A Question of Pride (10 page)

She was tempted to call Joe and find out how Max had taken her desertion when he'd arrived in work that morning, but she knew it would be the wrong thing to do. Joe had done enough. It was time to stand alone and take whatever was coming to her square in the face Max.

By nine o'clock, she was beginning to relax. She had gone around the flat switching on lamps and plumping up cushions. The smell of fresh coffee filled the air, and she had unpacked her case, showered and changed her clothes for a comfortable suit of fine hand-knit wool in a rich electric-blue colour. The skirt was lined, and swished against her silk-clad thighs as she moved, the cowl-necked, batwing top felt soft and warm against her skin.

She was about to sit down in the lounge with a cup of coffee when the doorbell went. She felt herself go cold, the small hairs on the back of her neck rising in instinctive warning, and she had to force her body to move towards the door, because every muscle had suddenly gone heavy with dread.

With a nervous finger-combing of her long, loose hair, she reached for the door latch, not bothering with the safety chain. She didn't peep around the aperture but opened the door wide, her gaze already levelled on the man who had come to see her.

It was Max.

He was certainly dressed for the part, Clea mused grimly as she stood to one side to allow him room to enter her flat. Black trousers that hugged his lean hips. A black leather windbreaker over a black silk shirt and black V-necked sweater. The Angel of Death! she thought with bitter fancy.

He made directly for the lounge, barely offering her a glance, other than the one grim expression as he faced her at the door. She closed the door and followed him slowly to find him standing in the centre of the room, outwardly relaxed—and a stranger.

'When did you get home?'

An air of grim resolve circled him, making his presence oppressively felt in the room, and Clea shivered a little. 'About three quarters of an hour ago.'

She ran clammy palms down her skirt, hovering uncertainly by the lounge door for a moment before coming further into the room. He lifted those heavy lids to watch her, and it was then that she saw the melancholy, the complete lack of understanding, and she had to look away, move somewhere—anywhere, so long as she didn't have to stand still and face him.

Prickly heat began to run up from her feet—another symptom of her pregnancy, this inability to control her own body temperature under stress. Desperation made her sit down abruptly while he remained standing, looming over her. Silent, waiting, as was his manner when he felt unfairly treated. He wasn't going to make this easy for her. Max wanted answers, and, after all, they both knew the questions.

She made a play of straightening her skirt, her body stiff with tension, sitting on the edge of the seat like some self-conscious teenager. Her hands were shaking, she noticed with agitation, so she clasped them together on her lap, then forced her face to lift so that she was looking up at him.

'I—I've been away.' She began at the end, because the beginning was too impossible. 'Visiting my mother.'

Silence. He just continued to stand there, looking gravely at her, and Clea felt a sob of anguish rise to her throat. She swallowed it down. He looked about as approachable as a Highland bull! If he would only remove his jacket then she would feel a little easier. No, that wasn't true; the removal of his jacket would indicate a prolonged stay. She didn't want that at all.

'D-did you find
your
mother well?' Hedge all you like, Clea, she told herself wryly, when he continued to stand and stare grimly at her. He was going to ignore anything she said that didn't stick ruthlessly to his reason for being here.

She had never seen him so still before. Max was usually a livewire of restlessness. Even when relaxing, he fidgeted—couldn't keep still.

'OK, Max,' she sighed wearily, giving in under his silent pressure. 'But—but will you please sit down!'

She waved him to a chair. 'It's intimidating having you stand over me like this.'

He continued to stand over her long enough to set her nerves screaming, then moved to do as she bade, taking the other easy chair, situated next to her own, folding up his long frame and crossing his legs in a haughty, waiting pose that made her shift uncomfortably.

She glanced furtively at him to find his hard gaze steady on her pale face. Her lids lowered, dark blue eyes unable to meet and hold blue.

She heaved in an unsteady breath. 'I'm sorry if it made you angry, my going behind your back to Joe ...'

Once again, she began nearer the end than the beginning; she couldn't seem to help herself. All that careful planning she had done with her mother seemed to have flown out of the door, on Max's arrival, to leave her floundering. 'B-but I thought that this way it would be—l-less embarrassing for both of us ... I start my new job on Monday,' she added, for some reason known only to her frantic mind.

'He told me.' Max spoke at last, and Clea flinched at the softness of the sound. How much had Joe told him? She dared a swift glance at his face, but Max was revealing nothing.

Clea sent the pink tip of her tongue swiftly around her lips, and tried again. 'It—it was better this way.

No bitterness, no fuss and tense atmospheres ... You must see that I was right.'

'I don't
see
anything yet!' he pointed out. 'I'm still waiting for you to make it all clear to me.'

I'm having your baby.'It's been an odd week, one way or another ...' She laughed nervously at the stupid remark, and noticed absently that her hands were slowly mutilating one another. I feel very young suddenly, she thought. Quite unable to cope with the situation. Max was sitting next to her, only a foot away, his long legs drawn up and crossed at the knee, hands resting comfortably on the chair arms, dark head turned in her direction—and a face so hard it could be made of stone. Did he know how-attractive he was? How infinitely crucial he was to her existence? Did he know that she loved him and that this was tearing her apart inside? She sensed that he did. But what was more important to Max were the 'whys'.

He didn't like puzzles of any kind, that was what made him such a whiz on a computer; give him any intricate problem to solve and he would gnaw away at it until he'd solved it. And that was why he was here tonight, not because he was hurt by her defection, or because he was concerned for her. He just needed to know 'why', that was all.

The silence lengthened again, and stretched until it was singing shrilly in her ears. It must have got to Max, too, because he sighed suddenly, a long, heavy sound, then flicked a long-fingered hand as though affecting the throwing in of the towel.

'I presume,' he drawled, 'that this—' He was at a loss as to what to call the situation. She couldn't blame him, she had no name for it, either. 'This
surprise
waiting for me when I got into the office this morning, was by way of announcing an end to our association?'

At least he hadn't called it an 'affair'. Even Max, it seemed, had some scruples. 'Yes,' she murmured huskily. 'It couldn't go on any longer, Max. Not when ...'
I'm having your baby.
'When I—I realised ...'

'Realised—what?' he prompted softly, when once again she dried up. And the quiet snap in his voice made her flinch a little so that she veered off course yet again.

'Joe was very good about it. He—he found me a job, with a friend of his. It seemed to work in very well. Then I went to visit my mother this weekend, and she dropped her bombshell on me, and everything began to get ...'

'Clea—' Max cut in on her wearily, almost anxiously, but then she didn't know how she looked, couldn't see herself as he was seeing her at this moment, her lovely face contorted with unhappiness and stress. 'You're rushing on like a steam train, but I can't follow a single word. Let me say something,' he ventured drily, sitting up a little in his chair and leaning closer to her. He sounded more human now, more like the Max she knew, and when she dared a quick glance at him, she could see that he looked more approachable, his eyes warmer, his mouth not so tightly drawn. 'Look at me,' he insisted gently, and she turned her face up to him, eyes big in her pinched, pale face. 'For some reason known only to you,' he began quietly, 'you've decided to bring an end to our relationship.' Clea preferred that to

'association', it had a more intimate ring to it. 'I can't say that I'm surprised because, quite frankly, I'm not... I suspected something of the kind before I went and that is why I'm here tonight.'

Just as she'd supposed, Clea thought heavily. He watched her face, misread the abject misery there for fear, and sighed impatiently. 'I'm not going to throw things at you, or shout—' though he was near to doing that now '—I just want to understand, then I'll leave again... Does that make it easier for you to explain?'

No, it made it harder! Because it proved that she'd been right all along and he didn't care for her at all.

I'm having your baby!

'I own this flat, Max,' she informed him thickly. Her frantic mind was groping for the right words, the way to say that small remark that would make all of this sensible.

'I know you do,' he sighed. 'But ...'

'And this weekend, while I was at my mother's...' she trudged on, ignoring his impatient interruption.

'And she dropped two surprises on my lap, one of which doesn't concern this now, but the other does ...'

She took in a deep breath and held on to it. 'I have my twenty-first birthday coming up next month ...'

'Clea—you're losing me again!'

'Then let me finish!' she bit out, the tension in her pulling her delicate skin taut across her cheekbones. 'I have to explain this my own way! I have a birthday coming up,' she repeated heavily. 'And my mother gave me this—this endowment policy—taken out by my father when I was born. It matures on my birthday. It's for a lot of money. James said ...'

'And who the hell is James?' Max bit out angrily. He looked as confused as Clea felt. His black brows drawn into a straight line, eyes flashing silver-blue fury. 'The man who's usurping me in your bed?' he enquired derisively. 'The man who ...'

'James is my stepfather!' she enlightened witheringly.

'James Laverne,' she told him, her own expression as derisive as his now, as anger at him made her forget everything else but looking disgustedly into his face. '1 have mentioned him to you before but, as usual when I tell you anything personal, you haven't bothered to listen properly. James Laverne is a stockbroker—a very successful one. And he's going to invest the money, so I won't have to worry about an income for a long time. So ...' She dragged in another deep breath. 'I have my flat, and no financial worries.'

'Which adds up to—Clea being of independent means, and therefore no longer in need of a well paid job with me.' He thought he'd solved it, and his mouth twisted unpleasantly, his sarcasm cutting into Clea so she had to struggle to maintain some composure.

'I left your employ
before
I knew about the money,' she pointed out cuttingly. It was all right for him to mock, but he didn't know what all this was leading up to. 'And,' she added tightly, 'I already have another job waiting for me.'

'So it's only poor Max who's being given the elbow!' he concluded, on a crack of dry humour.

Anger made her jump up from her chair to stand glaring at him. 'And could
poor Max
give a damn?' she sliced back bitterly. It was decaying into a slanging match as she had known it would.

'Not if scenes like these are to be the norm from now on, no,' he drawled. 'I don't think I do give a damn.'

'Good,' she said, fielding his contempt, with only a flicker of her lashes to reveal how his words had hurt her. Cold purpose pushed up her chin. 'Then knowing just how you really feel about me makes it a lot easier for me to say what I've been finding difficult to tell you.'

At last! his long-suffering expression said.

'I'm going to have a baby.'

There, it was out. She had actually said it, and relief made her sag a little.

But Max didn't sag. Clea had to watch the mask of cold condescension slide away from him, watch those blue eyes narrow into angry slits, watch that lazy body pass through the stages of coiling up in reaction. His hands went stiff, then clenched into fists, his spine arching convulsively and his face rife with furious colour before paling to a stage beyond anger.

Real fear made her put out a shaky hand towards him in appeal. 'Let me explain ...'

'You bitch!' he whispered, and Clea fell back a few steps as, on a low animal growl, Max launched himself out of the chair, hard hands snaking out to clutch at her quivering shoulders before she had a chance to move out of his way.

'It was an accident, Max—'

He wasn't listening, his fingers crushing the fine bones beneath them, eyes like silver points of violence between their frightening slits. 'I trusted you!' he bit out roughly, and shook her hard.

It was like looking on the face of a stranger; anger contorted his face, held his jaw clenched and his lips pulled back from glinting white teeth. She whimpered, jerking up her hands to clutch at his wrists, in an attempt to make him let go of her, but he only increased the pressure.

'I trusted you!' he repeated, his voice so thick that he was barely understandable. 'You were going to take care of it!' he grated in a rough, whining voice meant to mock her own assurances all those months ago. 'And all the time you were planning this!'

'No!'

'Yes! You bitch!' He shook her again, the whirl of blue-black hair a mad tumble around her paste-white face. 'I trusted you—I
trusted
you!'

Then another thread of his control snapped, and Clea had to watch in horror as his arm went back, hand hovering above her while his blanched face told her what he meant to do.

'Don't—' she tremored. Fear sent her own arm up to protect her face, and she cowered in his grip. Then the heat began, surging with incredible swiftness up and along her body until it reached her ears where it roared, blocking out everything else.