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So now he was admitting he wanted the baby. The old, foolish terror plucked at her heart: the fear of loss—now not just of her baby, but of herself.
‘I belong here and so does my baby,’ she said desperately, pushing herself free. ‘You might have only your own selfish wants to consider, but I can’t afford to just swan off and leave Mum to struggle on her own.’ She turned and began to hurry back to the car.
‘Why don’t we ask Paula her opinion instead of you making the decision for her?’
She swung around, her hand on the door. ‘No! She’d pretend it was all right for my sake. She’d just tell me what she thought I wanted to hear—’
‘You mean, like you tell her what you think she wants to hear?’ he said angrily. ‘Who’s the hypocrite now? Have you ever considered that maybe she’d benefit from being treated as a capable adult rather than as an invalid who always has to be protected? Stop using your mother as an excuse to cop out! If you’re so worried about her being on her own while Dot’s away, or not being able to handle the business, then let me pay for someone to move in—a sort of companion-cum-business manager. You don’t have to worry about what you can afford any more, dammit. I’m not as rich as Sebastian but I can certainly support you and your family—’
‘And that’s typical of your family!’ she cried at him, whipping herself up into a frenzy. ‘Only what you want matters. You claim you’re not like your father, but that’s exactly the sort of thing he would have said. If you can’t get something by fair and decent means, you buy it.
‘Everything has a price as far as you’re concerned, doesn’t it, Rafe? Nothing is sacred, not even the bonds between mother and child.’ She tossed her head at the murderous fury in his eyes, telling herself she didn’t care. ‘Well, I don’t have a price, and you needn’t think I’m going to let you buy a half-interest in my baby, either!’
The twenty-minute drive back to Beech House was achieved in blistering silence. When Rafe finally skidded to a gravelly halt on the driveway he unclipped his seat belt and wrenched open his door, before turning back to say thickly, ‘Know this, Jennifer: whether you choose to have anything more to do with me or not, I expect to be registered as the father on that baby’s birth certificate. I want my son or daughter to know who I am, to know that I’m proud to be a father, and that I’ll welcome any child who wants to seek me out with open arms.’
‘And if I don’t do it, I suppose you’ll threaten to sue me for custody?’ she choked.
Rafe went pale. The savage heat in his gaze turned to green ice, and when he spoke it was through lips rimmed with white.
‘When Sebastian knew he was never going to have any more natural children he battled my mother through the courts to try and get custody of me. When she was going through a bad patch with her second husband, and was ill, some moron of a judge, whom I’ve no doubt was a crony of Sebastian’s, gave him temporary custody. I was nine years old and hardly knew who he was. I lived with him for six months and hated it. I was just a possession, to be bribed into silence when he was busy and expected to perform in front of his guests when he wanted to show off his heir. He didn’t want me; he wanted what I symbolised. I was eventually sent back to my mother, but Sebastian kept petitioning the court for years afterwards, requesting changes in visitation rights, making her life a hell of insecurity.’
Rafe’s voice actually shook as he said into Jennifer’s now equally white face, ‘So don’t you ever, ever again accuse me of threatening your bond with your child. I wouldn’t do that to my worst enemy, let alone the woman I love!’
She followed on trembling legs as he stormed out of the car and into the house. He slammed up the stairs to her bedroom and crashed the door shut with a resounding bang.
Paula came out of the front bedroom as Jennifer hovered in the entranceway, staring up the stairs in horror.
The woman I love?
‘What’s going on?’ Paula saw Jennifer’s face and dropped her armful of sheets. ‘Jenny, darling, what’s happened?’
‘Oh, Mum!’ Tears filled her eyes and Paula rushed to put her arms around her sobbing daughter, then led her into a vacant bedroom to sit on the side of the bed.
‘What’s wrong, darling? Is it Rafe?’
They both jumped as a crash came from upstairs, then a pounding clatter on the stairs and the front door slamming. Looking out of the window, they could see Rafe striding full-tilt across the lawn towards the far trees, Bonzer panting at his heels, his hands thrust into the pockets of his leather jacket, his body leaning into the wind as if welcoming the slicing chill.
‘What is it, Jen? Have you had an argument?’
Jennifer stared at her mother’s thin, anxious face in an agony of indecision. Her mind tracked into a future where her child was an adult, and suddenly there was no decision to make. It all became obvious. And there was an obvious place to start. To offer her faith in the future. She jumped to her feet, scrubbing her cheeks under her glasses.
‘Just a moment. I have to get something to show you.’ She ran upstairs and pulled one of her books out of the bookcase, the one with the raunchiest cover.
Back in the bedroom, her mother was still sitting patiently where she had left her, and Jennifer silently handed her the slim volume, mentally bracing herself.
‘What’s this?’ Her mother blinked a little as she saw the cover.
‘I wrote it,’ Jennifer said baldly, and her mother’s brow wrinkled.
‘But it says Lacey Graham—’
‘I know, that’s the pen-name I use. I’ve had nine books published by Rafe’s company—he’s my editor. I’ve been writing them for years.’
Paula looked bewildered and began to open the book, and Jennifer hurriedly put her hand on it.
“They’re—there’s a lot of sex in them, Mum. They’re erotic books for women. That’s why I never told you about them. I—I make quite a bit of money on them.’ She named the sum of her last royalties, which made her mother’s eyes widen.
‘Goodness, you must be quite good at it.’
