The Baby Secret

She didn't look round when the door finally swung open, stepping into the house and shutting it behind her as the tears rained down her face. And then she heard the roar of his car as it left.

CHAPTER FOUR

July passed in a round of hot summer days and agonisingly lonely, long nights, but by the time August made an appearance—bringing a welcome change in the weather of cooler, more bearable temperatures as the heatwave ended—Victoria found she was feeling much better, at least physically. Her emotions were another story.

She was now four and a half months pregnant, and if circumstances had been different would have been relishing the fact that for the first time in her life she had a voluptuous bust, although her waistline was fast disappearing. Morning sickness had been a thing of the past for the last two weeks, and despite the misery that gripped her every waking moment she was finding she was eating like a horse. Like ten horses.

She glanced at herself now in the mirror as she slipped off her bathrobe and paused before reaching for her bra and pants. She didn't look too bad yet, all things considered, she thought reflectively. If anyone didn't know how small her waist was normally they would just think she hadn't got much shape, and the increased bra size was a definite improvement. Not that this happy state of affairs would last long, she reminded herself wryly. Her last visit to the baby clinic, when she had seen women of all varying shapes and sizes but all resembling slowly expanding balloons, had convinced her of that She had no illusions.

But she didn't mind. She stared at her reflection for a moment more before reaching for her clothes and dressing slowly, her mind continuing to amble on. No, she didn't mind how fat she got—she could resemble a hippopotamus and it wouldn't worry her—as long as the baby was all right Oh, how she wanted this baby. She hugged herself tight for a moment, her head drooping and her hair falling across her face in a silken shower before she straightened resolutely. And she would have it. Nothing would go wrong; she was young and healthy and very fit; her baby was perfectly safe. Zac's son or daughter…

She looked at the girl in the mirror, her blue eyes narrowing. She had done a lot of serious thinking in the weeks since she knew she was pregnant, a lot of growing up, and some time during that process the realisation of her own massive insecurities had dawned. But she wasn't going to let them swamp her—she was going to deal with all the dark legacies from her childhood one by one, until she had the victory over them all. She owed the child that.

And she would be a good mother. No, she'd be a terrific mother—she had seen the other side of the coin after all, and with Coral's example ever at the back of her mind she knew exactly how not to behave. This child would have love—buckets, cartloads, aeons of it—more than enough to cover its lack of loving grandparents…and a father.

Zac was suddenly there in her mind's eye and the hurt was as piercing as ever, causing Victoria to turn sharply from the mirror and walk quickly through to the small, compact kitchen, where she fixed herself a wicked breakfast of fried bread, eggs and bacon with a blithe disregard for calories.

It was just gone eight o'clock when she left the flat and the morning was a cool one for the beginning of August, the break in the hot spell causing turbulent thunderstorms that had suited Victoria just fine. There had been something incredibly galling in watching the whole of London bathing blissfully in the best July for years when she had been feeling so wretched inside.

She'd told herself she was nasty and crabby, and that just because she was so miserable it didn't mean everyone else had to be, but, nevertheless, the disappearance of all those slender, lithe girls in their gay thin summer dresses, and with attentive suitors often in tow, was a relief. Now everyone was scurrying from A to B with one eye on the weather for the next torrential downpour, herself included. It was cloudburst weather.

'Victoria?'

She had been so busy in her scurrying that she walked slam-bang into Zac before she saw him, and but for him grabbing at her arms as she ricocheted away off the pavement she would have been straight under the wheels of a number ten bus.

'Good grief, woman, what's the matter with you?' he snapped furiously, not letting go of her until she was safely on the other side of the pavement next to a solid shop front and away from the churning morning traffic. 'You're supposed to look where you're going; hasn't anyone told you? You'll get yourself killed.'

'I'll get myself killed?' she echoed breathlessly, glaring back at him as her anger rose in line with her colour. 'It was you who bumped into me, actually,' she challenged militantly.

Oh, he looked good—if a tame word like 'good' could be used to describe such… Her fragile equilibrium balked at continuing down such a dangerous path and she wrenched her arms from his hands, turning away from his big male bulk as she did so.

'I see. So potential wife-murderer is to be added to my list of crimes?' His tone was cool now, and carried an air of resigned contempt that suggested he held her in utter disdain.

'I didn't say that.' It had begun to rain again as it had every morning for the last week, and Victoria was belatedly aware she had forgotten her umbrella, 'Look, why are you here?' she asked tightly, aware her fine, silky hair was going to be hanging about her face in rat's tails before too much longer. He hadn't tried to see her—he hadn't even phoned—in the last four weeks since her disastrous visit to their house, and now here he was waiting outside the fiat and them blaming her when he had all but hurled her into the road. And still she loved this man…

'I need to talk to you.'

It was said with such a lack of warmth that it was all Victoria could do not to cry. This was Zac, her Zac; how had they come to such a pass? But then he wasn't her Zac, was he? He was Gina's, and therein lay the root of all her misery. Gina's warm, olive-tinted face and vibrant velvet-brown eyes were on the screen on her mind, their beauty mocking her, and she dealt with her anguish by drawing herself up and making her voice as icy as his as she said, 'We have nothing to talk about. I thought I'd made that perfectly clear.'

'You returned my cheque,' Zac began irritably, and then, as the rain turned into a fierce squall that threatened to soak them, he said, his tone imperious, 'We can't talk here; this is ridiculous. My car's over there; come and get in.'

'No,' One simple little word but from the expression on his face she could have said something obscene, Victoria thought with black humour. But then people didn't say no to Zac Harding, not ever. In spite of her misery she found she was enjoying the moment.

'Victoria.' He eyed her frostily, Zac at his most dignified.

It was a clear warning, but she raised her head a fraction higher, aware the water was now dripping off the end of her nose and quite spoiling the imposing effect she had aimed for as she said, 'You are making me late for work, Zac. Goodbye.'

'There is no need for you to work in that scruffy little shop, for crying out loud!' The cool composure was gone, his face one big scowl as he took her arm to prevent her moving away.

'I happen to like that 'scruffy little shop',' Victoria returned curtly. It was true—she did.

When she had first applied for the job as temporary shop assistant the day after her final showdown with Zac four weeks ago, she hadn't known what to expect, and she certainly hadn't imagined she would be offered the post that very morning when she had been invited to go along and see the proprietor.

But Mrs Bretton was small and round and friendly, and the interview had digressed into a cosy chat over a big pot of tea, with Mrs Bretton lamenting the capaciousness of her daughter—the co-owner of the flower shop—who had suddenly decided to accompany her high-flier husband to the States for three months.

'He's always nipping here, there and everywhere on business,' the middle-aged woman had confided conspiratorially towards the end of their talk, 'and frankly I think my Megan suspects he might be up to a bit of hanky panky now and again, you know? I think she wants to keep an eye on him this time with him being away for quite a while. But still, you could have

knocked me down with a feather when she phoned the other night and told me I'd have to get someone to stand in for a few weeks.' She'd sighed resignedly.