‘What would you do, Lucy? Where would you go?’ her mother pressed worriedly.
‘I don’t want to think about that. Not until I have to,’ Lucy rushed out vehemently. ‘I don’t want to be negative, Mum,’ she appealed.
‘Of course not,’ came the quick, soothing reply. ‘It was only with James being your boss…’
‘I know. And he considered that, too, holding back for a long time.’ Until she looked sexy. Lucy shook off the disturbing doubt and clutched at a positive point, rushing it out. ‘He wanted to come and meet you this weekend…’
‘Well, that’s a good sign.’
‘Yes. Yes, it is,’ Lucy fiercely told herself, more than answering her mother.
‘Is he coming?’
‘No. I put him off. It’s your birthday and…’
‘You hadn’t told me about him.’
‘I couldn’t just land him on you, Mum.’
She nodded. ‘You were worried about my response.’
‘It wouldn’t have been fair…to either of you. And we always spend your birthday together. I told him another time would be better.’
She smiled. ‘I’ll look forward to meeting him.’
Would there be another time?
Her mother was being so…accepting…somehow it made the deception about her pregnancy more wrong than ever!
Her desperate need for James might carry her through fooling him for a while longer, but…it was her mother who would still be here for her if things went wrong with him. That was the bottom-line truth she didn’t want to look at. Nevertheless, it was a truth she couldn’t ignore.
It played on her mind all through the rest of Friday night and Saturday, despite every effort to put a happy face on everything for her mother’s birthday. She knew, on Sunday morning, she couldn’t carry this burden any longer. They had shared a late breakfast and were sitting over coffee when Lucy finally took the plunge.
‘Mum…’ She lifted eyes filled with anguished appeal. ‘I didn’t want to tell you…but I can’t not tell you…’
A frown of puzzled concern. ‘What is it, Lucy?’
She hunted desperately for some not so shocking way to say it, but there was no escape to be found in words. Her stomach was a churning mess. Her heart felt as though it was in a vise. There was an almost impassable lump in her throat. Just spill out the truth, her mind screamed. Get it over with.
‘I’m pregnant.’
Right before her eyes she saw her mother’s face sag, age, her whole expression emptying of any pleasure in life. It was worse than anything she had anticipated. And Lucy was helpless to make it better. There was nothing she could say, nothing she could do.
The sin—the very same sin that had led to bad consequences in her mother’s life—filled the silence stretching between them, making it heavier, loading it with guilt and shame and an escalating mountain of regrets for not taking heed, for choosing a wild, reckless path that tossed risks aside. There was no point in saying she had used contraception. Pregnant was pregnant, and excuses were useless.
The doorbell rang, making them both jerk out of the pall of memories. Her mother shook her head, frowned, then scraped her chair back.
‘Are you expecting someone?’ Lucy blurted out.
‘Probably Jean from next door.’ Her eyes were sick, her voice dull. ‘She wanted some geranium cuttings. I’ll tell her to take them.’
She pushed herself up and moved slowly towards the door into the hallway, like a sleep walker in the middle of a nightmare.
Lucy closed her eyes, buried her head in her hands, and waited.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THEY had to be at home, James assured himself, waiting for the doorbell to be answered. Lucy’s car was in the driveway. It had made it easy for him to pick out the right house, although he’d also checked that the address matched the one he’d found in the telephone book. He looked with satisfaction at his Porsche, now parked behind the red convertible. The Alpha was blocked in, which gave him a negotiating position with this visit.
All the same, if Lucy and her mother were inside, they were slow to open the door. He thought about giving the button another press, then decided the bell must have been heard the first time. It was a small house. Very neat and tidy and scrupulously maintained. So was the garden and lawn. Ruth Worthington undoubtedly had a tidy mind, everything having to be just right and in its place.
Lucy was like that in her work. She used to dress like that, too, all neatly pinned and buttoned. James was pondering her mother’s influence—and wondering what else he would discover today—when he heard the metallic click of the door being opened. He hastily composed a bright happy expression, smile hovering, persuasive patter ready to roll off his tongue.
He’d hoped it would be Lucy, but it wasn’t, and the woman he was suddenly facing looked ill and defeated by the illness. Something life-threatening? James thought, and instantly regretted the urge that had driven him here, intruding on what could be a seriously private time between mother and daughter. Lucy’s stress was easily answered if what he guessed was the case and she’d just found out about it—something badly wrong.
The woman looked blankly at him—washed out grey-green eyes. Despite her obvious suffering, her short greying hair was neatly combed and she was quite smartly dressed in navy slacks and a white and navy striped top. Appearances meant a lot to her, James thought, and savagely wished he’d waited until Lucy was ready to introduce him to her mother.
Too late now. He couldn’t cry off with some lame excuse of coming to the wrong house. Sooner or later a meeting would be arranged and she might remember him. He had to go through with his plan, adapting it to the circumstances.
‘Mrs Worthington?’ he asked, making identification certain.
‘Yes. Who are you? What do you want?’ Her voice was flat, slow, disinterested, and he could see it was difficult for her to focus on a stranger’s needs.
‘My name is James Hancock. Your daughter…’
‘James Hancock?’ It was as though his name had snapped her back to life, her eyes suddenly sharp and piercing.
‘Yes. I was…’
‘The man Lucy works for?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did Lucy invite you here today?’
‘No. But we are more than business associates, Mrs Worthington, and I thought…’
‘Yes. Much more,’ she retorted, with a ferocity of feeling that knocked James back on his heels. ‘And I think you’d better come in because my daughter has something to tell you, and I want to see for myself what kind of man you are, James Hancock.’