The Secret Baby Bargain

Gwen sighed as she took her daughter in her arms, one of her hands stroking the silky ash-blonde head as she had done for almost all of Ashleigh’s twenty-four years.

‘Oh, Mum…’ Ashleigh choked on a sob as she lifted her head. ‘What am I going to do?’

Gwen put her from her gently but firmly, her inbuilt pragmatism yet again coming to the fore. ‘You will see him because, if nothing else, you owe him that. He mentioned his father has recently passed away. I suppose that’s why he’s returned to Sydney, to put his father’s affairs in order.’

Ashleigh’s brow creased in a puzzled little frown as she followed her mother into the kitchen. When she’d asked Jake about his family in the past he’d told her that both his parents were dead. During the time they’d been together he had rarely spoken of his childhood and had deliberately shied away from the topic whenever she’d probed him. She’d put it down to the grief he must have felt at losing both his parents so young.

Why had he lied to her?

‘Did he say where he was staying?’ she asked as she dragged out one of the breakfast bar stools in the kitchen and sat down.

Gwen busied herself with filling the kettle as she answered. ‘At a hotel at the moment, but I got the impression he was moving somewhere here on the North Shore.’

She stared at her mother in shock. ‘That close?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Gwen said. ‘You’re going to have a hard time keeping Lachlan’s existence a secret if he ends up living in a neighbouring suburb.’

Ashleigh didn’t answer but her expression communicated her worry.

‘You really have no choice but to see him and get it over with,’ Gwen said as she handed her a cup. ‘Anyway, for all you know he might have changed.’

Ashleigh bit back a snort of cynicism. ‘I don’t think people like Jake Marriott ever change. It’s not in their nature.’

‘You know you can be pretty stubborn yourself at times, Ashleigh,’ her mother chided. ‘I know you’ve needed to be strong to be a single mother, but sometimes I think you chop off your nose to spite your face. You should have been well and truly married by now. I don’t know why poor Howard puts up with it, really I don’t.’

Ashleigh rolled her eyes, gearing herself up for one of her mother’s lectures on why she should push the wedding forward a few months. Howard Caule had made it more than clear that he wanted to bring up Lachlan as his own, but every time he’d tried to set a closer date for their wedding she’d baulked. She still wasn’t entirely sure why.

‘You do love him, don’t you, Ashleigh?’

‘Who?’ She looked at her mother blankly.

‘Howard,’ Gwen said, her expression shadowed with a little frown. ‘Who else?’

Ashleigh wasn’t sure how to answer.

She cared for Howard, very deeply, in fact. He’d been a wonderful friend to her—standing by her while she got back on her feet, offering her a part-time position as a buyer for his small chain of antique stores. But as for love…Well, she didn’t really trust such volatile feelings any more. It was much safer for her to care for people in an affectionate, friendly but slightly distant manner.

‘Howard understands I’m not quite ready for marriage,’ she said. ‘Anyway, he knows I want to wait until Lachlan settles into his first year at school before I disrupt his life with any further changes to his routine.’

‘Are you sleeping with him?’

‘Mum!’ Ashleigh’s face flamed with heated colour.

Gwen folded her arms across her chest. ‘You’ve known Howard for over three years. How long did you know Jake before you went to bed with him?’

Ashleigh refused to answer; instead she sent her mother a glowering look.

‘Three days, wasn’t it?’ Gwen asked, ignoring her daughter’s fiery glare.

‘I’ve learnt my lesson since then,’ Ashleigh bit out.

‘Darling, I’m not lecturing you on what’s right and wrong.’ She gave a deep and expressive sigh. ‘I just think you might be better able to handle seeing Jake again if things were a little more permanent in your relationship with Howard. I don’t want to see you hurt all over again.’

‘I won’t allow Jake to hurt me again,’ Ashleigh said with much more confidence than she had any hope of feeling. ‘I will see him but that’s all. I can’t possibly tell him about Lachlan.’

‘But surely Lachlan has the right to meet his father at some point? If Jake stays in Sydney for any length of time you will have no choice but to tell him of his son’s existence. Imagine what he would think if he were to find out some other way.’