A Contract for His Runaway Bride

‘Sure.’ He scraped a hand through his hair and sighed so heavily he was surprised the draught of his breath didn’t knock over the hall table.

***

Elodie ran the rest of the way up the stairs to the nearest bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her. She stared at the package in her hand, her heart hammering as if she’d run up five flights of stairs instead of just one.

She ripped open the bag and the packaging and quickly read the instructions. She performed the test as outlined and waited for the result.

The first minute ticked by with agonising slowness, intensifying her distress.

If she was pregnant, Lincoln would want to stay married to her because of the baby—not because of her. Not because he loved her, but because he wanted his baby to have an active and involved father.

The second minute ticked past and her heart rate sped up.

She stared at the wand in her hand, not sure what she wanted to see.

The ambiguity of her feelings shocked her. She had thought she wasn’t the maternal type; her biological clock hadn’t made a sound—ever. But now, as she waited for the lines to appear, she thought about the possibility of a baby. Lincoln’s baby.

The third minute passed, and then the fourth.

Elodie was trying to keep the wand steady enough to read it. The instructions had said to give the test a good window of time—five to ten minutes at least. She didn’t know how to deal with the suspense. Everything depended on the results of the test.

Finally, ten minutes passed and she held the wand up to the light. Negative. She waited another minute, her heart so tight in her chest she could barely take a breath. A wave of disappointment ambushed her. She wasn’t carrying Lincoln’s baby. There was no pregnancy. No need to change the terms of their marriage.

No need for her to stay with him...unless he loved her.

Elodie put the packaging in the bin but kept the wand, knowing Lincoln would insist on seeing it for himself. She didn’t have to call him upstairs for he was waiting outside the bathroom door, with an unreadable expression on his face.

‘How did it go?’ His voice held no trace of worry, anxiety or fear.

‘It’s negative.’ She showed him the wand.

He peered at it, his brow furrowed. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I gave it more than ample time to develop. It’s negative. I’m not pregnant.’

He met her gaze. ‘Are you relieved or disappointed?’

‘To be honest, I’m a bit of both.’

She went back into the bathroom and put the wand in the bin. She washed her hands and gave herself a quick glance in the mirror, but it was like looking at a different person from the one she’d been just ten minutes ago.

The before-the-pregnancy-test Elodie had not been the earth mother type. A baby was something other people had. It wasn’t on her radar. Her business was her baby. Her design label was still in its infancy. It hadn’t had time to develop and grow and become successful.

But the post-negative-pregnancy-test Elodie wanted to carry Lincoln’s baby in her womb, to give birth to it with him by her side, to raise it with him in a household full of love. But wasn’t that little more than a foolish dream?

Lincoln was still standing outside the bathroom when she came out again. ‘I think we need to talk.’

Elodie gave him a stiff smile. ‘Yes, we do.’ She let out a long breath and met his gaze once more. ‘Why did you offer to make our marriage permanent if I was pregnant?’

‘Because it would have been the right thing to do. I want any child of mine to have my name, and to bring it up like I was brought up—in a loving home. Even if the baby hadn’t been mine, I would still have married you to give it a loving home.’

‘But ours wouldn’t be a loving home, would it? I mean, we would love our child, but what about each other?’

Lincoln’s throat moved up and down. ‘You have feelings for me, don’t you?’

‘It’s not my feelings I’m most worried about. It’s yours.’

‘You know I care about you.’

‘But you’re not in love with me. Not now, and not seven years ago. So we’ve basically come full circle.’

There was a thick beat of silence.

Lincoln set his jaw. ‘What do you mean by that? We have an agreement. There’s a lot riding on it. Nina, your label, the funds I’ve put up for you... We have five months left.’

‘For me to do what? Make passionate love with you but never hear you say the words I most want to hear? I want someone to love me—not for how I look or how good I am in bed or whether I’m pregnant or not. Me.’ She banged her hand against her chest for emphasis. ‘Me, with all my faults and foibles. That’s what I want from you. But you can’t or won’t give it to me.’

He scraped a hand through his hair, his eyes flicking away from hers before coming back with glittering intensity. ‘Are you saying you’re in love with me?’

‘Don’t look so surprised!’ Elodie gave a cynical laugh that was nowhere in the vicinity of humour. ‘You make it so damn hard not to fall in love with you. But it’s not enough for me to stay with you. I’m not wasting another five months of my life waiting for you to feel something for me other than physical attraction. That makes you no different from thousands, probably millions of other men out there who feel the same way about me.’

She dropped her shoulders on a sigh and then went on.

‘I get it—I really do. You have bonding issues that probably go way back to infancy. You were adopted—and, while it was a good adoption, you still carry the wound of being relinquished at birth, even if it’s only on a subconscious level. You don’t let people get close to you. You don’t let them in. You don’t show your vulnerability.’