The Baby Secret

She liked the way he put that but she wasn't going to betray it by the flicker of an eyelash. 'That's no answer,' she said militantly. 'And you know that as well as I do.'

'No?' He smiled again but it didn't reach the jet-black eyes. 'I thought it was rather a good one, actually. William Howard cares about you, a blind man could see that, and that's okay—I can live with that—as long as he knows the score.'

'And now you feel he does know the score?' Victoria asked angrily, furious at his arrogance. Megalomaniac— she'd always known it.

'Oh, I'm positive.' He nodded slowly, his eyes cold and hard.

'Well, how cosy.' She didn't really know why she was quite so angry, but it was taking all her will-power not to throw her coffee at him. 'So it's all friends together now, is it?'

He looked at her expressionlessly. 'No, we're not friends, Tory,' he said cryptically, 'and you've still got a hell of a lot to learn about men.'

It was the end of the conversation.

William was nursing a broken arm when he arrived later that morning—a result of getting a little too close to some trouble on his latest assignment, he told Victoria with a wry smile—and after Mrs Watts, who had shown him into the drawing room, had bustled off to the kitchen for the coffee tray and Victoria had fussed over him he said, 'Well, Blue-eyes, how goes it?'

'Okay.' She smiled brightly, but she had never been able to fool William. 'Zac sends his regards, by the way; he's at work of course—' But she wasn't allowed to get away with the banal.

'Your message said you're back here just until the kid is born?' William, like Zac, didn't waste words. 'You still haven't got things sorted with Zac?' he asked carefully.

'No. Yes. Oh…' She gazed at him helplessly. 'It's such a mess, William. I don't believe Zac was cheating on me, but…'

'Okay.' William settled down in the chair and smiled, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. 'Tell Uncle William all about it.' And so she related that last caustic confrontation with Zac almost word for word, but without mentioning the day of lovemaking that had preceded it That was too precious to share.

'You can't duck and dive, Blue-eyes.' William's face was deadly serious by the time she had finished pouring out her heart. 'The guy loves you, and you love him, and that's his kid you're carrying. You owe it to both of them to make some decisions here.'

Zac and William were more alike than they knew, Victoria thought wryly as William virtually repeated Zac's words.

'You've got to sort these fears out now before they cripple you for life,' William continued softly. 'You do see that, don't you? Take some counselling, do whatever it takes, but get it all out into the open. Then, when you've faced the worst, you can take stock and decide where to go from there. But it'll be your decision because you know yourself, and you don't yet.'

It was good advice and Victoria knew it, and they talked some mote before Zac arrived home for an early lunch— something he had not done before. The two men were cool with each other, but not unfriendly, although William left almost immediately.

'You'll let me know when it happens?' William paused before climbing into the taxi and looked straight at Zac, who nodded quietly. 'Thanks.' Then, with one last look at Victoria, he was gone. Victoria watched the taxi depart feeling more alone than ever.

And so Victoria wrestled with herself. The baby helped. As the demons of inadequacy, fear, rejection and a whole host more were brought out into the open, the vigorous reassurance—as it kicked enough goals to be top of the first division—from someone who wouldn't be ignored and was depending on her utterly was like a solid rock she could hold onto. And hold on she did.

And Zac helped too, strangely enough, as time went on.

She hadn't known what to expect—the first morning after the cataclysmic day of lovemaking—-but he had metamorphosed into a charming although somewhat remote companion, who treated her as something between an old friend and maiden aunt, with the emphasis on the latter.

Not that many maiden aunts had stomachs that were about to explode, Victoria thought drily as she stood gazing out of the bedroom window one morning in the first week of December.

It was a bitterly cold day, the sky low and heavy with grey snow clouds that spoke of severe weather conditions in the next few days, but Victoria was as warm as toast as she looked out into the bleak winter's day outside where the birds wer

e squabbling and fighting over some bacon rind Mrs Watts had put on the bird table.

She'd had a restless night, partly due to the fact that she was now as big as a barrage balloon and no matter how she positioned herself her stomach seemed to be within an inch from her nose, and all her main organs squeezed into some remote painful recess where they didn't fit, but mainly due to a memory that had surfaced the night before and wouldn't leave her alone.

It was her mother who had started the process in a roundabout sort of way by phoning in the afternoon, just before her plane left for the Bahamas, with a duty call wishing her daughter a happy Christmas. She hadn't mentioned Victoria's impending confinement at all until Victoria had brought it up.

'Ah, yes.' Coral's tone had been flat. 'How are things going? I trust you're reconciled to adapting to married life now? I got your note saying you were living with Zac again.'

'I also said it wasn't a permanent situation,' Victoria had reminded her steadily, 'but I felt I ought to let you know in view of the flat being empty for a time. Once the baby's born I shall go back there until Zac sorts out something more suitable.'

'Oh, he's told you, then?' Coral had said without interest.

'Told me?' Victoria had wrinkled her brow at the receiver.

'About the flat,' Coral had snapped irritably. 'I said at the time he might as well, but he was sure you wouldn't live there if you knew. He can be as stubborn as you, Victoria.'