Chapter Three #2
Everyone had been introducing themselves, getting to know each other. Would anyone want to hear that he was separated, with a divorce pending? That he was a father without a son and looking for a job in order to finish paying for the funeral.
Ask about my gap year? Please don’t.
He hadn’t wanted to wade through that hellish time with strangers. He hadn’t wanted to get close to anyone when the one person he had wanted to get close to had completely shut him out.
But instead of being entirely antisocial, as he’d wished to, he’d fallen into bar work to support himself and discovered the art of meaningless conversation—and, even better, meaningless sex.
Apart from one maudlin night, when Dominic had lapsed and admitted the truth to Jordan and his wife, Heather, he’d let no one in—because there was nothing he wanted them to see.
After a scare with another woman, despite being hyper-vigilant about birth control, Dominic had gone and got the snip to ensure it could never happen again—and he revelled in his infertility.
As his ex-wife was probably about to find out.
No, he did not want her here.
‘I could lie,’ he said suddenly, and flashed a smile and his white even teeth.
‘If that’s what you want me to do. Rachel, hello!
It’s brilliant to see you!’ he exclaimed, and he knew there wasn’t even a trace of sarcasm to his tone—except he’d just told her that he didn’t mean a word of it. ‘Gordon seems so good for you.’
She rolled her eyes.
‘It’s so nice to catch up!’ Dominic persisted with his taunt. ‘I’ve been dying to know what happened to you—’
‘Stop it!’ she snapped, and for the first time she let him glimpse that, despite her cool facade, she was struggling too. ‘You don’t have to outright lie,’ Rachel said. ‘But at the very least I’m sure we can manage to be professional and polite.’
‘That I can do.’
‘Good.’
‘But it goes both ways,’ Dominic warned her. ‘I mean it, Rachel. I expect the same from you.’
‘You’ll get it. I would never let my past interfere with my work.’
Only perhaps she didn’t understand what he was saying—so Dominic made it clear. ‘Please don’t think that just because we were married for five minutes it gives you any licence to lecture me.’
‘Why would I lecture you?’
‘Maybe not lecture...’ Dominic said. ‘But I date, Rachel. I date a lot.’
‘That’s fine. It’s none of my business.’
‘Exactly.’
* * *
Except Rachel felt her nostrils tighten and pinch, for she loathed the thought of him with someone else. Lots of someone elses.
She hated herself for it, but couldn’t help asking, ‘When you say a lot...?’
‘I’m single,’ Dominic said, ‘and I’m staying that way. But that doesn’t mean I’ve taken a vow of celibacy.’
‘That’s your choice.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Dominic said, ‘and one that I’ll continue to make even if my ex-wife is working in the same building.’
‘About that...’ Rachel said. ‘I think it would be better if we don’t tell anyone we were married.’ She registered his quick swallow. ‘You haven’t told anyone, surely?’
‘I said something to Richard—my boss. I didn’t say that it was you...just that I’d run into my ex-wife.’
‘Why would you do that?’
He answered with a question of his own. ‘Will you tell your fiancé that your ex-husband is working at The Primary?’ Dominic asked.
She glanced up, a little stunned by the question. ‘That’s different...’
‘Not really,’ Dominic said. ‘Aside from the fact we work together all day, Richard’s a good friend. He knew something was up and he asked.’
Rachel let out a breath.
‘So?’ Dominic persisted. ‘Will you tell your fiancé?’
‘Yes,’ Rachel said, though she wasn’t so sure.
There was a knot in her chest—a whole matted knot of emotions that she wasn’t sure she wanted to dissect. Of course the answer should be yes. After all, she and Gordon didn’t keep secrets. He knew about her past.
‘Rachel, there is one other thing I’d like to say.’ Dominic interrupted her thoughts. ‘And not just because we’re going to be working together. It’s something I’ve wanted to be able to say to you for a long time...’
He shifted in his seat and then those velvet brown eyes met hers.
He took a breath and looked right at her. ‘I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to adequately support you.’
She frowned, and then gave a sort of half-laugh. ‘We were eighteen, Dominic. We got by. Well, barely... But—’
‘I’m not talking about financially. I know I didn’t handle things as well as I could have when you lost the baby...’
It had been her dad who’d alerted Rachel to the fact that her period was late.
Not through conversation—they were far too awkward to talk about that type of thing.
She’d taken a break from her studies to make lunch for her dad when he’d come back from doing the weekly shop.
And there on the bench was a bag just for her, containing her ‘bits’—pink deodorant and pink razors, tampons and pads.
Enough for an entire pack of Girl Guides, because her dad got embarrassed buying them so got a job lot every couple of months.
And it was then she’d realised that she was late.
A few days of silent panic later she had taken a test and then curled up on her bed and wished, more than ever, that her mum was alive—for she would surely have known what to do.
Her exams had been awful. Everything Rachel knew, everything she had learnt, had flown out of the window as she’d panicked at the prospect of telling her dad.
And Dominic.
She’d waited outside the school, where he’d been sitting a physics exam, and he’d come out wearing a wide relieved smile—which had soon faded when she’d shared her news.
‘I’ve got a doctor’s appointment this afternoon,’ Rachel had added, when Dominic had said nothing.
‘So it’s not definite, then?’
‘The test says I am.’
‘But we’re always careful.’
And they had been. They’d used condoms every single time. But a dull flush had come to her cheeks as they’d walked.
One time.
One time they’d dozed and then started fooling around again. When he’d entered her for a second time, they’d lingered a while before putting the condom on.
But that had been ages ago.
Months...
‘I think my dad’s guessed,’ she’d admitted as they walked through the park. ‘I keep on being sick. I told him it was just exam nerves, but now the exams are over...’
‘Why didn’t you tell me when you first found out?’ he’d demanded.
‘Because I wanted at least one of us to pass the exams!’
Rachel had wanted to hide it for as long as possible, but Dominic had faced it head-on.
His parents had been appalling, and had made it clear what a disappointment their son was, and later they had even told Rachel that she was bringing their son down to her working-class level.
Her father’s reaction...
Well, Rachel would never know what his initial reaction had been.
Dominic had insisted he would deal with it, so she had sat in a bar, nursing a grapefruit juice, while he had spoken to her father alone.
‘Was he angry?’ she’d asked when Dominic had joined her.
‘More worried than angry,’ Dominic had said. ‘He asked what I intended to do about it. I told him that I’ll take care of you both...that we’ll get married.’
‘Married?’ She’d shaken her head. Because in her most private thoughts, before the pregnancy, she’d dreamt of that.
Just not like this.
Never like this.
‘Your dad’s offered me a job.’
‘But you’re going to university. That’s what you’ve always wanted.’
‘Rachel, we’re having a baby!’
That was when, for the first time, it had started to sink in. They had sat there, staring at each other, both a little stunned as reality hit.
‘I’m going to defer,’ Dominic had told her. ‘Assuming I get the right results...’
‘You’ll get them.’
‘I’ll work my backside off this year,’ Dominic had gone on. ‘And maybe next year, once the baby’s here...’ His voice had trailed off, but then he’d rallied. ‘We’ll get there.’
A month later they’d been married at Sheffield Town Hall. Her family had been there to cheer them on, dressed in suits and wearing wide smiles, whereas his family had refused to attend and hadn’t sent so much as a card.
His family, who would have happily supported him through his degree, had cut Dominic off at the knees in an attempt to force him away from Rachel.
Her dad had offered them a place to live for a while—at home with him. But Dominic had refused.
‘I can’t live and work with him, Rachel.’
‘Meaning...?’ She had been instantly defensive, but Dominic had refused to elaborate.
After a little celebration in her dad’s back garden they had headed for the tiny flat they had rented.
For the first couple of months of their marriage it had felt a little like a game.
Back then, as they’d realised they were a married couple—a real married couple—they’d enjoyed the freedom and privacy of having their own place, with no parents to check on them or tell them to leave the bedroom door open.
‘You can do your exams again,’ Dominic had told her when the results had come in.
Dominic had aced his, yet he’d deferred his studies, as he’d promised, and taken the job with her father and her brothers.
‘Just till we get sorted,’ he’d said.
But they had never got themselves sorted, no matter how hard they’d tried.
And now here they were, face to face in a hospital canteen, looking back on their lives, with Dominic trying to speak to her about the most difficult part: their baby.
‘I really don’t want to discuss it here, Dominic.’ She snapped the top down on her little sandwich box and screwed the lid on her water bottle.
‘You’re the one who suggested the canteen.’
‘Yes—and now I have to get back.’
They were all caught up. What more was there to say that could be said in a place like this? That she would ever want to say?
‘But you haven’t eaten your frittata.’
That made her smile.
‘It’s no fun without the pastry.’
It was a tiny joke, yet it smacked of them, of how they’d used to be, of how easy it had once been between them. And when he gave a low laugh her regret was instant.
She’d missed that laugh.