Rachel busied herself working through straining inboxes, her own, Will’s, as well as one of the generic admin accounts. Then she flicked through her hard-copy inbox, separating out her own items from Will’s, checking that the assistants had marked the correct pages for him to sign, adding sticky tabs where they hadn’t. Finally she tackled the outbox, dividing up the signed documents into the recipients they needed to be sent to next. The second hand on the clock above Will’s door crawled round, until she was certain that physics was working against her.
Except this was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To put this off—for ever, if that were an option. She didn’t want to see Leo. Didn’t want to have lunch with him. She wanted to never see him again, never feel the loss of control that she’d experienced that night. And that had had consequences just as frightening as she’d ever imagined.
A baby. Where was she meant to fit a baby into her life? The Friday-afternoon ‘catching up with the trade press’ hour? She wasn’t exactly experienced at motherhood, but she was pretty sure that a baby needed more than an hour a week. Even if she pulled together every single one of her contingency and emergency hours it was less than a day a week. No, having this baby meant ripping up everything that made her feel safe and secure, and starting over completely. She leant back in her chair, surveying the piles of paperwork covering her desk. What was the point to this? Because it wouldn’t matter how neat the piles, how precise and efficient her system. At some point, this would all fall apart.
She had choices. She didn’t have to do this, to have this baby. But even as she thought it, the tearing pain in her heart told her that it wasn’t the right choice for her.
She was having this baby.
Now she just had to tell Leo.
She glanced up at the clock again—one-fifty-eight—and wondered if Will would remember his call. Should she buzz through and remind him? So that he didn’t run late or so that she could get to lunch with Leo? She didn’t want to think too hard about the answer to that.
At two minutes past two the door opened and Leo walked out, a grin still on his face. But then what did he have to worry about? Who wouldn’t be happy if they could spend all day at the beach or dipping into their trust fund? Well, he might have to think about getting a little responsibility after today.
If he wanted to be involved, that was. She should really have used this time to think about what she was going to tell him, what she was going to ask him. What she wanted from him. She didn’t need him to do this. Frightening as it was, she knew it could be done alone. There were plenty of single mothers out there who balanced parenthood with careers. No doubt all that was needed were killer organisation skills, and she had that one wrapped up nicely.
She refused to look up at him, still annoyed with Leo for his heavy-handedness. Instead she kept her eyes firmly on her monitor as she continued with her work. But she hadn’t counted on a blond head with tanned skin and insanely blue eyes intruding into her field of vision.
‘Ready to go?’ Leo asked as he leaned nonchalantly forward and against her cubicle.
‘Su-u-u-re,’ she replied, buying herself extra milliseconds by dragging out that one syllable for as long as she could without seeming ridiculous. She saved and closed her documents, backed everything up, flicked through her inbox to make sure that nothing urgent had arrived in the past five minutes, and then logged off. She took a sneaky deep breath as she reached under her desk for her handbag and braced herself. She was going to tell him. That was non-negotiable. What happened after that, how Leo reacted, she had zero control over.
Her stomach churned and she wished that she could blame it on morning sickness, but this was just good old-fashioned nerves.
‘Will told me about this great place around the corner,’ Leo said as they walked out of the door and onto the street. Great. He was definitely interfering and it was definitely on purpose.
How was she supposed to do this? Did she just blurt it right out over starters? Ply him with wine beforehand to soften the blow? Maybe she should tell him before they even sat down—that would make it less embarrassing if he did a runner straight off.
And she couldn’t even have a glass of wine to steady her nerves.
Before she had a chance to realise how far they had walked they were passing through the doors of the restaurant and being shown to their table. Somehow in their fifteen-minute meeting, either he or Will had found a moment to call ahead. Perfect.
Now she sat trying to surreptitiously watch him over the top of her menu. He was in a good mood, and a smile was lighting up his face. She wondered at the reason for it. Was it the meeting with Will that had made him happy, or was it sitting here with her? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. She didn’t want to enjoy this, or for him to. Relationships meant chaos; they meant accommodating another person—something she generally didn’t do outside a boss-employee relationship. And even then she only worked with people who were really looking for her to manage them, rather than the other way around. So she indulged in friendships and occasional casual dalliances, knowing that she could get out the minute anything approaching chaos started to impinge on her life. Short flings were satisfying and easy to manage. Leo fitted beautifully into that first category, but was failing miserably with the second.
He looked up and caught her eye.
‘So, anything you fancy?’ he asked with a cheeky grin. She rolled her eyes at the lazy innuendo. He slouched back in his chair and she took a moment to really look at him, in a way she hadn’t allowed herself since the hazy early-morning hours after the fundraiser. She was desperate to smooth the chaotic curls that tumbled rebelliously over his forehead, but was aware at the same time he’d lose something of his charm if she were to do it.
Drawing her eyes away from him, she toyed with a breadstick as they waited in silence for the main courses to arrive. This was bad. This was a bad date. She was a bad date. How had she spent hours with this man, making love as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and now she was struggling to make small talk?
‘Is everything okay?’ Leo asked.
So her complete state of panic hadn’t gone entirely unnoticed. Well, the worried glances he’d been throwing at her for the past fifteen minutes should have been her first clue. She’d chosen to studiously ignore them, worried that acknowledging them would lead to talking about what was wrong. But still, she was surprised by the serious note to his voice, feeling his concern, the connection between them, all the way to her core. She remembered the way she had felt that morning at the railway station, watching his train pull away from the platform and knowing that however much she felt for him, she’d missed any opportunity to explore it. And then he’d waltzed back into her life on the day when exploring any connection between them seemed more impossible than ever.
She had to tell him, and now was as good a time as any. Actually, no, that wasn’t true. Now was the best chance she was going to get. She took a long, fortifying sip of her mineral water, wishing it could have been an ice-cold glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and opened her mouth to speak.
‘Leo, there’s something—’
‘Here we go—two tagliatelle al ragu? Would you like parmesan? Black pepper?’
She hid her frustration behind a smile as the waiter bustled and chatted at them good-naturedly. And then watched his retreating back in panic, flailing.
‘You were—’
‘I’m pregnant.’
She blurted the words out before Leo could finish his sentence, and instantly regretted it as Leo snorted his red wine.
‘Pregnant?’
‘Keep your voice down,’ she hissed, hoping that Will hadn’t told anyone else at the office about this place.
‘How can you be— I thought you were going to— What does— Pregnant?’ She waited out his rambling