Her cycle was messed up a day. That was all it was. Any minute it could correct itself. Tomorrow she’d be laughing about this silly worrying. One missed pill...it was nothing in the big picture. Her body wouldn’t play such a dirty trick on her when she’d been protecting it against such a consequence for years.
Saturday brought her no relief. By Sunday afternoon Amy was in full panic. She bought a pregnancy test kit from a twenty-four-hour pharmacy. She couldn’t bear the uncertainty.
The uncertainty ended on Monday morning.
It didn’t matter how much she wanted to disbelieve the results of the test, two deadly pink lines were looking her in the face, not changing to anything else, and according to the instructions with the test kit, this meant she was pregnant She checked the instructions again and again. No mistake. Pink was positive.
Just maybe, she thought frantically, the kit was faulty. Best see a doctor. Get a blood test. She looked through the telephone directory, found a medical centre at Mosman along the route she drove to work, then considered what lie she could tell to cover her late arrival at the office.
Impossible to say she needed to see a doctor. Jake would ask why. Jake wouldn’t leave it alone until he found out. A flat tyre on her car, she decided. It could happen to anyone.
The visit to the doctor was a nightmare. Yes, missing a pill at a critical time could result in pregnancy. Test kits were usually reliable but a blood test would give absolute confirmation. Amy watched the needle going in and almost fainted as the blood started filling up the tube, blood that was going to tell her the awful truth. A baby! She closed her eyes. No, no, no, she begged. Having a baby—Jake’s baby—made life too impossible.
She’d have the results in twenty-four hours, the doctor said. All she had to do was telephone the surgery and ask for them. She checked her watch. Nine-thirty. Twenty-four more hours of hell to get through, a third of those hours with the man who’d done this to her.
Not intentionally.
Though he should have used protection... should at least have asked her if she was protected. In which case she would have said yes, so there was no point in blaming him. Nevertheless, she might have remembered to take the wretched pill if he’d asked. Spontaneous combustion might be a very special experience but the “good memory” was swiftly gathering a mountain of savage regrets.
Jake, the rake... How would he react to being told he’d sown one too many oats? With his P.A., no less.
But she didn’t have to face that yet.
Not yet.
Twenty-four hours.
Amy didn’t know how she got through the day with Jake. He asked about the flat tyre and she blathered on about it, excusing the time away from the office. She was aware of him frowning at her several times. It was almost time for her to leave when he asked, “Is something wrong, Amy?” and her glazed eyes cleared enough to see he was observing her very keenly.
Would their child have those wolf eyes?
Her stomach cramped.
“No,” she forced out. “Everything’s fine.” Except I’m probably pregnant.
“You haven’t been with me, today,” he remarked testingly.
“Sorry. I have been a bit scatter-brained. Christmas coming on...”
“Planning anything special?”
The excuse had popped into her mind but she was totally blank about it and had to grope for a reply. “No. Not really. Just... well, I guess I was thinking about the family I don’t have. Kate Bradley was saying she’d shopped till she dropped and...” Amy shrugged, having run out of ideas to explain herself. “At least I’m saved that hassle.”
Christmas... celebrating the birth of a child...
Dear God! Please don’t do this to me.
“Uh-huh,” Jake murmured noncommittally. “Not a good thing, spending Christmas alone. No fun in all. I’ll speak to my sister about it.”
“What?” Amy didn’t understand what his sister had to do with it.
“Leave it to me,” he said and went back into his office.
Amy shook her head in bewilderment. She simply wasn’t in tune with Jake’s thought processes today. But at least he’d stopped questioning her and she wasn’t about to chase after him and invite more probing into her own thought processes, which were hopelessly scrambled by the waiting to know.
The next morning, she wasn’t free of Jake’s presence until ten-thirty. Almost sick with apprehension, she pounced on the telephone and called the surgery, all the while watching the door she’d closed between Jake’s office and hers, desperately willing it to stay closed. Which it did, thankfully, because the news she received, although expected, still came as a shock.
No doubt about it anymore.
She was pregnant.
To Jake Carter.
And she had no idea in the wide world what to do about it.
An abortion?
Instant recoil.
Tell Jake.
No, she wasn’t ready for that. She needed time to armour herself against... whatever she had to armour herself against.
An unworthy thought flashed through her mind. Steve’s blonde had used her pregnancy to pull him into marriage. Would Jake...
No, Amy fiercely decided. She couldn’t—wouldn’t— go down that road. Marriage could be a trap, as she well knew, and using a baby to seal the trap would be a terrible thing to do to all three of them. Jake wasn’t the marrying kind. He was the perennial bumblebee flitting from flower to flower.
He’d probably be appalled at the prospect of fatherhood being thrust upon him... a long-term relationship he couldn’t get out of. Unless she had an abortion. Would he ask it of her?
She’d hate him if he did.
She remembered the lovely, natural way he’d handled his baby nephew, Joshua. Surely, with his own child...
The telephone rang.
Amy picked up the receiver, struggling to get her wits together to handle a work-related call.
“Good morning...”
“Amy, is that you? Amy Taylor?” an eager female voice she didn’t recognise broke in.
“Yes...”
“Good! It’s Ruth Powell here, Jake’s sister.”
“Oh?” The coincidence of having just been thinking of Ruth’s son dazed Amy for a moment. “How can I help you?”
“We’d all love you to come for Christmas Day, Amy. It’s at my house this year. Well, mine and Martin’s, naturally. The rest of the family will be here and they’re dying to meet you. Jake said you didn’t have family of your own to go to, so how about joining us? It’ll be such fun!”