‘Perfect, we can spend it in bed.’ Thadie shifted her butt to the edge of the island so that she could jump down but Angus’s hands on her knees stopped her progress.
‘We need to talk, Thadie. We keep getting interrupted or distracted, and this isn’t a conversation I want to have over video-calling.’
She pulled a face. ‘I’ll talk to the lawyers about giving you joint custody, and yes, we’ll add your name to their birth certificates. We’ll have a meet-your-daddy party the next time you fly in and tell the boys that way. I’ll take a tenth of the money you are offering me as maintenance, I do not need the monthly equivalent of a small country’s gross national product. Have I forgotten anything? No? Well, then, let’s go to bed.’
His hands tightened on her knees, his fingers pushing the material of her white linen trousers into her skin. ‘I want us to move in together, to live together as a family,’ he stated.
Maybe it was the champagne, maybe she was overloaded with excitement, but he couldn’t possibly be suggesting such a massive change in their living arrangements in such an off-hand tone of voice. ‘I’m sorry...what?’
He stepped back and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. ‘I want us to be a family, living together, raising our kids together.’
A thousand yeses, at full volume, built up in a tidal wave behind her teeth but she held them back, telling herself to calm down.
‘But how would that work?’ she asked, tightening her hands around the edge of the countertop and holding on as her vision tunnelled in and out. Why was she hesitating? He was offering her what she most wanted, him in her life, for her boys to have a father.
‘I’ve thought this through. I’d essentially work from here. I’d still have to travel but Johannesburg would be my home base.’ He looked around. ‘I would move in here, initially, but we could find, or build, another house if we found we outgrew this one.’
‘Why would we outgrow it?’ she asked, confused.
He shrugged. ‘Well, if we have more kids, we might need more space. And I’d need a home office—’
More children? What? How? Well, the how she knew, but why? And where was this coming from? And why did a small, low but insistent voice keep repeating, somewhere deep inside her, that something was wrong with his offer and that she needed to read the fine print?
Examine,dissect, the fine print.
‘I’m sorry to sound stupid,’ Thadie said, wincing at her ultra-polite tone, ‘but I’m trying to get this straight in my head. We’ve known each other barely a month and you want to move continents and rearrange your business life to move in with me and the boys.Why?’
He looked at her as if he couldn’t believe that she couldn’t figure it out. ‘I want to be a full-time dad. I don’t want to see my kids via a video link. I want to see them every day. I want it to be the norm that I am here, the exception that I am away. I want to bepresent.’
Angus spoke before she could. ‘My dad wasn’t a dad, Thadie, he was my commanding officer from the day I understoodwhat that meant. I mean to be a better parent, most definitely a different father. I want them to grow up knowing I would move mountains for them, but also knowing they can be, and do, anything they choose. And I want to raise them with you, because you are the antithesis of my cold, subservient, anal, unaffectionate mother.’
A frigid wave broke over her and shocked her back to reality. Right, it all made sense now. She had no problem believing Angus wanted to be a full-time dad; he was crazy about the boys and she could see him doing a fantastic job. She didn’t have a problem with what he was saying, it was what he’d left out that was problematic.
Where did she fit in? How did he feel about her? His proposal sounded sane and sensible and clever and controlled but that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted wild and impetuous, and emotional and exciting. She wanted him to move in because of them, not because it was the most sensible option. Where was her ‘I love you madly’ or ‘I can’t live without you, and I don’t want to’?
‘I can see that you’ve given this a lot of thought. Anything else?’ she asked, her voice tightening with every word. She saw the look he sent her way and knew that he’d picked up on her tension.
He slid his hands into his pockets, his big shoulders lifting in a shrug. ‘We like each other, we have an amazing time in bed, we enjoy each other’s company. It makes sense.’
Did it? She didn’t think so. With Clyde, she’d been prepared to give up what she wanted—a husband who loved her—to give her boys what they needed—a father. But she’d never do that again. She deserved more. And if she was going to take the risk of being hurt and disappointed, take a chance on love, then she wanted her partner to be facing the same risks, prepared to put his heart on the line too.
Angus didn’t want to do that. He wanted the family, but he wanted to keep her at an emotional distance. Not happening. Not again.
She deserved love, a commitment. She was more than just a mum, and she was allowed to put herself first. She wanted it all, to be a great mum, to love and be loved, to have a career. And she wasn’t prepared to settle for less.
And if Angus wanted to live his life with her, then he was either all in or all out.
She swallowed, and put her hand to her throat, feeling as if it was closing.
‘Do you not think it’s a bit soon for such a major move?’ she quietly asked him, dropping to the floor. ‘Don’t you think we need more between us than like and some hot sex?’
‘You were prepared to marry Strathern for less,’ Angus stated. ‘We have more going for us than you and he did, so I don’t understand why you are hesitating.
‘This is the right move,’ he insisted. ‘The four of us, together, is what is right for all of us.’
It might be right forthreeof them...
It wasn’t right for her, not like this.