Chapter Eight
Donovan didn’t know what he was doing, and for the first time in his life, that felt exhilarating rather than frustrating. He felt as if he were on a road trip without a map, or perhaps falling out of a plane without a parachute.
Still, he wasn’t sure that he could do otherwise. When he thought about Carly, it felt as if something were opening in his chest. He once cynically thought that he knew everything there was to know about how he could feel about woman, but she was teaching him otherwise every day.
It had been almost seven weeks since that night in the barn, and since then they had spent almost every day together. She came down from her cottage in the woods, and whenever he laid eyes on her, he couldn’t help but smile. Every small touch, every whispered word made his heart beat faster, and there was a part of him that barely knew what to do.
The only problem of course, was that damn cottage. It hung behind them like a ghost, and Carly would still brook no thought of selling it. When he mentioned it, however gently, a stubborn look would turn her eyes bright and sharp and she would shake her head.
“We’re not talking about that,” she said, and with that Donovan had to be content.
The deal was hanging on, somehow, but Donovan knew that at some point he would have close on it or give it up. He was not a man who was used to giving up, but he had to admit to himself that perhaps having Carly would make it worth it.The Goat and Compass was quiet that day, and he was eager to see Carly. He promised her a drive south and if all went well, they would find their way to a bed and breakfast that he found a few years prior, one with a flock of sheep in the back and plenty of textiles to peruse. It was the sort of outing that would have made him sneer back in London, but here, there was a strange pleasure in seeing Carly delight at something particularly soft and cute.His phone rang, and he glanced at it. It wasn’t Carly, as he hoped, but it also wasn’t a call that he could really afford to miss.
“Gordo, good to hear from you.”
“If you say so,” said his London business manager. “You’ve been dodging my calls ever since you got up there. Are you planning on coming back down to earth any time soon?”
“To be honest, I’ve seen way more earth here than I have when I was in London.” Donovan joked, and he could almost hear Gordo roll his eyes.
“You know what I mean. Look, I don’t need to tell you the consortium’s getting restless. You pitched one hell of a deal to them last March, and they want it bad. Now you’re saying you can’t deliver and—”
Donovan sat up a little straighter, frowning. “Who says I can’t deliver? If I don’t do it here, if it turns out that this place isn’t feasible, we’ll move. There are places throughout the country that might work, plenty of places.”
“They haven’t seen that yet,” Gordo said succinctly. “What they’ve seen are development shots from Loch Naine, and that’s what they want.” Donovan drove his fingers through his hair, all but growling in frustration. “Fend ‘em off. It’s what I pay you for. Loch Naine is not out of the question yet, but if it is, well, I’ll deal with that.”
Gordo sighed, and Donovan knew that he had chosen his assistant well. Gordo would make sure that the deal stayed where it needed to be, at least until he could get a yes, or the no that he believed he would get out of Carly. She was unsure, and it could drive a patient man to tears, but he cared for her well enough that it wasn’t a true trial yet.
Care? It was more than that, but it was not something that Donovan would let himself think about, not just yet.
“Is that all? I am meeting someone here in just a—”
“Ah, funny you should bring that up. As a matter of fact, yes. Do you remember a Ms. Rose Roland?”
Donovan frowned. “I’m not sure I do, but I’m sure that you’ll remind me.”
“Of course, sir,” said Gordo drily. “She was a woman that you were seeing about a year ago, when the firm was doing that work in Morocco?”
“No, I don’t... Wait, I do. She was that movie star, wasn’t she?”
‘Movie star’ was pushing it. Rose Roland had had a few small roles in local television and a string of rich patrons who kept her living in movie-star glamor. She shone like a diamond when he met her on the boardwalk, with long gleaming red hair and a smile as sharp as razors. It had been a more than enjoyable three weeks in Morocco with the exciting Rose as his companion, but by the time the job was done and he was ready to fly back to London, he was done with her as well. He thought they left it on good terms, and most of the women he spent time with knew better than to ask for more from him. It made her mention now unusual.
“She was, sir. There is a rumor going around the channels I frequent that Ms. Roland has a child that she is claiming as yours. No real declaration yet from her, but there is a chance that she is marshaling evidence and getting things together for a paternity suit.”
Donovan’s laugh was harsh. “A baby? Don’t make me laugh. That’s the oldest trick in the book, isn’t it?”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know, sir,” Gordo said, but Donovan was already shaking his head.
“No. We had a good time together, we had some fun, but if she tries to come after me, especially with some bogus baby story, she’s got to go. Make sure she knows that if she comes after me like this, I’ll go after her, too. She won’t come off the better in this, I promise her.”
“I see.” Gordo paused for a moment, and then spoke again. “And if the baby is yours?”
“It isn’t,” Donovan said with certainty. “Not with her. That baby isn’t mine. Rose was fun, but she was never the most loyal. Didn’t expect her to be. Tell her that, too, if you think it’ll make her see reason.”
“Yes, sir. I see.”
They discussed a few matters further, but Donovan was eager to hang up. There was definitely someone that he wanted to be speaking to, and it was not his London business manager.
However, the minutes ticked by, and Carly never showed up. He checked his phone for messages, but there was nothing, and he grew increasingly concerned. Carly wasn’t always the most punctual person on the face of the planet, but when they agreed to meet, she would at least tell him when she was going to be late. He sent her a few texts, but those received no answer either. Just when he was starting to panic, his phone rang. He saw with relief that it was Carly.
“There you are,” he said. “Are you all right? Is everything—”
“We need to end this.”
For a moment, he was so stunned by her words that he didn’t hear how muffled they were, how thick. She sounded as if she had a cold, or as if she had been crying.
“Carly, why are you saying this, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to see you again,” she said, and though she stuttered at first, her voice sharpened to something hard and immoveable at the end. “I don’t want to see you, or talk to you. At all.”
“Carly, you can’t be serious,” Donovan said, stunned. He felt as if she reached into his chest with her delicate hand and twisted.
“I am.” It didn’t help him at all to hear the hollowness of her voice. Her words were like lead, slow and ponderous.
“Pet...”
“No! Don’t call me that anymore, just... just get out of my life. I don’t want you. I don’t want you.”
Donovan might have said more, but she hung up with a sharp click. After that, he simply sat in the booth.
This is what bleeding out feels like, he thought distantly.
“Another drink?” asked the waitress, and Donovan looked up at her blankly. For a moment, he was tempted. Nothing sounded good right now, but the idea of getting roaring, blazing drunk held some appeal at least. Then he shook his head, rose from the table and left the restaurant.
***
Donovan walked out into the street, locating his car without looking to the left or the right. If he had turned his head slightly, he would have noticed Carly leaning against a brick wall, just out of sight around the corner of the pub. Despite the warm late summer breeze, she was trembling, her hands rubbing up and down her arms, trying to hold herself together.
Carly focused on telling herself to breathe. It was difficult. She was used to standing up for herself to strangers, to people who might have wanted to harm her, but not to people she cared about. She had only begun to realize how very much she cared about Donovan, and this was a new kind of pain.
She had come into the pub to find him on the phone, her mind filled with her news. But then she overheard him speaking.
God, he sounded like someone else, she thought, wiping at her damp eyes. It was so brutal and so cruel.
She had no idea who the woman he was talking about was, but her heart went out to her. Was there another woman just like her somewhere, who believed Donovan when he said she was different? Was that woman carrying a child—the half-brother or sister to the child in Carly’s belly?
Reflexively, Carly closed her hands over her stomach, wondering if her child could feel her distress and her fear.
They had only made love once without a condom, but apparently, once was enough. She had suspected not long after they made love in the barn, but it was so easy to ignore it. After all, she had never been the most regular when it came to her menstrual cycle, and there were a dozen and one things that could be affecting her. However, another month had gone by, and she knew she needed to be sure.
The test was still sitting next to the sink in her cottage. It told her everything she had needed to know about truth and consequences, and the only thing that had prevented her from telling Donovan over the phone was the need to do it in person.
She had been such a fool. She thought that he might be shocked, even stunned, but never in a million years had she thought that he might say to her, as he had said to that other woman, that it wasn’t his child. That he didn’t care.
In the restaurant, Carly had felt as if she was frozen in place, unable to speak or to cry. Then her senses returned, and instead of fighting she fled. There was no other choice. Otherwise, she would have had to face Donovan, and God alone knew what that might have become. She didn’t know if she could control herself if he had told her half of what he was talking about on the phone.
“I am alone,” she murmured. The words sounded lonely and despondent, but then for the first time, she realized that that wasn’t true. Her fingers tightened slightly over her belly and then she relaxed.
Carly had only known panic and confusion when she got the results of her pregnancy test, but now, she was able to feel the first burgeoning presence of joy.
She wasn’t alone after all. Perhaps that would make all the difference.