’

  ‘Not a good one, and I should know.’

  ‘So that’s it, then,’ he said briskly. ‘Decision made.’

  Thank goodness for that. Celia blew out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding because this conversation had gone a lot more smoothly than she’d dared to hope. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m as sure as you are.’

  And she was one hundred per cent sure. She’d employed every resource she had and had thought about it for so long and hard that how could she be anything but? ‘I’m sure,’ she said firmly, then she sat back, every single one of her muscles sagging in relief. ‘You know, for a moment there I was really worried you’d want it,’ she said with a faint smile.

  ‘And have to curb my lifestyle?’ he said dryly.

  ‘Well, quite,’ she said, her smile faltering for a second as it struck her that, while much of his behaviour recently had surprised her, some things were still the same. Such as his love of chasing after anything in a skirt. Or bikini, if those press reports of his antics over the past month, complete with photos, were anything to go by.

  But she pushed aside whatever it was that was needling her—disapproval, most probably—because what did she care what he got up to, and instead focused on the tiny arrow of guilt that was suddenly stabbing at her conscience. ‘Are we being terribly selfish?’ she said, suspecting they were, but if they were at least they were in it together.

  Marcus shook his head. ‘I’d say we’re being sensible. Realistic. Responsible.’

  ‘That sounds more palatable.’

  ‘It’s true. You know it is.’

  He was right. She did. ‘I know.’

  ‘So what happens next?’ he asked after a moment.

  ‘I’m going to take the rest of this week off.’

  ‘Can you do that at such short notice?’

  She shrugged, for the first time in her career not giving a toss what her boss would think. ‘They’ll just have to live with it. I nearly killed myself pushing that deal through. They can spare me for a week.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Deadly.’

  He shot her a quick grin that flipped her stomach. ‘I’m staggered.’

  ‘I know,’ she said dryly, reminding herself that her stomach had no business flipping since he’d clearly moved on to pastures new. ‘A temporary shift to my work-life balance. Who’d have thought? But seeing as how I’ve made an appointment to see my GP this afternoon—and presumably there’ll be others—it makes sense. Having my boss wonder what’s wrong with me is not something I’d want to encourage.’

  ‘Want me to come along?’

  She shook her head. ‘I should be fine this afternoon,’ she said and then, trying not to think too much about why she wanted or needed his support, added, ‘But maybe you could come with me to the clinic or wherever I have to go.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’ll call you with dates.’

  Celia got to her feet and picked up her bag, and as Marcus walked her to the door she found herself wondering if he really was as on board with this as he claimed. There was something about his lack of emotion, the way he’d agreed with her so swiftly, that didn’t feel quite right. She’d have thought he’d question her thought process a bit more, and the fact that he hadn’t made her faintly uneasy.

  He opened the door and she stopped. Turned to him and, dismissing the little voice inside her head questioning why she’d want to challenge him when his agreement suited her so well, said, ‘Marcus?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you really think we’re doing the right thing?’

  The look he gave her was firm and resolute and wiped away all her doubts, even before he nodded and said, ‘Absolutely.’

  NINE

  But Marcus knew that he’d lied. Unwittingly perhaps, but he’d lied nonetheless, because he didn’t think they were doing the right thing at all.

  Sitting with Celia in his kitchen and talking it through, he’d been convinced that going along with whatever she wanted was the only course of action he had any right to take.

  But the conversation had clearly opened some kind of cupboard in his head into which he’d stuffed everything he’d told himself to block out because she’d left and within minutes his head had filled with everything he’d not allowed himself to think about.

  As a result, thoughts had been ricocheting round his brain for the past three days, messy and jumbled, but all pointing to the conclusion that he thought they were making a mistake.

  He couldn’t explain it. He shouldn’t want a child. His current lifestyle—which he worked hard at and enjoyed—wasn’t conducive to one. His arguments for terminating the pregnancy had been extremely valid, and God knew all the reasons Celia had put forward were ones he could understand.

  Then there was the indisputable fact that he didn’t want to be tied to anyone, least of all someone who had a problem with the way he lived—and what greater tie was there than a child?

  And finally there was the deep-rooted fear that history would repeat itself and he wouldn’t make it past his child’s seventeenth birthday, and dread of the possible fallout from that.

  Yet all he had to do was see a mental image of him holding his child in his arms and something inside him melted. When the mental image of Celia holding his child in her arms came to him, he melted even more. And as he wasn’t someone who melted, ever, the feeling was both bewildering and alarming.

  Rationally he knew that if she had the baby his life—and hers—would become horribly complicated and messy and fraught with tension. There’d be logistics to sort out, all kinds of obstacles to negotiate and endless arguments over decisions that would have to be made.

  But none of that seemed to be of much importance.

  Instead, whenever he thought about having an actual child he was assailed by memories of his own childhood. The love and attention his parents had lavished on him. The days out. The walks, the trips to the zoo, the beach. The holidays. The happy little unit they’d been before he’d hit adolescence and become a normal moody teenager.

  Logically he was aware there must have been tough times and his childhood couldn’t have been hearts and flowers every second, but all his memory chose to focus on were the happy ones.

  Logic also told him that his and Celia’s situation was about as far from the situation into which he’d been born as it was possible to get, but that didn’t seem to matter. He wanted to be the kind of father to his child
that his father had been to him. He wanted to be the kind of father who lived to see his child grow up. He wanted to be a father full stop. As they emerged from the clinic where they’d just had an appointment with the doctor to whom Celia’s GP had referred her the feeling he had that what they were doing was dreadfully wrong was even stronger.

  The sight of all those children’s drawings papering the walls of the waiting room—which seemed so insensitive it had to be deliberate, as if testing the strength of the decision made by the people who’d wait there—had practically torn his heart out.

  When they’d gone into the appointment itself and the ultrasound had shown a heartbeat, all he’d been able to think through the fog in his head was that that tiny little fetus was his child. His child. A weird kind of force had slammed into him, something that was instinctive, primal and surely had a lot to do with evolution, making his entire body shake with the strength of it.

  And when the doctor had explained the procedure she recommended, his stomach had curdled and his chest had felt as if it had a band around it, squeezing tighter and tighter until he felt as though he could barely breathe. By the time she was through he’d just wanted to drag Celia the hell out of there.

  Not that Celia had seemed in any way as affected by the appointment. She’d sat there, a bit pale, yes, but calm and composed, asking questions in a cool voice that suggested she was still as sure as she’d ever been and wasn’t suffering anywhere near the kind of mental turmoil he was.

  But what could he do about it?

  He’d told her he was fine with the decision she’d made. He’d convinced himself it was the right thing to do, and he still stood by that. With his head, at least, which knew that he had to be fair and not put her in an even more difficult position.

  His heart, however, was wondering if he could let her go through with it without at least telling her how he felt. If he could live with himself if he didn’t at least mention it.

  With the battle still raging in his head, he held the door to the street open for Celia and then followed her out. He spied a pub across the road and thought that never had he seen a place more welcome.

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ he said, shoving his hands through his hair as if that might wipe the past half an hour from his memory, ‘but after that I could do with a drink. What do you say?’

  When she didn’t answer, he stopped. Turned. To see her standing on the pavement looking pale, drawn and miserable.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, which had to be the dumbest question of the century because she obviously wasn’t all right at all.

  ‘Not really.’ Her voice was rough. Cracked. Filled with despair.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Her eyes welled up, her chin began to tremble and she clamped her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, God,’ she mumbled, and it sounded as if the words were being wrenched from somewhere deep inside her.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, his heart hammering with alarm and who knew what else.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Marcus,’ she said wretchedly, ‘but I don’t think I can go through with it.’

  And then, just as he was identifying that something else as hope, relief and a crazy kind of elation, and just as he was thinking that however complicated things were going to be he’d do his damnedest to make sure they’d be all right, she burst into tears.

  * * *

  Celia barely noticed Marcus taking her arm and making for the garden that filled the middle of the square. She was too busy crying like the baby that up until she’d seen the ultrasound she’d been so convinced she didn’t want and making a complete mess of the handkerchief he’d thrust in her hand with a muffled curse.

  He sat her down on a bench, wrapped a warm, solid arm around her shoulders and pulled her into him, murmuring that everything would be all right, and that just made her burst into a fresh bout of weeping.

  What was she doing? she wondered desperately as she collapsed against him and sobs racked her body. Why was she crying? She never cried. Not even when she’d graduated top of her year and her father hadn’t bothered to turn up to the ceremony had she shed a tear.

  Maybe it was the stress of everything that had happened lately. The exhaustion of working so hard. The terror that she was falling apart and the relief to learn she wasn’t. The shock of finding out she was pregnant. Being utterly convinced she wanted to have an abortion and then being knocked sideways by the thundering sensation that she didn’t. Or maybe it was just her hormones going mental.

  Whatever it was she couldn’t seem to stop it. Tears leaked from her eyes, drenching the front of his shirt, her throat was sore and her muscles ached, and while she completely lost it Marcus just sat there calmly holding her, supporting her, comforting her in a way she’d never have expected.

  Why wasn’t he running a mile? Surely tears weren’t his thing. Why hadn’t he bundled her in a taxi and sent her home? She must be mortifying him. She was certainly mortifying herself. She’d thought that the night of Lily’s dinner party when he’d come over to her flat, clapped eyes on her and his jaw had dropped in absolute horror was about as low as she could get, but this sank even lower. Her eyes would be puffy, her nose red and her skin blotchy, but that was nothing compared to the fact that by breaking down like this she was being so pathetic, so weak, acting so out of character.

  And while the thought of falling apart in front of any man was distressing enough, to do so in Marcus’ arms was enough to crush her completely.

  Yet he didn’t seem at all fazed by either her dramatic declaration on the pavement outside the clinic or her subsequent watery collapse. He was coping magnificently.

  Surprisingly magnificently actually.

  Although maybe it wasn’t all that surprising, because now she thought about it he’d taken everything that had happened over the past week or so totally in his stride. He’d dealt with it all far better than she’d have imagined. Far better than she had, she thought, realising with relief that finally she seemed to be running out of tears.

  As the sobs subsided and the tears dried up, she sniffed. Hiccuped. Then drew in a ragged breath. ‘Sorry,’ she said, her mouth muffled by his chest.

  ‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’ His words rumbled beneath her ear, the vibrations making her shiver.

  Fighting the odd urge to snuggle closer, she unclenched her fingers from his shirt and drew back, wincing when she saw the black mascara smudges all over him. ‘I do. I’ve ruined your shirt.’

  He removed his arm from her shoulders and gave her a faint smile. ‘I have others.’

  His gaze roamed over her face and she went warm beneath his scrutiny. Squirmed a bit because the man was used to being surrounded by women who were gorgeous and heaven only knew what she looked like. A wreck most probably. But she could hardly whip out her mirror to check and rectify the damage. Not when presumably there was an important conversation about to be had. Like—

  ‘Did you mean what you said back there?’ he asked quietly, and she suddenly felt as if she were sitting on thorns.

  Yup, like that.

  She pushed her hair back and swallowed in an effort to alleviate the ache in her throat that might have been left over from her crying jag or might be down to the doubts now hammering through her. ‘About not wanting to go through with it?’ she asked, mainly to give her a moment to compose herself.

  ‘Yes.’

  His eyes were dark, his face once again unreadable, but there was an air of tension about him that told her it mattered. Well, of course it did. She’d probably just turned his life upside down, very possibly on the basis of a mere wobble.

  She swallowed, her heart thumping as she tried to unravel the mess in her head. ‘Maybe,’ she said, rubbing her temples. ‘I don’t know.’

  She wasn’t lying. She didn’t know, because she couldn’t work it out
. What on earth had happened back there? She’d been so sure she had it all figured out. That the course of action she’d started on was the right one.

  Logically she thought that still. But emotionally...well, emotionally, she was all over the place, and had been pretty much ever since they’d turned up at the clinic.

  She’d sat in that doctor’s office, listening to what she’d said as if hearing the words through a wall of soup, and weirdly and worryingly her resolve had begun to weaken. And then the doctor had done an ultrasound and it had drained away completely.

  How could everything she’d spent so long analysing be thrown on its head by one tiny little pulse fluttering at a hundred and sixty beats a minute? It didn’t make any sense.

  ‘I mean, it was fine when I thought it was just a bundle of cells or something,’ she said, aware that Marcus was waiting for her to explain. ‘But seeing the heartbeat...’ She tailed off because how could she ever even begin to describe the feelings that had pummelled through her, and, in any case, why would he even want her to try?

  ‘I know,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘And before that, all those pictures...’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘It set something off inside me. Something instinctive.’ She shrugged as if it were nothing but a minor blip, forced a smile to her face and shoved aside her doubts. ‘But don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll pass.’

  It had to, didn’t it? Because she couldn’t change her mind. She’d told him that she thought abortion was for the best and he’d agreed. He’d been quite firm about that. How selfish of her would it be to back out now and land him with the kind of commitment that lasted a lifetime, the kind he clearly didn’t want?