Contract with Consequences (3 page)

S
CARLET
looked for John straight away. When she couldn’t spot him anywhere amongst the crowd of partygoers who’d all gathered under the outdoor entertaining area, she wandered back inside the house. But the only person she found there was his mother, getting a couple of bottles of wine out of the fridge. The large open-plan living room was empty of people, with no sign of John anywhere.

‘Ah, Scarlet,’ his mother said. ‘Thank you so much for getting John. It was very good of you.’

‘No trouble, Mrs Mitchell. Where is he, by the way?’

‘Upstairs in his bedroom,’ Carolyn retorted, sounding a bit annoyed. ‘Said he had to go get my anniversary present but I think he’s just avoiding talking to people. Look, could I bother you to go up there and bring him down? All the food is ready. You look lovely today, by the way, dear,’ Carolyn rattled on before Scarlet could accept or reject the request.

Strangely, she didn’t mind the mission. It would give her the chance to see if he still had all those girlie posters over his walls.

He didn’t. The room was stripped bare of all boyish paraphernalia. John was standing by the window, staring down at the street, his bedroom being at the front of the house. His bag had been slung on top of the bed, unopened.
Scarlet glanced around but couldn’t see any present anywhere.

‘I’ve been sent to bring you downstairs,’ she called from the open doorway.

He turned from the window and smiled a rueful smile. ‘Poor Scarlet,’ came his ironic remark. ‘You’ve been given all the awful jobs today.’

She didn’t deny it. The strange truth, however, was that she hadn’t minded driving him home as much as she’d thought she would. And she didn’t really mind coming up here to collect him. But she wasn’t about to tell him that.

‘Did you find your mother’s present?’

‘I did,’ he said, and patted the right hip pocket of his leather jacket.

‘Something small and sinfully expensive?’

‘Could be.’

‘Let me guess—a real ruby.’ What else would a geologist son give to his mother on her ruby wedding anniversary?

‘You always were a clever little minx.’

‘And you always were a sarcastic bastard.’

He scowled at her for a second, then smiled. ‘I tell you what. I promise to go down and face the small talk if you promise not to leave my side.’

‘And what, pray tell, do
I
get out of that deal?’

His smile broadened. ‘My suddenly sparkling company?’

‘Not good enough, I’m afraid. I have no faith in your company becoming suddenly sparkling. I will need more of a bribe than that.’

‘Would a real diamond do the trick?’

Scarlet wasn’t sure if he was serious, or just teasing her. Whatever, she was tempted to do some teasing of her own.

‘I have no use for a diamond,’ she replied haughtily.
‘Unless it’s sitting atop a band of gold and comes with a proposal of marriage.’

The look on his face was priceless.

‘No?’ she went on saucily. ‘Pity. You’re not bad looking, after all. And you’re filthy rich. Not to mention not gay. What more could a girl possibly want?’

‘Nice try, Scarlet. You had me going there for a while.’

She grinned. ‘I did, didn’t I? Revenge
is
sweet.’

‘Revenge for what?’

‘For all the times you made me want to kill you.’

‘Mea culpa,’
he said, his tone droll.

‘You’re right there. But today is meant to be a happy day, so I’ll put aside my petty grievances and do what you ask, without payment of any kind. Not that I thought you meant to give me a diamond for real.’

‘If I did, you’ve missed out now. Still, be a nice, sweet, agreeable companion for the rest of the day and I might give you one.’

‘In your dreams, lover.’

He laughed. ‘You’re right there, Scarlet.’

John knew full well that that was one thing he would never be—Scarlet’s lover. Which was a pity. She looked utterly gorgeous today in that purple and black outfit. Shame she wasn’t one of those girls who could enjoy a fling without always looking for a ring on their finger in return.

But that was the way she was and nothing would ever change that. Which was also a pity. John suspected one of the reasons Scarlet hadn’t found her Mr Right was because she had ‘desperately seeking marriage’ written all over her. What she needed to do, in his opinion, was lighten up.

Perhaps he would tell her that later today if he found the right opportunity.

‘Come on,’ he said, flashing Scarlet a warm smile as he hooked her arm through his. ‘Time to get ourselves downstairs before they send out a search party.’

S
CARLET
could not believe how much she enjoyed the party, and John’s company, though she would not go so far as to say he’d ‘sparkled’. After giving his delighted mother her ruby—which was uncut but simply enormous—he’d actually deigned to make a small speech, praising his parents’ fortitude in staying married for so long and wishing them all the best for the future. Then, even more surprising, after the buffet luncheon was over he’d made the effort to talk to his father. It had been a slightly awkward conversation—Scarlet had been hovering nearby at the time—but it was Martin Mitchell who’d sounded the more awkward, she thought, after which the fool had spent the rest of the afternoon playing with Melissa’s little boy. Admittedly, Oliver was a delightful child, with a highly engaging personality. But still, one would have thought Martin could have afforded to spend some more time with a son who’d flown all the way from South America to be with his parents on their special day.

Scarlet had felt seriously annoyed with the man, which made her even more solicitous towards John. She also downed a good few glasses of wine, which she had a tendency to do when she was upset. Being tipsy brought out the flirtatious side in her, which was helped by the fact that he invariably sought her out if she left his side for too
long, whispering to her each time that she wouldn’t get a diamond if she kept deserting her post.

By five-thirty, the party was winding down, with people gradually leaving. By six, the Mitchell place was almost empty of guests, and Scarlet and her mother stayed back to help Carolyn and Melissa clean up. Oliver had been put down for a nap, whilst the men—Martin, John and Leo—had retired to the living room to watch the evening news on TV.

‘I had my four-month ultrasound on Friday,’ Melissa said out of the blue as she and Scarlet were restacking the dishwasher together. Their mothers were outside at the time, piling up more dirty plates to carry in.

Scarlet stiffened as she always did these days when girls she knew started talking about their pregnancies. She’d known Melissa was pregnant again, but the subject hadn’t come up that day as yet.

‘Oh?’ she managed to reply as casually as she could manage. ‘Everything well, I hope?’

‘Marvellous. Leo was there with me, of course. He actually cried when they told him it was a little girl. So did I. Oliver’s a darling boy, but there’s something about little girls, isn’t there?’

Scarlet was on the verge of tears herself. She didn’t give a damn if she had a girl or a boy. She just wanted a baby.

‘Would you like to see the pictures of the ultrasound?’ Melissa asked her. ‘I brought them with me to show Mum. They’re just upstairs. I’ll go get them,’ she added before Scarlet could say yes or no.

John saw the stricken look on Scarlet’s face the moment he walked into the kitchen.

‘What is it?’ he asked straight away. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I have to get out of here,’ she muttered.

Too late. Melissa was back in a flash with the dreaded
pictures. Scarlet had no choice but to look at them and make all the right noises, for how could she do anything else without making a complete fool of herself? Melissa insisted John look at them too, which he did, though he didn’t gush, for which Scarlet was grateful. At some stage, their respective mothers re-entered the kitchen. Scarlet now had to endure Carolyn Mitchell raving on about how lucky Melissa was to be having a little girl and how lucky they were as grandparents to have their daughter living so close. She then added that it was obvious they were never going to get any grandchildren from John and, even if by some miracle they did, they’d probably never see them, since he preferred to live in South America than Australia.

John had no idea what had distressed Scarlet earlier, but he suspected—by the look on her face—that she still wanted out. He did, too. Hell, yes. And the sooner the better.

‘Sorry to love you and leave you, folks,’ he said once his mother stopped to draw breath. ‘But I asked Scarlet out tonight and she said yes. So if you don’t mind, we’ll be off.’ So, saying, he took hold of a startled Scarlet and steered her firmly towards the front door. ‘Don’t wait up,’ he called over his shoulder, then whispered in her ear. ‘We’ll have to take your car, as I don’t have one here, but don’t worry; I can drive. I’ve only had two light beers all afternoon.’

Scarlet would have agreed to anything he said at that moment, she was so grateful to be away from Melissa and the pictures of her baby.

Five minutes later, John was reversing her car out of their garage, Scarlet only then realising she’d have a lot of questions to answer when she finally got home that night.

‘Nice wheels, Scarlet,’ John said once they were underway. ‘The last time I was home you were driving an old white rust bucket.’

‘I decided to spoil myself this year,’ she replied. New car and a baby. At least that
had
been the plan.

Suddenly, the tears which had been threatening ever since Melissa brought up the subject of her pregnancy came back with a vengeance. Scarlet tried to choke them back but it was way too late. Maybe if she’d cried earlier in the week when she’d realised she hadn’t conceived, she might have stood a chance of controlling her emotion. Instead, it had been building up in her for days, this feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. She’d tried so hard to stay positive. So very hard.

Her head dropped into her hands as her shoulders started to shake, noisy sobs bursting from her lungs.

John didn’t know what to do for a split second. He’d known Scarlet was upset over something but he hadn’t expected this level of grief. It wasn’t like Scarlet at all!

To keep on driving seemed heartless so he pulled over to the side of the road and switched off the engine.

He didn’t try to comfort her physically. It was too darned awkward in a small car with the gear stick and hand brake between the front seats. So he just sat there and let her weep. Bianca had once told him that women needed a good cry occasionally. Most times, they didn’t require the men in their lives to solve their problems, just to be supportive and to listen. John wished he had a handkerchief to give her. But he wasn’t the handkerchief-carrying kind of man.

Finally, when the weeping subsided, Scarlet snapped open the glove box and extracted a small box of tissues. She blew her dripping nose at length, then threw him a pained look.

‘Thank you,’ she sniffed.

‘For what?’

‘For getting me out of there.’

‘Am I allowed to ask what upset you so much?’

‘No,’ she grumped, crumpling up the tissues into her hand and turning her face away from him.

‘No?’
John was never at his best when his will was thwarted. ‘Scarlet King, we are not moving from this spot till you tell me what’s going on.’ As he made his stand, John’s mind started running over what had happened after he’d walked into the kitchen. Melissa had come downstairs with the photographs of her ultrasound, insisting that they both look at them. Then his mother walked in and made some crack about his never giving her grandchildren. Which was probably true.

But, John realised in what could only be described as a light-bulb moment, Scarlet wanted to give
her
mother grandchildren.

‘It was because of Melissa’s pregnancy,’ he said with typical male satisfaction at having worked something out for himself.

The lack of sensitivity in John’s tone—not to mention the underlying arrogance—brought Scarlet back to herself. Her head whipped round, her blue eyes glaring daggers at him.

‘Yes, of course it was your precious sister’s pregnancy which upset me,’ she snapped. ‘Plus the way she shoved those damned photographs in my face. How do you think I felt when she told me she was going to have a lovely little girl to go with her lovely little boy when I would give my right arm to have just one baby of any sex?’

‘But you will, Scarlet. One day,’ he added.

‘Oh really? You can guarantee that, can you, John? I’m thirty-four years old. My biological clock is ticking away like a time bomb. Already the odds of my conceiving a child are going downhill. If I don’t have a baby soon, I might never have one.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Scarlet. Women of forty and older are having babies all the time.’

‘I’m not being ridiculous, and women over forty are
not
having babies all the time. Most of the older mothers you read about these days are celebrities and actresses who have access to the best fertility clinics in the world. Have you noticed how many of them are having twins? You don’t honestly think they’re being conceived naturally, do you?’

John hadn’t really thought about it at all. ‘I will bow to your better knowledge on the subject. But you’re not over forty yet, Scarlet. Not by a long shot. There’s no reason to panic.’

‘I have
every
reason to panic.’

‘Look, if you’re so damned desperate to have children, then why don’t you just go out and get yourself pregnant? You’re gorgeous—you’ll have all the offers you could want.’

Scarlet gave him a totally scandalised look, determinedly ignoring the fact that he thought she was gorgeous. ‘You think I would risk falling pregnant to just anyone, potentially also risking my sexual health? No, thank you very much. I have no intention of doing that.’

‘So you’re just going to wait till Mr Right comes along?’

‘Actually, John, I have no intention of doing that either.’

‘Oh? And what, pray tell,
are
you going to do?’

‘If you must know, I’m already doing it.’

‘Already doing what?’

Scarlet knew she’d just backed herself into a corner. Her and her big mouth! John always did have this bad habit of making her want to bring him down in flames, which was very immature of her. They weren’t bickering children or rival classmates any more. They were grown up people.

Suddenly, it didn’t seem such a bad idea to tell him what she was up to. John wouldn’t tell anyone else, not if she asked him not to. Frankly, it would be good to talk to someone other than her mother, someone more objective. John was an intelligent guy; he would see the sense in her
plan. Scarlet needed reassurance at that moment that she was doing the right thing.

‘The thing is, John,’ she said, still slightly hesitant. ‘I … Urn … I’ve decided to have a baby by artificial insemination.’

When he said nothing, she turned her face to look at him. He was frowning, like he didn’t understand the concept at all.

‘I investigated it thoroughly on the Internet first,’ she rattled on, feeling compelled to explain it more fully. ‘Trust me when I say I’ve given this a lot of thought and research. Anyway, I found a local clinic where they had a whole catalogue of sperm donors to choose from. All their background information was listed: their physical characteristics, health records, intelligence levels. I picked one out which I liked the sound of. He’s American, tall, good-looking, with dark hair, blue eyes and an IQ of a hundred and thirty. Some of them had higher IQs—most of the donors are university students—but I didn’t want a child who was a genius, just one smart enough to do well in life without having to struggle.’

‘If you’ve already decided on this course of action, Scarlet,’ John said when she finally stopped talking, ‘then why were you so upset over Melissa’s pregnancy?’

Scarlet sighed. ‘I guess you might as well know the rest. The thing is it hasn’t worked so far. I’ve failed to fall pregnant twice now and I … I … Well, when Melissa showed me her ultrasound pictures, I began to worry that something was wrong with me and I would never be a mother, and I … I …’ Scarlet broke off when she choked up again.

‘For what it’s worth, Scarlet,’ John said quietly into the sudden silence, ‘I admire that you’ve taken positive action to get what you want in life. You have courage. At the same time,’ John couldn’t help himself from telling her, ‘I think
you’re being quite selfish in deliberately having a child who will be denied a father figure in his life.’

Scarlet was both astonished and angered by this unexpected criticism. ‘I wouldn’t say that having a father figure in life is the be-all and end-all. I would have thought that you, of all people, would appreciate that.’

‘
Touché
. But I did have a grandfather. Your baby won’t even have that.’

‘Maybe not, but it will have a wonderful grandmother.’ Only one, though, she realised. Her paternal grandparents had both died some years ago.

‘True,’ John agreed. ‘But what about when she’s gone? What then?’

‘I can’t think about then,’ Scarlet snapped.

‘Just like your fictional name-sake.’

She glared at him. ‘I thought you would understand.’

John shrugged. He wasn’t sure why he found the idea of Scarlet having a baby with Mr IQ-of-a-hundred-and-thirty so uncomfortable, but his whole body objected.

‘Wanting a baby is not exactly complicated. It’s a basic drive in most women. And quite a lot of men too, I’m told,’ she added caustically.

‘I dare say you’re right. Look, it’s obvious that you’re determined on this course of action, so I have a suggestion to make which I think would be infinitely preferable to your being impregnated by some stranger who will impart nothing to your child’s life but a set of genes, which may not be as desirable as they read on paper. After all, what do you really know about this sperm donor? Nothing of any depth, that’s for sure. You don’t know his background or his family or his mental health. Perhaps it is a blessing that you haven’t conceived his child so far.’

Scarlet could not believe that John was being so negative. All life had some risk, didn’t it? There was no such a thing as a perfect plan, or a perfect partner, or a perfect
anything! She had no idea what his counter-suggestion was going to be, but if he thought she was going to change her mind about trying for a baby then he was delusional.

John knew that what he was about to propose would shock her. He was pretty shocked at it himself. But something deep inside him was driving him on—the thought of Scarlet having a baby to some anonymous stranger was repulsive. She deserved better than that. She deserved…