Double Trouble: Pregnancy Surprise: Two Little Miracles / Expecting Royal Twins! / Miracle: Twin Babies. Melissa McClone
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took photos!’
He held her furious glare, but there was a flicker of something that might—just might—have been guilt. She ignored it and ploughed on.
‘Anyway, why would you care? You told me so many times you didn’t want children. So what’s changed, Max? What’s brought you all the way up to sleepy old Suffolk in the depths of winter to ask me that?’
He was still looking her straight in the eye, but for the first time she felt she could really see past the mask, and her traitorous heart softened at the pain she saw there. ‘You have,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ve missed you, Jules. Come back to me.’
Oh no, Jane had been right, he was going to do the sweet-talking thing, but she’d been warned, and she wasn’t falling for it. ‘It’s not that easy.’
‘Oh, you’re going to start the lifestyle thing again, aren’t you?’ he said, rolling his eyes and letting out his breath on a huff.
‘Well—yes. You obviously haven’t changed; you look dreadful, Max. How much sleep did you have last night?’
‘Four hours,’ he admitted grudgingly, looking a little uncomfortable.
‘Four hours of sleep, or four hours in the apartment?’
‘Sleep,’ he said, but he looked uncomfortable again, and she had a feeling he was hiding something, and she had a feeling she knew what.
‘Max, how many hours are you working at the moment, on average? Fifteen? Eighteen? Twenty?’ she added, watching him carefully, and she saw the slight movement when she hit the nail on the head. ‘Max, you idiot, you can’t do that! You need more than four hours’ sleep! And where are you sleeping? The apartment, or in the office?’
‘Why do you care?’ he asked, his voice suddenly bitter, and he lifted his head and seared her with his eyes. ‘What the hell is it to you if I burn myself out trying to—?’
‘Trying to?’ she coaxed, but then wished she hadn’t because, his voice raw, he answered her with an honesty that flayed her heart.
‘Trying to forget you. Trying to stay awake long enough that I fall asleep through sheer exhaustion and don’t just lie there wondering if you’re alive or dead.’
She sucked in her breath. ‘Max—why would you think I was dead?’
‘Because I heard nothing from you!’ he grated, thrusting himself up out of the chair and prowling round the kitchen, the suppressed emotion making his body vibrate almost visibly. ‘What was I supposed to think, Julia? That you were OK and everything was fine in La-La Land? Don’t be so bloody naïve. You weren’t spending anything, your phone wasn’t working—you could have been lying in a ditch! I’ve spent the days searching for you, phoning everyone I could think of, nagging the backside off the PI, getting through PAs like a hot knife through butter, working myself to a standstill so I could fall over at the end of the day so tired I didn’t have the energy or emotion left to—’
He broke off and turned away, spinning on his heel and slamming his hand against the wall while she stared at him, aghast at the pain in his words—pain that she’d caused.
Didn’t have the energy or emotion left to—what? Cry himself to sleep, as she did?
No. Not Max.
Surely not?
She got up and crossed over to him, her socks silent on the stone-flagged floor, and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Max, I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, and he turned and dropped his shoulders against the wall and stared down at her.
‘Why, Jules?’ he asked, his voice like gravel. ‘Why? What did I ever do to you that was so bad that you could treat me like that? How could you not have told me that I was going to be a father?’
‘I wanted to, but you were always so anti-children—’
‘Because you couldn’t have any, and because—’
‘Because?’
He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant now, but we were talking theory, there, not practice. When you found out you were pregnant—When did you find out, by the way?’
She swallowed. ‘While you were on your way to Tokyo. Jane took one look at me and gave me her spare pregnancy test.’
His eyes widened. ‘All that time? Right from the very first minute you knew, and you kept it from me? Jules—how? Why?’
‘I didn’t think you’d want to know. I wanted to tell you—I wanted so much for you to be there with me, to share it.’
‘I would have been,’ he said gruffly, his eyes tormented. ‘I would have been with you every step of the way if you’d given me the chance.’
‘But only when you weren’t too busy.’
He looked away. ‘I wouldn’t have been too busy for that.’
‘Of course you would.’
‘No. Not for something like that. You should have given me the choice, Julia, not taken that decision away from me. You had no right to do that.’
He was right, of course. So right, and his anger and grief at the lost time cut right through her. She wanted to hold him, to put her arms round him, but she had no right to do that any more. How could she comfort him for the hurt she’d caused? And anyway there was no guarantee he wouldn’t reject her, and she couldn’t stand that.
And then he looked up and met her eyes, and she realised he wouldn’t reject her at all. She was locked in the blue fire of his gaze, unable to breath for the emotion flooding through her.
He reached out his hand and cupped her cheek tenderly, and she realised his fingers were trembling. ‘I need you,’ he said under his breath. ‘I hate you for what you’ve done to me, but, God damn you, I still need you. Come back to me. Please—come back to me; let’s make a life together. We can start again.’
She stepped back, her legs like jelly. It would be so easy…
‘I can’t. Not to that life.’
‘To what, then?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Just not that. Not the endless jetting round the world, the profit-chasing and the thrill of the stock market, the crazy takeovers, the race to the top of the rich list—I don’t want to know any more, Max, and I can’t do it, especially not with the babies. That’s why I left you, and nothing’s changed, has it? You should be in New York now, and, OK, you’re here—but I bet you’ve been on the phone while you were in the pub or on the way over, or on the drive up here, or later after I go to bed you’ll find calls you have to make. Am I right?’ she pushed, and he sighed and nodded.
‘Yes, damn it, you’re right, of course you’re right, but I have a business to run.’
‘And staff. Good staff. Some excellent people, who are more than capable of keeping things going. So let them, Max. Give them a chance to prove themselves, and take time out to get to know your children.’
‘Time?’ he asked cautiously, as if it was a foreign concept, and she would have smiled if her life hadn’t depended on it. As it was she was on the verge of tears, and she tilted her chin and put a little backbone into her voice.
‘Two weeks. Two weeks here, with me, with no phones, no news, no papers, no laptop or email or post—just us. A holiday—you know, one of those things we’ve never had? You, me and the babies, to see if there’s any way we can make a family.’
He was shaking his head. ‘I can’t take two weeks—not just like that. Not without any contact.’
‘You can contact them and tell them,’ she said. ‘I know you’ll need to do that. Look, I can’t talk about this any more. It’s been a hell of a day, and I’m shattered. I’m going to bed, and I suggest