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Jessica headed up the spiral staircase. Reaching the bedroom, she stripped off to the skin, and took a quick shower, then donned fresh underwear and drew on a pair of black, lace-topped stockings to go with the hipskimming little black dress she fished from the wardrobe.
Her hair she left to dry naturally, after running a brush over it. A swift stroke of a mascara brush over her lashes, a dash of lipstick, and she was ready. Despite the lipstick, her face in the mirror looked colourless. She brushed on some blusher, but it seemed to fade away immediately. Imagination, she told herself brusquely. Any more, and she’d finish up looking like a china doll!
Barbara had gone by the time she got downstairs.
Turning to Zac, Jess asked, ‘Shall you be going to see the new arrival?’
‘I’d doubt Brady would look too favourably on a visit from me,’ Zac returned drily. ‘I don’t imagine he was any too pleased to know you’d been there at the birth when he couldn’t be.’
Jessica lifted her shoulders. ‘Understandable. Not that he made it all that obvious. He was just glad someone was with Sarah when it began. He’s beautiful. The baby, I mean. They’re calling him Henry, after his grandfather.’
‘Naturally.’ Zac studied her with a certain cynicism. ‘Made you feel a little broody yourself, did it?’
Her laugh was forced. ‘I can think babies are lovely without necessarily wanting one. It’s a lifetime commitment.’
‘And you don’t see us being together that long?’
Green eyes sought grey, unable to penetrate the depths. ‘Do you?’ she challenged.
‘Why not? Marriages have succeeded on far less than we have in common. Maybe a baby wouldn’t be such a bad idea?’
‘Especially if it put you back on a par with Brady.’ Jessica shook her head forcefully. ‘I’ve told you before, I’ve no intention of having a baby just to satisfy your grandfather. He might have the two of you in the palm of his hand, but he doesn’t have me!’
‘Fair enough.’ Zac sounded remarkably calm about it. ‘So we carry on the way we are for as long as it lasts. Where do you want to eat tonight?’
The swift change of subject left her floundering for a moment. She pulled herself together. ‘Anywhere. I don’t mind.’
‘The Minotaur, then.’
Eating out was the last thing Jessica felt like. Eating at all, in fact. Right now, bed and sleep offered the greatest inducement.
Whatever Zac’s inner feelings, he appeared his usual self on the surface the rest of the evening. The problem at the Lyon end had been ironed out without too much difficulty, he said. He didn’t mention how he’d passed the previous evening, and Jessica didn’t ask. It wasn’t outside the bounds of possibility that he’d simply had dinner at the hotel.
Perhaps with their earlier conversation in mind, Zac took care to use protection that night. His ardour was certainly no less for it though. Jessica responded as always, losing herself in the passionate caresses, in the feel of the lean, hard body, the power in his loins. As long as they had this, she could deal with the rest, she told herself on the edge of sleep.
She rang Sarah as promised the following morning, finding her exactly as she had left her the day before.
‘Life’s absolutely wonderful!’ the young mother exclaimed. ‘I can’t wait to get home with him, and show him off to everybody! Brady insisted on my having some help. Not a full-time nanny exactly, but she’ll be there several hours a day.’ She laughed. ‘I think he’s afraid I might find the whole thing too much for me and leave the poor little mite to fend for himself. As if I’d even consider it! You must come over to see us when we’re home. Zac too. It’s high time he and that husband of mine got together, if only socially.’
‘We will,’ Jessica promised, putting her doubts on that score aside. ‘Give Richard a kiss for me.’
‘Everything all right?’ asked Leo, emerging from the inner office as she put the phone down. ‘You look a bit tired this morning.’
‘Never tell a woman she looks tired,’ Jessica returned lightly. ‘It’s like saying she’s looking old!’
‘Hardly germane at your age.’ He smiled back. ‘Too many late nights, maybe? Zac doesn’t strike me as a man content to don a pair of slippers and watch TV of an evening.’
‘You’re right,’ she said, still on the same light note. ‘He’s far from ready to settle down to domesticity. Me too, for that matter.’
‘Well, providing you’re both of the same mind, there’s nothing to worry about. My marriage might have lasted a lot longer than it did if we’d shared the same outlook on life. I wanted kids, Christine saw them as too much of a tie. Something we should have gone into before we took the plunge, I suppose, but the subject never came up.’
Jessica kept a tight rein on her emotions as she gave him the file he asked for. So she was looking a little off-colour. Hardly a cause for concern on its own.
Except that it wasn’t on its own, of course. She was more than a week late. Still not such a lot, but she’d never fluctuated by that much before.
Suspicion became certainty the very next morning when she was struck by a sudden wave of nausea on rising. She made it to the bathroom just in time, viewing her pale face and lack-lustre eyes through the mirror in wry acceptance. Zac had already gone down, which was some relief. She was going to need to come to terms with this herself before telling him. Not that his reaction was likely to be a bad one with his grandfather still pulling the strings.
Women were at something of an advantage when not looking on top form in having the use of make-up. Jessica applied a light foundation, and took extra care with her eyes to combat the lack of sparkle. The result wasn’t perfect, but she doubted if Zac would notice any difference.
Breakfast finished, he was on his second cup of coffee by the time she got downstairs, his attention concentrated on the morning newspaper.
‘I was beginning to think you’d decided to go back to bed,’ he commented without looking up. ‘You’d better get a move on if you want a lift in. I’ve an early appointment. The coffee’s fresh, and there’s bread already in the toaster.’
Jessica fancied neither, but crying off breakfast altogether was hardly likely to go unnoticed. She made the toast, and spread a little marmalade, unable to face even the thought of butter. One sip of coffee was enough to convince her that drinking the rest would be tantamount to announcing the condition she was already taking as definite. She was glad she’d only half filled the cup to start with.
‘Are you likely to be going away again in the near future?’ she asked.
‘There’s nothing on the immediate agenda,’ he said. There was a slight drawing together of the dark brows as he looked across at her, but if he noted anything untoward in her appearance, he made no comment. ‘Why?’
Jessica shrugged. ‘I just wondered.’
‘Thinking about that proper honeymoon I promised you, by any chance?’ he queried. ‘Unfortunately, this isn’t the best time to go to the Maldives. It’s the start of their rainy season. Plenty of other places, though.’
Jessica stirred herself, shaking her head emphatically. ‘I didn’t mean that at all. In fact, I’d forgotten all about it!’
Regard enigmatic, he said, ‘So think about it. I like to keep my promises. Just name the place, or places, you most fancy seeing.’
‘I can’t!’ Her tone was too abrupt; she took steps to soften the rejection. ‘I mean, I can’t take time off now after just starting the job.’
‘You don’t have to do the damned job at all!’ he declared with sudden force.
Jessica firmed her jaw. ‘I know that. I want to do it.’ For as long as possible, she tagged on mentally. She swallowed as nausea stirred again, pushing back her chair. ‘We’d better get moving if you want to make that appointment.’
Zac made no further reference to the subject. He didn’t speak much at all on the way to Holbourn. He’d pick her up at five-thirty if nothing cropped up in the meantime, he said on dropping her off.
The day was fraught. Jessica wasn’t sick again, but she felt decidedly queasy. It could take as long as three months for the hormones to sort themselves out, she’d read somewhere. The nausea could apparently be relieved by medication, which called for a visit to a doctor. Zac would have one, of course, but she wasn’t ready yet to give him the news. Not while there was still the slightest chance that it was a false alarm.
She slipped out at lunchtime and bought a pregnancy testing kit, then spent fifteen minutes in the cloakroom nerving herself to do the test. The result proved positive, removing the last doubt from her mind.
Standing there, gazing at the strip, Jessica was aware of a stirring deep down in the very centre of her being. Emotional, not physical, she realised. New life was already growing inside her, minuscule at present, but destined to become a fully developed human being. Whatever else happened, this child was going to be loved and protected, she vowed.
Having resolved to tell Zac on the way home, she was dashed when he phoned to say he was going to be late. He didn’t say why, and she didn’t ask, unwilling to give any leeway to the thought that had sprung in the back of her mind. The news would keep. In fact, a little more time to assimilate it properly herself wouldn’t go amiss.
Zac took it for granted that she called for a taxi to transport her to and from the office on the occasions he was unable to do it himself. At peak times, Jessica found the tube just as quick. She had never suffered from claustrophobia in her life, but tonight, strap hanging on the packed train, she felt everything closing in on her. Hormonal again, she reckoned, thankful to emerge. Taxis might be preferable after all.
The time was going to come when she had to give the job up altogether, of course. Sitting behind a desk with a front the size Sarah’s had been would prove impossible. Whether Zac would still find her desirable when she looked like that was open to question.
She made herself a snack when he hadn’t turned up by eight o’clock. Not because she felt like eating, but because she had a responsibility towards the life growing inside her. By nine she was beginning to doubt, by ten to definitely suspect. When he finally arrived at half-past, she was ready to let fly.
‘Where do you think I’ve been?’ he responded curtly. ‘With another woman?’
The directness of it took her aback for a moment, but only for a moment. Attack had always been the best means of defence.
‘Why not?’ she challenged. ‘We’ve been married a whole six and a half weeks! A long time for a man as used as you are to playing the field!’
One dark brow lifted sardonically. ‘If I’ve given the impression I’m bored with you, I must try to do better. If you want the truth, I’ve been seeing an old friend. Male, as it happens. In town for the one night before heading back to New York.’
Jessica rallied her waning forces. ‘So why didn’t you tell me that when you phoned?’
‘Because I was already late for a meeting. I could have got my secretary to phone you with more detail, of course, but I didn’t think that would go down too well. Was I wrong?’
‘No,’ she said after a moment.
Zac eyed her dispassionately. ‘You look tired. You should have gone to bed.’
‘I’m fine.’ It was an effort to keep her tone from reflecting her feelings. She tried a new track. ‘I phoned Sarah this morning. They’re both still doing well. She wants us to go over when she’s home.’
‘She might, Brady certainly won’t.’
The anger returned full force. ‘It’s about time the two of you started pulling together!’ she snapped. ‘You’re like dogs fighting over a bone—with your grandfather on the sideline urging you on! You’re cousins, for God’s sake!’
‘Even closer than that.’ Zac was angry himself, his eyes like cold steel. ‘My father had an affair with Brady’s mother. He was the result. That makes him my half brother.’
Jessica gazed at him in shock for several seconds before she found her voice again. ‘Does he know?’
‘Yes, he knows. His mother told him the truth after our fathers were killed, and he told me.’
Mind whirling, Jessica said slowly, ‘Your mother had no idea?’
‘Oh, yes. She’d been aware of it from the start.’
‘But she stayed with him? Your father, I mean.’
‘She stayed for my sake. I was about six months old when Brady was born.’
Green eyes widened. ‘Your father had the affair while your mother was pregnant with you?’
‘So it would appear.’ Zac looked as if he was beginning to regret having begun this. ‘Some men find pregnancy a sexual turn-off. And no, I’m not finding excuses for him, but his sister-in-law—my aunt—obviously made herself readily available.’
Jessica’s head was lowered, the lump in her throat hard to swallow. If his father had found pregnancy a sexual turn-off, then it was likely that he might too. Not a brilliant outlook for a marriage lacking anything else to hold it together—apart from those damned shares!
‘Lousy situation though it is, I don’t think you and Brady should allow it to colour your lives to the extent you do,’ she said thickly. ‘Your grandfather doesn’t help.’ She looked up as the thought struck her. ‘He did know?’
Zac gave a short laugh. ‘He didn’t at the time. If he had, he’d have cut Dad off pronto. Brady told him within days of hearing it himself. Hence the added pressure on me to make good.’
‘You can’t possibly be blamed for what your father did!’
‘As his son, I’m expected to atone for it.’
‘That’s unfair!’
‘That’s life,’ Zac returned drily. ‘We’ve been asked to make another visit, by the way.’
‘Asked,’ she flashed, ‘or commanded?’
The shrug was brief. ‘Tell it the way you see it. Whatever his faults, I’m fond of the old devil. Even more so of my grandmother. She’s devoted a lifetime to him. The least I can do is spend the occasional weekend.’ He paused, eyes veiled now as he regarded her. ‘I can’t force you to come with me, of course. That has to be up to you.’
‘But it will hardly do your image any good if I don’t.’
The sarcasm left him unmoved. ‘Probably not. Anyway, it’s been a long day. I’m going to bed. Don’t stay up too long. You look a bit washed out yourself.’
He was gone before she could comment. Not that there was a great deal she could have said other than to tell him the reason she looked washed out, as he so tactfully put it. Her pregnancy would certainly enhance his stature in Henry Prescott’s eyes, but how would he regard it himself? A baby was going to alter their whole way of living.
He was asleep when she finally went up, lying on his back, his breathing deep and even. Many men snored in that position, she’d heard, but she didn’t even have that much to find fault with.
The night was warm, and he’d pushed the duvet aside. Nude, as always in bed, his body gleamed like bronze in the soft light from the bedside lamp he’d left burning. Jessica studied the strong, clean lines, eyes traversing a route downwards over the broad chest with its tapering V of hair to the hard-packed midriff and narrowed hipline, the firmly muscled thighs enclosing the very essence of his masculinity.
Even dormant, he was well-endowed. She touched her tongue to lips gone dry at the image in her mind’s eye of how he looked when he was fully aroused. She wanted him desperately, but she wasn’t prepared to waken him. Not the way things were. He would have to know eventually, of course, but not yet. It was hardly as if she was going to give birth tomorrow.
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