Even more bewildering was the expression on his face. Gone was the easy self-assurance she associated with him. In its place was uncertainty and hesitation, which was as perplexing as the dark flush that stained his cheeks.
She almost forgot what she had come to say when he walked towards her and dragged his chair round so that he could position himself right next to her, on her level.
‘I…’ he began. ‘I…I’m glad you’re here…’
He didn’t look glad. In fact, he didn’t look anything, at least not anything she could identify. And if he really was glad, then she was pretty sure that it wasn’t a sentiment he would be harbouring for very long.
‘I…the past few weeks, Rose…’ He once again ran his fingers through his hair and looked away from her. ‘Not good.’
In a flash, she knew where he was going. He had probably assumed that she had come to his office with a view to taking him up on his offer for her to live with him and was now, against the dictates of his pride, going to repeat the offer because he still wanted her. Want, want, want! The most distasteful and egotistical word in the universe.
She closed her mind off to her memories of him. It gave her strength to think that this man, whatever he said, hadn’t wanted her enough to take their relationship that one important step further. She had declared her love and that, psychologically, must have led him to assume that she would return, grateful for the crumbs he could throw her.
‘I’m not here to talk about that,’ she interjected quickly.
‘You don’t understand, Rose. I need to talk about it. I need to talk about what a fool I’ve been.’ He reached out and took hold of her fingers, idly playing with them, obviously, she thought, unaware of what that simple, inoffensive gesture was doing to her insides. She stared, fascinated and dry-mouthed, at his long brown fingers as they fiddled with hers, and gulped.
It was amazing that he couldn’t guess the reason for her visit. Astute as he was, his mind was obviously not programmed to think the unthinkable.
‘I let you go,’ he said quietly, looking directly at her. ‘I let the woman who loved me go.’
Rose didn’t want to be reminded of that. ‘I’m not here to blame you, Nick. You did what you had to do and there are no hard feelings. I haven’t come to discuss the past.’ She made an effort to slide her hand out of his grasp but his fingers tightened on hers, clasping them into submission.
‘I’ve always thought that love was a complication, something of which I had no need. I enjoyed women but I didn’t want them clambering into my private life and interfering with it. My goals were set and there was no place for cosy nights in and joint holidays in Italy with the eventual two point two.’
Which snapped Rose back to the present like a bucket of cold water.
‘No. I gathered,’ she said coolly.
‘I was…mistaken…’
It took a couple of seconds for his words to sink in, then her thoughts were adrift, bobbing about in confusion as she tried to assimilate that telling, wrenched remark.
‘I…beg your pardon?’
‘I was mistaken,’ Nick said simply. He felt a weight lift off his chest. Whatever dire news she had come to break, then she would know how he felt and it was something he should have said a long time ago. Courage, he was discovering, was something he had measured using all the wrong tools. Courage was this. Telling the only woman he had ever loved that he loved her.
Rose wasn’t sure what she was hearing. She knew what she wanted to hear.
‘You’re playing games,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Please.’ This time she succeeded in withdrawing her hand, which she held up because, riveting though his disclosures were, she couldn’t trust herself not to start believing them, and hadn’t he already made it perfectly clear that he was not in the business of love? What would he do to get her back into his bed? she wondered. Seduce her with words he knew she wanted to hear?
No. She would say what she had come to say and watch him fall back in horror. Better that than to be lulled into a false sense of security that would be snatched away the minute she broke her news.
‘Just listen to me and stop…confusing me.’
Nick had the cold feeling that he had left things too late. The horse had bolted and, not only had he failed to realise what a treasure he possessed, but he had closed the stable door and returned to the house whistling a merry tune. He deserved to have her walk out on him and never look back. His punishment would be to spend the rest of his life living with his mistake.
‘I…’ Now it was her turn to stammer. She took a deep breath and said in one quick rush, closing her eyes to block him out, ‘I’m pregnant. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it has. You don’t have to feel responsible. You don’t have to feel anything. I came here because I felt you ought to know, not because I wanted anything from you. You’re telling me now about mistakes, but I know you for who you are. I don’t want money from you; I don’t want time from you. I just thought…you should know…’
In a minute she would do the brave thing and open her eyes. The silence lengthened around them and into it she read an assortment of reactions. Eventually, though, she peeped at him and then opened her eyes fully when she realised that he hadn’t drawn back in horror.
‘You’re pregnant?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Rose whispered.
‘You’re pregnant.’
‘I realise this is the last thing you want…’
‘I don’t believe it.’ Nick shook his head in wonderment. It had never occurred to him. How naïve was he? He had lurched from thinking that she had returned because she wanted him, to imagining the worst, that she was ill, perhaps fatally so. But she was carrying his child and he was overwhelmed with a sudden feeling of elation.
He looked at her and grinned.
‘You’re…not upset?’ she asked cautiously.
‘You’re having my baby…’ He wanted to sweep her off her feet and swing her around. ‘I love you, Rose. I love you, I can’t live without you and now you’ve given me the best news I could ever have hoped for. Lord, when you walked through that door, with that serious expression, white like a ghost, I thought…I don’t know what I thought…that you were going to tell me that you were ill…that I had lost my chance to show you how much you mean to me…’
Rose’s brain had registered his declaration of love and had stuck there.
‘If you loved me, why didn’t you say something sooner?’
‘Because I didn’t understand myself.’ Nick smiled wryly at her. ‘You crept up on me and took over my soul and, like an idiot, I still thought that I was in control. When I heard that you had come here, my world fell into place again.’
‘And what if I hadn’t come here?’ Rose was not going to allow hope to push her headlong over the precipice. ‘Would you have let me disappear?’
‘I could never have done that.’ Nick thought about it, thought about his pride, realised that it would have lasted so long and then he would have woken up to the fact that he couldn’t live without her. And he wasn’t too proud, now, to tell her that and to delight in seeing her wariness finally melt away.
‘And now I’m going to be a father…’ God, he felt choked up. ‘Let’s get out of here. I want to celebrate and then I want us to get married.’
‘What, today?’ Rose laughed.
‘By the end of the week,’ Nick growled. ‘You need looking after and the sooner I get started, the better…’