That was one option dealt with. ‘And do you know many people in London?’
She shrugged. ‘Kind of—though I’ve only been there a couple of years. Colleagues, of course. Well, ex-colleagues, mainly,’ she amended. And work friendships were never the same once you’d left a job, were they? Everyone knew that. ‘I’ve got some good close friends, too.’
‘Any with children?’
‘Good grief—no! Career women to a fault.’
‘Sounds a pretty isolated and lonely place for a woman to be child-rearing.’
‘Like I said, I’ll manage.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Commendable pride, Catherine,’ he said drily. ‘But it isn’t just you to think about now, is it? Do you really think it’s fair to foist that kind of lifestyle on a poor, defenceless baby?’
‘You’re making it sound like cruelty!’ she protested. ‘Lots and lots of women have babies in cities and all of them are perfectly happy!’
‘Most probably have supporting partners and extended families!’ he snapped. ‘Which you don’t!’
‘Well—’
‘And most do not have a credible alternative,’ he said, cutting right across her protests. ‘Like you do,’ he finished deliberately.
There was something so solemn and profound in his voice that Catherine instinctively sat up straight, half-fearful and half-hopeful of what his next words might be. ‘Like what?’ she whispered.
‘You could come and live here, in Dublin.’
She stared at him as if he had suddenly sprouted horns. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
‘I don’t think that my thinking could be described as normal, no. Though that’s hardly surprising, given the topic,’ he answered drily. ‘But it’s certainly rational. Consider it,’ he said, seeing her begin to mouth another protest.
‘I have, and it took me all of three seconds to reject it!’ she answered crossly, despising the sudden rapid race in her heart-rate.
‘Listen,’ he continued, as though she hadn’t spoken, ‘Dublin is a great city—’
‘That’s hardly the point! I can’t live here with you, Finn—surely you can see that would be impossible?’
There was a long, rather strange pause. ‘I wasn’t suggesting that you live here with me, Catherine.’
Oh, if only the floor could have opened up and swallowed her! ‘Well, thank God for that,’ she said, rather weakly, and hoped that her voice didn’t lack conviction. ‘Where did you have in mind, then? Is there some home for unmarried mothers on the outskirts of the city?’
He had the grace to wince. ‘I have a cottage by the sea. It’s in Wicklow, close to Glendalough and a relatively short drive away. Fresh air and village life. It would be perfect for you. And the baby.’
It sounded like an oasis. ‘I don’t know.’
He heard her indecision and, like a barrister moving in for the kill with his closing argument, fluently outlined his case. ‘You live on your own in London—what’s the difference? And I can come and see you at weekends.’
Once again, she despaired at the sudden race of her pulse. He meant grudging duty visits, nothing else. She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘There are other factors, too, Catherine.’
She looked up, wishing that it wasn’t such painful pleasure to stare into the eyes of the man who had fathered her child. ‘Such as?’
‘I have some friends who live there—Patrick and Aisling. I can introduce you to Aisling—she’d love to meet you, I’m sure. They’ve three children of their own—it would be good to have someone like that around.’
Aisling?
The name rang a bell and Catherine remembered the morning she had left Finn’s flat. A woman called Aisling had been talking on the answer-machine, asking where the hell he had been. She had assumed that it was someone he had stood up because he’d had a better offer.
‘Do you know more than one Aisling?’ she asked.