The Ultimate Betrayal

‘Rachel…’ He moved closer, running shaky fingers through her hair—and was shocked by the clammy heat emanating from her. How long had she been like this? he wondered. ‘For goodness’ sake,’ he pleaded, ‘talk to me! Tell me what’s wrong!’

The tousled head shook. He swallowed tensely, not knowing what to do. Then, with a grim resolve, he got up to collect her firmly in his arms, then sat down with her cradled on his lap, cushion and all.

At least she didn’t fight him, he noted, but just curled up against him with the cushion pressed against her face and kept on crying. He listened, his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth at the sheer bloody wretchedness of the sound.

‘It’s all y-your fault,’ she sobbed out suddenly.

His fault. He sighed, casting his mind back over the past few days, trying to discover what he had done this time to cause so much distress. He’d thought he’d been particularly diplomatic over the last week or so. He hadn’t said one word about her damned art class! He had not forced his body on to her more than he could possibly help. In fact, he’d stayed out of her way as much as he could…

‘Y You were s-supposed to take c-care of it.’ She damned him with that pathetically wretched voice which cut him to the quick.

He brushed his cheek over her hair. ‘Take care of what?’ he asked.

The sobs went deeper, threatening to choke her if she didn’t calm down, and sighing, he took control of the situation, sitting her up and determinedly snatching the cushion away from her hot face. Her hands simply took its place.

‘Calm down!’ he commanded sternly, quietly appalled at the state she was in.

But, dutiful to that stern tone, Rachel tried to get hold of herself, dragging in some deep breaths that wavered heartrendingly. Daniel found his handkerchief, dragged down her hands, and gently wiped her tear-swollen face. She was so hot that he could actually feel the heat vibrating from her and, on another sigh, he stripped off the warm woollen jumper she was wearing, feeling her shiver as the cooler air hit her through her thin blouse.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘let’s hear what this is all about. You said it was something I’ve done, if I heard you correctly?’

She looked at him, her eyes swimming with hot watery tears. Her soft mouth wobbled, and Daniel almost smiled because she was staring at him through big wounded eyes much as his daughter would if she had not managed to get him to do what she wanted him to do. Only this wasn’t Kate, he reminded himself grimly. This was Rachel. Rachel, who was no petulant child. She was brave and strong, despite that air of fragility she wore around her.

‘Don’t cry again,’ he murmured roughly, when the tears began to run down her cheeks. ‘Rachel, for goodness’ sake—you have to tell me what’s causing all this or how can I help?’

‘You can’t help! No one can help! I’m pregnant, Daniel! Pregnant!’ she choked, then made a lurch for his throat where she began weeping all over again. She punched his chest with a clenched fist. ‘It’s all your fault! You said you would take care of it!’

He had been the one to ‘take care of it’ when she got pregnant with the twins! After that she had taken care of it—right up until she had developed a reaction to the Pill and had to stop taking it, so Daniel had taken charge again—and Michael came along!

‘You’re useless!’ she spat at him, punching out at him again. ‘You may be able to run a million damned companies!’ she choked. ‘But you’re useless at everything else! I’m only twenty-five, for God’s sake!’ Her voice began to wobble again. ‘At this r-rate you’ll be nail-nailing down my coffin by the time I’m thirty!’

Now that deserved the smile it got from Daniel, but he pressed her face into his throat so that she wouldn’t see it. ‘Ssh,’ he commanded. ‘I’m still trying to take this in.’

But Rachel was angry now, and jerked into a sitting position on his lap to begin throwing at him all those self-pitying thoughts which had helped her to weep for such a long time. ‘A proper little baby factory I’ve turned out to be!’ she ground out scathingly. ‘No wonder you keep me hidden away here under wraps, Daniel! Your big-time business colleagues would be shocked to discover what an efficient little production line you’ve set

up in your own home! I bet—’ she warmed to the idea

‘—if you put a team of your time and motions experts on me, they would have you up for contract abuse!’

‘Shut up, Rachel!’ This time he could not contain the need to laugh. ‘I can’t think while you’re throwing all those crazy accusations at me!’

‘Well, just think about this one!’ she snapped, in a voice still thick with tears. ‘I’m pregnant! And I don’t want to be!’

Think on that as long as you want! she thought bitterly.

‘How pregnant?’ he asked after a long pause. He sounded tight-throated suddenly, as though the question had taken a lot of asking, and his face was suddenly white, that nerve in his clenched jaw jumping.

‘Three months,’ she told him, feeling a fool. Fancy not realising what was wrong with her—after all the practice she’d had, too!

‘Three months,’ he repeated, and the tension drained right out of him. ‘Good God!’ It hit h

im then, almost as hard as it had hit Rachel when the doctor had given her the news that morning. ‘That means…’

‘Yes.’ She didn’t need it spelled out for her; she could manage simple arithmetic. It must have happened the first time she had let him near her after she found out about Lydia, and everything went a little crazy.

‘God.’ He seemed stuck on blasphemies. ‘I remember now, I never gave a thought to…’

Silence fell again, while they both pondered their own trains of thought. She still sat curled up against him, and Daniel was stroking absently at her hair. And suddenly it reminded her of another time when she’d sat with him like this, receiving those same soothing caresses while he came to terms with her news.