The Secret Love-Child

The words were not out of his mouth more than a split second before Rafe recognised his mistake. Isabel was having enough trouble coming to terms with her 'accidental' pregnancy without his confessing to such an action. His desire to reassure her that he really did want her child could very well rebound on him. All of a sudden what he'd always considered a rather romantic decision that Wednesday night on Dream Island began developing various shades of grey about it.

'What did you do?' she demanded to know, her eyes widening.

His guilty face must have been very revealing.

'Rafe, you didn't!'

'Well, I...I...'

'You did! You had sex with me without using anything. And you deliberately got me drunk so that I wouldn't notice.'

'Well, I...I...' He'd turned into a bumbling idiot!

'How dare you do something like that without my permission? How dare you think you had that right? What kind of man are you?' She jumped to her feet, her hands finding her hips as she glared down at him.

Her ongoing outrage finally galvanised his brain, and his tongue. 'A man who's madly in love with you!' he roared back, propelling himself to his feet also. 'And I'd do it all over again. In fact, I intended to do it all over again, as often as I could get away with it. I even doctored a whole lot of condoms in readiness!'

Her eyes became great blue pools.

'I couldn't bear the thought of the woman I loved artificially inseminating her body with some stranger's child, when I wanted to give her my child. I was prepared to do anything, break every rule and cross every line, to do just that, and I don't mind admitting it. I love you, Isabel,' he claimed, grasping her shoulders, 'and I think you love me, only you're too scared to admit it, and you're too scared to trust me.

'But you shouldn't be,' he pleaded, his hands curling even more firmly over her shoulders. 'I'm nothing like the other losers you've been involved with. A fool, maybe, up till now. But a fool no longer. Seeing Liz again on that island cured me of my foolishness by making me see I was heading for the same kind of future she's ended up with. Empty and shallow, without really loving anyone or being loved in return. I took one look at you that night and thought, this is what I want. This woman, as my wife and the mother of my children. I love you, Isabel. Tell me you love me, too.'

Isabel searched his face, her own a tortured maze of mixed emotions. Shock. Confusion. Anguish. Maybe a measure of desperate hope in there somewhere.

'Love is more than sex, Rafe.'

'I know that.'

'Do you? Do I? Sometimes the lines between lust and love can be very blurred. I've thought myself in love so many times before, and all I've ended up with is a broken heart. And broken dreams.'

'I can understand your fear. I used to be afraid of love, too. But life without love is no life at all. Even your stupid bloody Luke found that out. Look, just tell me if you think you're in love with me.'

She moaned her distress at having to admit such a thing.

'All right,' Rafe said. 'You don't have to say it. I'll say it for both of us. We love each other. We've loved each other from the start. That's the truth of it and I won't let you deny it. But I also won't ask you to marry me. Not yet, anyway. All I'm asking is that you let me be a part of your life, and our baby's life, on a permanent basis.'

Isabel could hardly think. Everything was going way too fast for her. 'I...we...we don't know if there is a baby yet. Not for sure, anyway.'

'Then let's find out. Go see a doctor. We'll find one of those twenty-four hour-surgeries. There has to be one open somewhere around here.'

'There's no need to do that. All we need is a chemist. And they're open till nine tonight.'

'Let's go, then.'

Rafe could feel the tension in her growing during the time it took to drive to a local mall, buy a pregnancy testing kit, then return. They read the instructions together, then Isabel retired to the bathroom to do what had to be done. In a couple of minutes she would confirm what he already knew. She was expecting his child.

Rafe waited patiently, for the first few minutes, but when she hadn't come back downstairs after ten he marched halfway up the stairs and called out.

'Isabel? What's taking so long?'

She eventually appeared at the top of the stairs, pale-faced.

Rafe melted with love and concern for her obvious distress. 'Oh, darling, there's no need to be upset. A baby is what you wanted most in the world after all.'

'There's no baby,' she choked out. "The test was negative.' And she burst into tears.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

'OH, RAFE,' she sobbed, the tears spilling over and streaming down her face.

Rafe brushed aside his own disappointment to leap up the remaining steps which separated them and pull her into his arms.

'It's all right, darling,' he murmured as he pressed her shaking body to his. 'We'll make a baby for you next month. You'll see. There, there, sweetheart, don't cry so. You know what they say. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.'