Forever Mine (Joe & Ella 2)

Once inside I saw the young receptionist Josh had been training sitting confidently behind the desk. She looked up at me and smiled.

“Good afternoon, you must be Miss Reid. Mr Madden said to tell you to go straight through. He’s waiting for you.”

I smiled back at her and muttered, “Thanks.” Then turned to walk down the corridor that led to his office. ‘Please God let this go smoothly, I don’t have the energy for any more fighting’, I begged.

I knocked twice on his door and it instantly flew open, he’d been waiting behind the door. Probably pacing and plotting what he was going to say to me. He looked straight into my eyes and took a deep breath.

“Hello Ella, thanks for coming. I really didn’t expect you to if I’m honest.”

“I owe you an explanation…and an apology. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you… about the pregnancy Joe.” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word baby, it hurt too much. “I didn’t do it to hurt you or be spiteful. I had every intention of telling you I promise.”

He closed the door and gestured for me sit down on his office couch. I sat down and put my handbag on the floor next to me.

“Do you want a drink?” he asked, walking over to his drinks cabinet and pouring himself a whisky.

“I shouldn’t at this time of the day, but maybe a whisky will help me get through this.”

His eye brows shot up, “Am I that scary?”

“You have no idea how scary you can be sometimes Joe.” I said to him honestly.

He shook his head and looked amused by my admission.

“Damn if I scare you I must terrify the rest of the population.”

I laughed gently, he obviously had no idea how imposing a man he really was.

He brought our drinks over and set them down on the coffee table in front of the sofa and then sat down next to me. His knee was touching my leg, the heat from his closeness radiated through me and I went to move away but stopped myself. He would pick up on my negative body language straight away and I didn’t want this to turn into a row before we’d even started.

“So what do you want to know?” I asked quietly.

“How about you start from the beginning. When did you find out you were pregnant?”

I turned to face him now.

“That day when I was off work and wasn’t feeling well, when you stayed at home and worked from your office in the apartment, you took me to the chemist and I brought a test then. I took the test whilst you were in your office.”

“I asked you that day if you thought you could be pregnant and you said no. Why did you lie to me?”

“I didn’t lie on purpose, when you brought it up I truly believed it wasn’t possible, but then when I thought about it the dates didn’t add up. I was scared to tell you because we’d never had the discussion about children. I didn’t want to freak you out. I was freaking out enough for the both of us.”

“I’m nearly thirty five years old Ella, I wouldn’t have freaked out. Of course I want kids, I want a family. I didn’t think I would a few years ago but that all changed when I met you.”

“I’m sorry, I made a mistake I know that now, but at the time my head was all over the place. I spent the first week pretending it wasn’t happening then I figured if I could get used to the idea of…everything…I could eventually pluck up the courage to tell you.”

He reached over to hold my hand and I let him. He ran his thumb along my knuckles and sighed sadly.

“So you come to tell me and find that…woman in here. I swear to God Ella if I ever see her again I won’t be able to hold myself back. She destroyed everything for me, for us that day.”

“I know, I was hurt and confused. I had to get away to clear my head. All I could think was that she was having your baby too and hers would come first. It would always put mine in second place… second best. She’d have all the firsts, first smile, first steps, first tooth...”

I started crying then thinking about those firsts that would never happen now and he reached across to pull me onto his lap. In my sorrow I just let him, too consumed with the grief of it all to think that my sitting on his lap like this was giving him mixed messages.

“You would never ever be second to anything or anyone and neither would our baby. You must know that by now Ella. Why don’t you ever trust me?”

I looked up into his face, he really couldn’t understand why I didn’t trust him. I realised in that moment that he had put his past behind him and I hadn’t. Where he was confused about my lack of trust it was all pretty clear cut to me. In his eyes he’d always been faithful, never even looked at another woman, but to me he was a serial cheater and I was always waiting for the moment when it would happen to me. We saw things differently, men and women always did I knew that, but this just highlighted how much our outlook on the relationship had differed. Where he was forward thinking, more positive, I was stuck in the past and always trying to find the negative.

“Truthfully Joe, I don’t know. I can’t get over your past. I can’t believe someone could change like that. Not for me.”