Surprise Baby, Second Chance

And still everything had gone wrong.

Though, if he was being honest with himself, perhaps that had started when his mother had been diagnosed with cancer and he’d realised the extent of his mistakes.

Now, the fear that had grown in the past four months pulsed in his chest. Had him facing the fact that everyone in his life who was supposed to love him had left him. His mother. His father. And now Rosa...

He couldn’t deny that he was the problem any more.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘SO, WHAT HAVE you been doing these last four months?’

Somehow, she managed to keep her tone innocent. As if she wasn’t asking because she desperately wanted a glimpse into the life he’d made without her.

It was veering into dangerous territory, that question, and yet it was the safest thing Rosa could think to ask. Something mundane. Something that didn’t have anything to do with what they’d been talking about before.

Feelings. Emotions. Their relationship.

But the expression on his face told her that perhaps the question wasn’t as safe as she’d thought. Still, he answered her.

‘Work.’

‘Work?’ When he didn’t offer more, she pressed. ‘What about work? New clients?’

‘New clients.’

She bit back a sigh. ‘And?’

‘We’re expanding.’

‘Oh.’

Expanding? He’d never spoken about the desire to expand before. His law firm was one of the most prestigious family practices in Gauteng. He had wealthy clientele, made sure his firm helped those in need, and he’d always spoken about how content he’d been. Proud, even. So why was he expanding?

She waited for him to offer an explanation. He didn’t. And she didn’t have the courage to ask him. Not when she would have known if she’d just stayed.

‘You?’

Her gaze sprang to his. She hadn’t expected him to engage. ‘I’ve been working on a new line. Evening gowns.’

‘Like the one you’re wearing.’

‘Exactly like the one I’m wearing. For women like me.’

His eyes swept over her, heating her body with the faint desire she saw on his face. He was controlling it well, she thought. He never had before. She’d always known when Aaron desired her. It would start with a look in his eyes—much more ardent than what she saw there now—and then he’d say something seductive and follow his words with actions.

She’d loved those times. Loved how unapologetic they had been. How freeing. And since they both had problems with being free—no matter how much she pretended that she didn’t—those moments were special.

And now she’d lost them.

‘It’ll be popular.’

‘I hope so.’ She paused. ‘I did a sample line. I’ve been promoting it on the website for the past month, and it’s got some great feedback. I might even do a showcase.’

‘I told you it would be great.’

‘You did.’

Neither of them mentioned that for years he’d been telling her that she needed to make clothes for herself. For others like her. But that wasn’t why she’d got into fashion. At least, not at first. She loved colours, patterns, prints. She loved how bold they could be, or how understated. She loved the contrast of them—the lines, the shapes.

She hadn’t wanted to confine herself when she’d started out. She’d wanted to experiment, to explore, to learn about everything. And, because she had, she now had momentum after being labelled a fresh and exciting young designer. Enough that she could finally design the clothes she wanted to. For women who looked like her. Who were bigger. Who weren’t conventionally curvy.

She’d shared all her worries, her fears, her excitement with Aaron. And she wanted nothing more than to tell him about the challenges, the joys she’d had creating this new line now.

But the brokenness between them didn’t lend itself to that discussion.

Her heart sank and her eyes slid closed.

How had her safe question led to this?

* * *

Watching her was going to be the only way he’d figure out what was going on in her head. It was clear she wasn’t going to tell him. And, since he hadn’t exactly been forthcoming himself, he could hardly ask her what was causing the turmoil on her face.

But he couldn’t be forthcoming. How was he supposed to tell her that his expansion plans had started the moment his mother had informed him of where Rosa was? He hadn’t been interested in finding her...at least, that was what he’d told himself. But then he’d received Liana’s email telling him Rosa was in Cape Town.

And suddenly he was planning to expand his firm to Cape Town.

How was he supposed to tell her all that?

‘Oh, look,’ she said softly, her gaze shifting to behind him. The pain had subsided from her face—had been replaced by wonder—tempting him to keep looking at her.

Dutifully—though reluctantly—he followed her gaze and saw that she was watching the rain. He didn’t know what she found so fascinating about it. Sure, it was coming down hard, fast and every now and then a flash of lightning would streak through it. But still, it looked like rain to him. Regular old rain.

And yet when he looked back to Rosa’s face he could have sworn she had just seen the first real unicorn.

She got up and walked in her beautiful gown to the glass doors, laying a hand on them as though somehow that would allow her to touch the rain. It was surprisingly tender, but he refuted that description almost immediately. What he was witnessing wasn’t tender. How could his wife watching the rain be tender?

But he couldn’t get the word out of his mind as she spent a few more minutes there. Then she walked to the light switch in the kitchen and turned it off. The entire room went dark and she murmured, ‘Just for a moment,’ before returning to her place at the door.

He still wasn’t sure what was so special about it. About watching the rain in the dark. But her reaction had cast a spell around him. And now he was walking towards her, stopping next to her and watching the rain pour from the sky in torrents.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a storm more beautiful,’ she said softly from beside him.

‘An exaggeration,’ he commented with a half-smile.

She laughed. Looked up at him with twinkling eyes. ‘Of course it is. But I like to think that I use my opportunities to exaggerate for effect. Is it working?’ she asked with a wink.

His smile widened and, though his heart was still broken from her leaving, and his mind was still lapping up every piece of information she’d given as to why, as they looked at each other, he was caught by her.

He told himself it was the part of him that wanted things to go back to the way they’d been before. The part that mourned because it was no longer an option. Not with how things had shifted between them. Not when that shift had confirmed that they were no longer the same people they’d been before she’d left.

And still he was caught by her.

By her brown eyes, and the twinkle that was slowly turning into something else as the seconds ticked by. By the angles of her face—some soft, some sharp, all beautiful.

He didn’t know why he still felt so drawn to the woman beside him when she wasn’t the woman he’d fallen in love with any more. Or was it himself he didn’t recognise? He’d spent the four months since she’d left racking his brain for answers about what had gone wrong. And what he’d come up with had forced him to see himself in a new light. A dim one that made him prickly because it spoke of things he’d ignored for most of his life.

‘Why do you still make me feel like this?’

He hadn’t realised he’d spoken until her eyes widened. His gaze dipped to her mouth as she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. It instantly had his body responding, and he took a step towards her—

And then suddenly there was a blast of cold air on him and Rosa was on the balcony in the rain.

‘Rosa! What are you doing?’

But she turned her back to him and was now opening her palms to the rain, spreading her fingers as though she wanted to catch the drops, but at the same time wanted them to fall through her fingers.

‘Rosa!’ he said again when she didn’t answer him. But it was no use. She didn’t give any indication that she’d heard him.

He cursed and then took off his shoes and stepped out onto the balcony with her, hissing out his breath when the ice-cold drops immediately drenched his skin.

Her eyes fluttered open when he stopped next to her, and he clearly saw the shock in them. ‘What are you doing?’

‘The same thing as you, apparently,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘Care to explain why we’re out getting soaked in the rain?’

‘I didn’t think you’d—’ She broke off, the expression on her face frustratingly appealing. Damn it. How was that possible when their lives were such a mess?

‘Rosa,’ he growled.

‘I wanted to get out of that room,’ she said. ‘I wanted to breathe in proper fresh air and not the stifling air in that room.’

‘That room is over one hundred and fifty square metres.’

‘You know that’s not what I meant,’ she snapped. ‘I just felt...trapped. With you. In there.’

‘You felt trapped with me,’ he repeated.

‘No, not like that,’ she said. ‘I felt... It’s just that room. And the fact that resisting you—resisting us—is so hard. Everything between us is suddenly so hard.’ She let out a sound that sounded suspiciously like a sob. ‘Mostly I feel trapped by what I did to us.’ She closed her eyes and when she opened them again he felt the pain there as acutely as if it were in his own body. ‘I threw what we had away.’

He took a step forward, the desire to take her into his arms, to comfort her compelling him. But then he stopped and told himself that he couldn’t comfort her when he didn’t know why. That he couldn’t comfort her when, by all rights, she was supposed to be comforting him.

She’d left him behind. She’d hurt him.

And yet there he was, outside, soaking wet in the rain because of her.

He moved back. Ignored the flash of hurt in her eyes.

‘We’re going to get sick if we stay out here,’ he said after a moment.

‘So go back inside,’ she mumbled miserably.

It was a stark reminder that she hadn’t asked him to come outside in the rain with her. And it would be logical to listen to her and go back inside.

Instead, he sighed and held his ground. Tried to commit the experience to memory. He suspected that some day he’d want—no, need—to remember this moment, however nonsensical it appeared to be.

To remember how she looked with her curls weighed down by the rainwater, the make-up she wore smudged dramatically on her face. How her one-of-a-kind dress clung to her beautiful body, reminding him of all that he’d had.

To remember how this—standing on a balcony while it poured with rain—spoke of her spirit. The passion, the spontaneity. How he’d never consider doing something like this and yet somehow he found it endearing.

Heaven only knew why he wanted to remember it. Because the feelings that accompanied it gutted him. The longing, the regret. The disappointment. Heaven only knew why he was thinking about how incredibly beautiful she was when empirical evidence should have made him think otherwise.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she demanded.

The misery, the pain in her voice had disappeared. Had been replaced with the passion he was used to.

‘Like what?’

‘Like that,’ she told him, without giving any more indication of what she meant. ‘You know what you’re doing.’

Was he that obvious? ‘I’m waiting for you to decide to go inside.’

She stepped closer to him. ‘No, you weren’t.’

‘You’ll get sick.’

‘And you won’t?’ He lifted his shoulders in response. She took another step forward. ‘You’re not helping me feel any less trapped than I already do, Aaron.’

Again, he shrugged. Again, she took a step forward.

‘And you’re not as unaffected by all this as you’re pretending.’

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, clasping her wrist just before her hand reached his face. Somehow, she’d closed the distance between them as she’d said her last words without him noticing.

‘I’m trying to show you that you’re not as aloof as you believe,’ she said, and dropped her hand with a triumphant smile. ‘I told you.’

He didn’t reply. He couldn’t do so without telling her that she was right—unaffected was the last thing he felt. But he showed her. Slid an arm around her waist and hauled her against him.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said, his voice slightly breathless, though measured, he thought. But he could be wrong. Hell, he could have been imitating the President of South Africa right then and he wouldn’t have known. ‘Maybe I was thinking about the first time we kissed.’ He dipped his head lower. ‘You remember.’

It wasn’t a question. And the way her breath quickened—the way her hand shook as she wiped the rain from her brow—confirmed it.

* * *

‘Aaron, wait!’

He turned back just in time to see Rosa running towards him. His stomach flipped as it always did when he saw her. And he steeled himself against it. He couldn’t fall into the attraction. He hadn’t for the last year. He could survive whatever she was running to tell him.

‘Would you give me a lift home?’ she asked breathlessly when she reached him. As she asked—as he nodded—a menacing boom sounded in the sky before rain began pouring down on them.

‘Here, get in,’ he said, starting towards the passenger’s side of the car. But she put a hand on his chest before he could make any progress, and he held his breath.

Control. Steel.

‘No,’ she replied tiredly. She leaned back against his car, dropping her hand and lifting her head to the sky. ‘No, this is exactly what I need.’

‘To be drenched in rain?’

She laughed huskily and need pierced him. ‘No. Just...a break.’

‘Hard day?’

‘Isn’t every day?’

She glanced back at the hospital where her mother was staying overnight. His mother had a chemo session but she’d left the book she’d wanted to read at home. And since Rosa’s mother—Liana’s usual companion—had started a new course of treatment, she wasn’t in Liana’s session to keep her company.

And because Liana knew Aaron would do anything to make what she was going through easier, she’d asked him to fetch her book.

‘But today was particularly hard,’ Rosa continued with a sigh. ‘I had to meet a deadline for a couple of designs. And my creativity hasn’t exactly been flowing over the last few months.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’ She smiled at him, and then something shifted. He didn’t know what it was, but he felt it. It had need vibrating through him again.

‘We should go,’ he said hoarsely, clenching a fist to keep from touching her.

‘What if I’m not ready to go?’

‘I’ll wait until you are.’

Now, he saw the change. Her eyes darkened. Her lips parted. And he realised how his words had sounded.

‘Rosa—’

‘No, Aaron,’ she said softly, taking a step closer. ‘I don’t want to—’ She broke off. Shook her head. And when her gaze rested on him again, he saw heat there. ‘I’m too tired to keep myself from wanting this.’

In two quick movements she gripped the front of his shirt and kissed him.

* * *

‘It was outside the hospital,’ he continued, the memory and his words weaving the web tighter around them. ‘On a rainy day, just like this. You were exhausted after a deadline, but you still came to visit your mother in hospital.’ He brushed a thumb over her lips, feeling the shiver the action caused go through them both.

‘You asked me to take you home, and for the first time you let me see that you were attracted to me. And then you closed the space between us and told me you were too tired to run from it.’

She was trembling now, though he couldn’t tell if it was because of the rain or the memory. It didn’t stop him.

‘And then you stood on your toes and pressed your lips—’

He stopped when she took an abrupt step back, breaking the spell.

‘You’re going from “I don’t want anything to do with you” to this?’

‘I wasn’t the one who said they didn’t want anything to do with the other,’ he replied gruffly, forcing himself to take control again. Now, he took a step back and the railing pressed into his back.

‘I know that was me. I wanted space. Why won’t you give it to me?’

‘I didn’t plan for us to be locked in together.’

‘But you won’t even give me a moment to be alone. Why?’

He didn’t answer.

‘I’m fine out here. Alone,’ she said again with a clenched jaw. ‘I just wanted some...space. I wanted to feel the rain. I wanted to stop feeling trapped.’ She turned away from him, but not before he saw a flash of vulnerability in her eyes. ‘You should go inside before we say something to hurt one another even more. ’

‘So you are hurt?’

She shook her head and took another step away from him. Aaron immediately got a strange feeling in his stomach. A familiar feeling. Hollow, sick. The kind of feeling that usually preceded his mother telling him she’d done something stupid. Or him getting the call that confirmed that she had.

Except now he wasn’t sure how to understand it. He didn’t think Rosa had done something wrong. And if she had he was sure she’d be able to figure it out herself. Unless...

‘Are you in trouble?’

‘What?’ She turned slightly to him. ‘No.’

‘You don’t have to lie to me.’

‘I’m not.’ But she shifted in a way that made him think that she was. The feeling in his stomach tightened.

‘Rosa—’

‘Go back inside, Aaron.’

For a moment he considered it. But then he realised he didn’t want to go back inside. She’d pushed him away before. Then, he didn’t have a say in it. If he let her push him away now, he’d be having a say. And he’d be saying that he didn’t care about her.

He might not know where they stood with each other, but he did know that not caring wasn’t the message he wanted to give.

He took a step forward.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘ROSA.’

‘Go back inside, Aaron.’

‘Not until you tell me what’s going on with you.’

How many times would she have to tell him that it was nothing? That nothing was wrong? Would she have to keep convincing him? She wasn’t sure she could. And her impulsive decision to come outside in the rain was fast becoming one of her worst ones.

She’d just wanted some space, like she’d told him. And she’d wanted to breathe something other than the tension in the air between them.

Now she was sopping wet, the rain finally penetrating her skin. She was cold. She was miserable. And yes, she was in pain. She didn’t want things to be the way they were between them. But what choice did she have?

She was doing this for the good of them. She was doing it for him. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone to do that in peace?

She turned to him now, took in his appearance. He was as soaked as she was, and yet he gave no indication of it. She’d always admired how at home he seemed to be in his body. How he owned the space around it, even though he was taller, stronger, more intimidating than most. He never seemed out of place. Even here, in the rain, soaked to the core, no doubt, he looked as if he belonged.

With me, she thought, and nearly sobbed.

‘Let’s go back inside then,’ she managed quietly, and walked past him before realising she would soak the entire floor if she went in wearing her dress.

The small carpet at the door would probably soak up some of it. But the rest of the floor would not escape unscathed. Forcing herself to be practical, she undid the ties of her dress at her waist. And then she dropped it to the floor before stepping out of it.

She refused to look back. Knew what her actions would seem like, and after what had happened outside...

She was just being practical, she thought again as she turned on the lights and went to the bathroom for towels. When she handed one to Aaron his expression was unreadable.

But the silence between them flirted with the tension that was still there. Wooing it. Courting it. Reminding them of what would have happened at any other time had she stood in front of him in shapewear that clung to the curves of her body.

It was the dress kind that plunged at her breasts and stopped mid-thigh, and hastily she patted down the water from her body before picking up her soaking dress and fleeing to the safety of the bathroom.

She released an unsteady breath when she got there and then squeezed the excess water from her dress, wincing at the destruction it didn’t deserve. Making the best of the situation, she hung it over the door and then stepped into the shower. She made quick work of it, knowing that the door was open a smidge now because of the dress. She didn’t want to take any more chances with Aaron.

Not that he’d cross that boundary. Not when his control was back in place after what had happened on the balcony. It was stupid to feel disappointed, she admonished herself, and reached for another towel—there seemed to be plenty of them, fortunately—and then tied it around herself before opening the door widely.

And walking right into Aaron.

His hands reached out to steady her, though her own hands had immediately lifted to his chest to steady herself. Only then did she notice that her face was directly in line with his chest. That fact wasn’t a surprise. He was significantly taller than her.

No, the surprise was that his chest was bare.

She blinked. Stepped back. And then saw that he wore only the towel she’d given him around his waist.

Her mind went haywire. Memories overwhelmed her. Suddenly she was thinking about all the times she would have jumped into those arms, wrapped her legs around his waist, kissed him. And how those kisses would have turned into something more urgent as soon as she had.

Her breathing went shallow and she told herself to step around him. To ignore how his body hadn’t changed. How the contours of his muscles were still as defined, as deep. How his shoulders were still strong, still broad. How his torso was still ripped.

She loved his body. Loved how big and strong he was. How he could pick her up, carry her around and not lose so much as a breath as he did.

Like the time she’d teased him about not wanting to accompany him to some event. He’d threatened to carry her there and, when she’d goaded him, had made good on the threat, though the event hadn’t been for hours.

He’d picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. She’d complained, squirmed, called him a caveman for doing it. But she’d loved it. And when he’d set her down she’d given him a playful punch to the chest before launching herself into his arms and—

‘Excuse me.’

His deep voice interrupted the memories and she nodded. Stepped around him. And let out a sigh of relief when some of the tension inside her cooled.

She figured out her clothing options quickly. She’d have to wear the lingerie Liana had packed for her as underwear and, since none of the other clothing would be comfortable, she’d wear one of Aaron’s shirts over it.

She was buttoning up the shirt when Aaron emerged from the bathroom, again in nothing but that towel.

Her heart started to thud. She forced herself to focus on something else.

‘I’m going to try the kitchen and hope your mother left coffee.’ That was something else, she thought gratefully. ‘Would you like some?’

He nodded and she walked away as fast as she could. Fortunately, Liana had left coffee and she busied herself with the task. But her mind wandered and, since she didn’t want to slip back into memories, she thought about why she’d stepped out into the rain in the first place.

She’d felt claustrophobic. And plagued by the connection she and Aaron had shared. The rain had offered an alternative. An escape. It had seemed like a perfectly logical thing to do at the time. And yet it wasn’t.

She’d made too many decisions like that in her life. Because she’d wanted to test herself. To see how those spontaneous decisions made her feel.

It was a form of control, she thought. The only kind she’d had. She’d been lost in the world of her mother’s anxiety for the longest time, and those spontaneous decisions had been a reprieve. Even though some of them had been stupid. Even though some of them had got her into trouble. They were her decisions. And when she made them, for the briefest of moments she felt free.

But freedom had come at a price. And that price had been—when she’d felt that lump in her breast in the shower—leaving her husband.

Because that lump had made her think she had cancer. And how could she put Aaron through that again when she didn’t think he’d fully recovered from his mother’s illness? Especially when hers could have been prevented if she’d just made the right decision when she’d had the chance.

But, like so many other moments in her life, she didn’t know what the right decision would be. Uncertainty clouded every one she’d made. Even running away to protect Aaron seemed uncertain. And now, as she thought about it, her stomach turned, her heart thudded at the doubt...

‘It always used to drive me crazy, how quiet you were,’ she heard herself say suddenly. She closed her eyes, told herself it would be better to speak—even if she was speaking about things she should leave in the past—than to let her mind go down that path again.

‘I know.’

She whirled around, then shook her head. ‘You always know.’

He was wearing jeans and a shirt, though somehow he looked just as gorgeous as he had in his suit. Perhaps because he hadn’t buttoned the shirt up entirely, and she could see his collarbone, the start of his chest...

‘Not always,’ he responded quietly. ‘But this, you told me. Too many times to count.’

He walked to the couch, sank down on it with a fatigue she’d rarely seen him show. Her fault, she thought. And added the guilt to the sky-high pile she already had when it came to him.

She sighed. ‘You should have told me to stop harassing you.’

‘You weren’t harassing me.’

She set his coffee on the table and took a seat on a different couch. ‘It didn’t bother you?’

‘How could it? You said it to me before we got together. I can’t fault you for something I knew about when we met.’

It was ridiculous to feel tears prick at her eyes, and she took a gulp from her coffee—burning her tongue in the process—to hide it from him. But she’d been reminded of how unselfishly Aaron had loved her.

He wasn’t like her father. He would have accepted her anxiety about her health. He would have supported her decision not to get screened for breast cancer. He wouldn’t have given up on their relationship, like her father had on his marriage. But she couldn’t be sure.

She’d often asked herself why her mother hadn’t left her father because of his lack of support. The only answer she had come up with was that her mother had been scared. And that that fear had been rooted in selfishness. Violet hadn’t wanted to go through her illness alone. And her marriage—even the illusion of it—prevented that.

But Aaron didn’t deserve that. Again, Rosa thought that it would have been selfish for her to stay. To do what her mother had done. And it would have been worse for Aaron because he wouldn’t check out like her father had. Worse still because he’d already been through so much.

The decision seemed clear now, though she knew it wasn’t. Not when she looked into his eyes. Not when she saw the pain there.

‘I didn’t mean to drive you crazy.’ Aaron spoke so softly Rosa almost thought she’d imagined it.

‘I loved it,’ she said immediately. ‘Not in that moment, of course, because your quietness would always make me run my mouth off about something.’ Like now. She stared down into her cup. ‘But I loved it.’

‘But...it annoyed you.’

‘No. Driving me crazy and annoying me are two different things. You being okay with things being quiet between us? That drove me crazy. You taking my car to work without telling me? That was annoying.’

His lips curved. ‘It was more economical.’

‘Sure, Mr Big-Shot Lawyer.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You were thinking about being economical.’

‘I was.’

‘No, what you were thinking was that my car would help make some of your clients feel more comfortable. Which, after I got through my annoyance at finding myself with your massive SUV when I had to go into town where the parking spaces are minuscule, I’d forgive you for.’

‘You always did forgive quickly.’

‘Not always,’ she said softly.

‘Rosa?’ She looked up. ‘What did I do? What couldn’t you forgive?’