‘You look pensive,’ Jake’s deep voice said from the door of the library.
Ashleigh nearly swallowed the pen she had in her mouth as she spun around in shock. ‘What are you doing here?’ she gasped, the pen falling from her fingers.
He eased himself away from the door frame where he’d been leaning and came towards her, stooping to pick up the pen and handing it to her with a quirk of one dark satirical brow. ‘My business was dealt with a whole lot earlier than I expected,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d surprise you.’
You certainly did that, she mused, even as her stomach rolled over at the thought of him taking a look out of the library window. One look and she would have hell to pay.
She forced her features into impassivity. ‘I didn’t hear you come in…Which door did you use?’
‘The front door,’ he answered as he picked up a Tunbridge Ware bookmark and began to turn it over in his hands.
Ashleigh edged towards the window, waiting until she was sure Jake was looking elsewhere before quickly checking on Lachlan. Her heart gave an extra beat when she couldn’t see him under the tree. She glanced back at Jake but he appeared to be absorbed in the bookmark. Checking the elm tree once more, she found her son had come back into view. Her heart’s pace had only just settled down again as she turned back to look at Jake.
He was watching her steadily, his dark intelligent gaze securing hers.
‘So…’ She forcibly relaxed her shoulders, a tight smile stretching her mouth as her heart began its rollercoaster run again. ‘How was your business trip?’
‘It was nothing out of the ordinary,’ he responded, his eyes never once moving away from hers. ‘How have you been while I’ve been away?’
‘Me?’ It came out like a squeak and she hastily cleared her throat and began again. ‘I mean…I’m fine. Great, been to the gym and feeling pretty fit and…’ She couldn’t finish the sentence under his probing gaze. She was rambling but she knew that if she didn’t go out to Lachlan soon he would come in to her. She didn’t know which would be worse. Maybe she should just come right out and tell Jake now before he set eyes on Lachlan. It wasn’t much of a warning for him, but what else could she do?
She straightened her spine and faced him squarely. ‘Jake… I have something to tell you that…’ She took a much needed breath and continued. ‘…that I should have told you before, but I just felt it was never the right time, and—’
‘Mummee!’A child’s voice rang out from the back of the house, closely followed by the sound of little footsteps running down the hall.
Ashleigh swallowed painfully as her son came rushing into the room, her breath stopping completely when he cannoned into Jake’s long legs encased in dark trousers.
She watched in stricken silence as Jake’s hands steadied Lachlan, his touch gentle but sure as he looked down at the small face staring up at him.
‘J-Jake, this is Lachlan,’ she said in a voice she hardly recognised as coming from her own mouth. ‘Lachlan, this is…Jake.’
Lachlan, with the impulsiveness of youth on his side, got in first. ‘Are you the boy who used to live here a long time ago?’
Jake stared down at the little child in front of him for what seemed like endless minutes until he registered that the boy had spoken to him. ‘Yes…I am,’ he said, hoping his tone wasn’t showing how shell-shocked he felt.
Ashleigh had a child.
The child she’d always wanted.
The child he wouldn’t give her, refused to give her.
He couldn’t look at her. He knew if he did she would see his disappointment, his unjustified disappointment.
So she’d had Howard’s child.
He assumed it was Howard’s, although the child in front of him certainly didn’t look much like Ashleigh’s fiancé, he had to admit. The sick irony of it was that the kid looked more like him. Once the thought was there it tried to take hold but he just as quickly dismissed it, although it surprised him how much it hurt to let it go.
There was no way that kid could have been his. He’d watched Ashleigh take her pills every day; it had been part of their daily ritual. He had made it a part of it. She’d never missed a dose and if she had he would have insisted on using an alternative until things were safe.
It was hard to assess the kid’s exact age. He’d deliberately avoided everything to do with children for most of his adult life and had very little idea of what age went with what stage in a child’s life. On what limited knowledge he had, he thought the boy might have been about three and a half, which meant Ashleigh had dived pretty quickly into Howard Caule’s bed, but then, hadn’t she done the same with him?