His father had lashed back demanding to know if she seriously thought he wanted any of this, a nightmare marriage, his dreams of university, of a better life, long abandoned as he was now straddled with a wife and child to support.
It was another four years before they divorced, five years until his mother eventually threw Lucien out for punching her new boyfriend. Her boyfriend had caught Lucien stealing his beer and had flung a beer can at him. Lucien, sick of the controlling bully who spent his days belittling his mother, had launched himself at him, long past caring about the consequences of anything he did in life. He had ended up with a permanent scar over his ear and living in a fleapit in Bordeaux at the age of seventeen. But at least there, there wasn’t the constant silent, frightening tension of waiting for another bitter argument to start.
History could not repeat itself. This baby was never to feel unwanted.
That thought hit him hard in his gut, in his heart.
‘So who will support you in raising the baby?’
Her arms folded tightly on her waist. ‘My parents will be nearby. I know they will adore being grandparents.’
Which was something...but a feeling of loss, of not being in control of how his life was changing, of needing to make sure he got this right had him warn, ‘Being a single parent won’t be easy.’
She closed the window beside her and gave a shrug. ‘I’ll manage.’
But would she? He didn’t know her, not really. For a few crazy hours he had experienced a connection with her that had flummoxed him, but with hindsight he had recognised that it had been nothing more than a mutual powerful attraction.
And now she was expecting him to be happy with entrusting her with raising his child. What was the best thing to do? For the baby? Neither he nor Charlotte mattered in all of this. ‘Don’t you think a child has the right to know its father, to benefit from that support?’
White teeth bit down on the soft, tender plumpness of her lips. He cursed silently at the drag of attraction that barrelled through him.
She pulled on the collar of her plain lilac blouse and eyed him impassively before she answered, ‘Perhaps, but only if the father wants and is capable of doing so.’
Fresh irritation swept through him. He set furious eyes on her. ‘You’re making a lot of dangerous assumptions.’
She held his gaze, her mouth now a thin line of scepticism. ‘Am I?’
‘Let me be clear. I’ll make the decision as to my role in this baby’s life. Starting with understanding just how you propose to raise it. Are you going to work full-time? Who will take care of it when you do? Have you thought through the financial implications? Who else in your life will support you? What happens if something happens to you, you get sick or are in an accident—who will care for the baby then?’
‘Nothing’s going to happen to me.’
She spoke with a tremor in her voice. For a moment he paused, taken aback by the fear in her eyes...the same fear and vulnerability he had seen the night they’d spent together. Inexplicably he was hit with the urge to reach out for her again, to pull her soft body against him, to whisper that everything would be okay. Just as he had done that night.
Canary Wharf Tower, a touchstone for the command of commerce and finance in London, was now visible in the distance. Until thirty minutes ago he had thought of nothing but business and stamping his mark as the most successful owner in the global construction sector. He had worked for almost twenty years to achieve that position, moving from labourer to site management and then into operations. Moving companies, moving countries, working, working, working. Acquiring small companies in the early days and rapidly and aggressively expanding those by taking risks, all the time defying economic predictions. Needing to prove he was strong, that he wasn’t a failure, wasn’t a coward.
The feeling that he was at a critical crossroads in his life moved through him, dancing from his whirling brain down to the confusion plugging his chest. ‘How can you be sure nothing will happen? None of us know what the future holds—you need support in raising a baby.’
She reached down for her handbag again and, placing it on her lap, searched through it, not looking towards him when she answered, ‘I’m sure friends will help me.’
‘And your parents?’
Her fingers clasped the sharp, firm ridges of her handbag bottom. She eyed him warily before mumbling, ‘They’ll be supportive but they’re elderly.’
‘Have you siblings?’
‘No and I don’t see what the issue is here. Lots of people are happily brought up in single-parent homes.’
‘The problem is that I don’t like being given ultimatums. I will decide what involvement I want, when I’m ready to do so.’
She turned to stare out of her window.
When they passed a signpost for the Docklands Light Railway, Blackwall Station, he knew they were close to the airport.
Her gaze fixed on the outside world, she said in a low voice, ‘Even though I don’t want you in our lives.’
He closed his eyes for a moment, her words stinging hard.
He was another mistake in a woman’s life.
Too angry to speak, he willed away the remaining ten minutes of his journey.
He needed space and time to think.
He needed to get away from the woman next to him. The soon-to-be mother of his child. He see-sawed from an infuriation at her coldness, her icy assertion that she didn’t want him in her life, to a deep desire to tug her to him and kiss away that frozen exterior to the warm, passionate woman he had spent the night with.
When his driver pulled up at the departure terminal at City Airport, he turned to her. His words were lost for a moment when he once again was pulled under by her fragile beauty: the pale skin over high cheekbones, the plumpness of her lips, the high arched eyebrows over sea-green eyes that mostly belonged to the Arctic Circle but occasionally reminded him of the sun-kissed warmth of the turquoise sea by his villa in Sardinia. ‘What you want isn’t important. I’ll do what’s best for our baby. We’ll speak again when I return from my business trips.’
He jumped out of the car and stalked away but pulled up when he heard her call his name.
She stood behind the door he had exited, her hands clutching the frame. ‘I’ll still be handing in my resignation letter later today.’
He walked back to her and stared down into those defiant eyes. She pulled the car door even closer against her body.
He leant down close to her ear and whispered words that came from the very centre of his being. ‘Trust me, I’m not going to let you go that easily.’
* * *
Later that evening, Charlotte left the open expanse of the Thames river walkway in Bankside to scoot down Clink Street. The dark narrow cobbled street once again sent an involuntary shiver through her. Now a fashionable part of London, this historic area, famous for Clink prison, still held a hint of menace. And she loved it.
She loved all of London. It was why she walked to and from her work in St James’s to her home in Borough every day. Her journey took her past Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Then the London Eye, the giant wheel always making her smile when she remembered her mum’s terror when they had ridden it for her fourteenth birthday. And towards the end of her walk came her favourite, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. The timber construction embodying the history that this city was steeped in and the determination of its people to continue its rich and vibrant culture.
And now she was going to have to leave all of this. Leave her apartment,