‘More to the point,’ she continued, ‘I don’t need to.’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Most of my entire adult life has been driven by one thing. Getting my father’s approval. And the partnership was tied up with that because I really thought that he’d be proud of me. But I rang him this afternoon to tell him and all he did was bang on about some woman he’d met on the Internet. Whatever I do I doubt I’ll ever have his approval and I doubt he’ll ever be proud of me. He’s just not the type.’
Marcus felt his entire body shudder with the strength of the protective instinct that streaked through him and he suddenly burned with the desire to drive to her father’s house right now and shake him until he realised what an amazing daughter he had.
‘And you know what?’ she added, almost as if she was talking to herself. ‘I’m actually fine with that. I don’t need his approval. I’m good enough without it. More than good enough. And what’s so great about him anyway? He might be a first-class lawyer, but as a human being, as a man, he’s pretty pathetic.’
He wanted to cheer and then wrap her in a massive hug, but, a bit baffled by that, instead he said, ‘So what are you going to do if you don’t take the partnership?’
‘Resign, definitely. Maybe move firms, if I can find one with a child-friendly policy. Maybe switch to a different kind of law. Maybe work from home a bit. I’m not entirely sure, but I do know that I don’t want to rush back to work the second I give birth. I want to spend some time getting to know my child. I mean, I’ll probably go mad after a few months, but at the beginning, at least, I think the time is precious.’ She stopped and frowned at him, even as she smiled. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ he said, trying to untangle all the emotions rushing through him. ‘I’m just a bit taken aback, that’s all.’ Or try stunned. Confused. Deeply, deeply disturbed.
‘Not half as taken aback as I am,’ she s
aid dryly. ‘You were right about my work-life balance all along, Marcus. I do need to change it. I also ought to learn how to cook. And I’d like to take you up on your offer of the house next door, if it still stands, because you were right about this place as well. I mean, the stairs, the neighbours, all this white immaculateness... Hardly compatible with a messy, crying baby.’
He didn’t know what to say to that. How could he retract the offer of his house now? When she’d obviously put a lot of thought into these decisions. These life-changing decisions.
Made because of him. Made possibly because of the night they’d just spent together. Damn, now—too late—he remembered why sex with her was a bad idea. It was never going to be just sex. It was potentially life-changing and he didn’t want lives changed. Not hers, especially not his.
‘There are a couple of other things you ought to know, Marcus.’
‘What?’ he muttered, feeling a cold sweat break out all over his skin because one night of spectacular sex and she was turning into someone he wasn’t sure he could handle.
‘Firstly, I’m in love with you.’
He froze, went numb for a moment before his entire body filled with dread, dragging him down. ‘And secondly?’ he said, sounding as if he were deep under water. Which maybe he was, because he certainly felt as if he were drowning, because he knew what was coming next.
‘Secondly, I think you might be in love with me too.’
The room tilted, spun, and if he hadn’t already been lying down he’d have crashed to the floor. He felt sick. Weak. His brain imploding with the effort of denying it.
‘I’m sorry, Celia,’ he said, his head a mess and his throat tight and the word escape flashing in his brain in great big neon letters, ‘but I can’t do this.’
‘Can’t do what?’ she said calmly.
‘This.’ He waved a hand between the two of them, struggling to keep a lid on the panic. ‘I’m not in love with you.’
She nodded. ‘OK, look, Marcus, I get that this has all probably come as a bit of a shock to you, and I know how the idea of being in love terrifies you, so if you need to leave, that’s fine. If you need some time to figure out how you feel and what you want that’s also fine. I can wait. Not for ever,’ she said with a soft smile that he didn’t understand at all because he couldn’t think of a situation that less required a smile, ‘but I can wait.’
FOURTEEN
‘So what’s going on, Marcus? First you knock up my sister and then you abandon her? On what planet is that OK?’
At Dan’s words—spoken so casually, so conversationally and a mere couple of metres to the right of him—Marcus froze. For the briefest of seconds his concentration shook and his foot slipped. His shoulders wrenched and the muscles in his arms screamed and he had to grit his teeth against the sudden shocking pain. Cursing his so-called friend with what little breath he had, he strengthened his grip on the crimps and jammed his foot back into position.
Trust Dan to wait until they were halfway up a wall and thirty feet off the ground before launching his attack. They’d met up around half an hour ago, and at any point since then he could have brought it up, but no, as the owner of one of London’s most successful advertising agencies, Dan was all about maximum impact.
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ Marcus muttered, although that was exactly what he’d done.
‘Then how would you put it?’ said Dan, swinging his arm up and latching onto a sloper.
Marcus braced himself and hitched himself up a foot and absolutely refused to wince as his shoulder protested. ‘I needed a bit of time and space to figure some stuff out.’
‘What could take a month?’ Dan asked through gritted teeth. ‘I only took a fortnight.’