Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
ARIELLA
‘I want to know what happened to your CFO,’ Samir demands, sitting down in his chair.
I stand where I am.
‘He refused to put in systems that ensured our due diligence requirements were met. There were gaps in the clients’ contract that needed to be closed and demands for more transparency.’
‘As my COO, why didn’t?—’
‘I’m not your COO, Samir. You are yet to recruit your COO and I would appreciate an indication of when that will happen. The team really could use someone in that role.’
‘What aren’t you telling me, Ariella?’
‘Samir, I have answered— Excuse me.’
I walk quickly to our bathroom, where I vomit the contents of my stomach into the open toilet. The cool floor is welcome and, just when I’m thinking about standing, I throw up again.
‘Aari?’ I hear Lydia call.
‘In here.’ I unlock my stall for Lydia to push the door open.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes. Food poisoning, I think. I cooked some chicken last night and it tasted strange.’
‘Do you know?—’
‘Lydia?’ I hear Caleb call from outside the bathroom.
‘She’s fine!’ Lydia responds.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Yes.’
I retch as he makes his way to the stall.
‘Aari,’ Caleb says as he strokes my back to soothe me.
‘I think it must have been last night’s chicken.’
‘I’m going to get you a car. I think you need to go home. I’ll let MsPat know what has happened and tell Samir that I’m sending you home,’ Lydia offers before she leaves Caleb and me in the bathroom stall.
Caleb sits on the floor with me, rubbing my back gently as the waves of nausea arrive and depart, until the car comes. Lydia grabs my things and a sick bag from the medical box then sends me home with Caleb.
When we get there, Caleb holds me under a cool shower and, when I am feeling better, he makes a little bed on the living room sofa for us.
‘MrCaleb. I need ginger and fresh mint please,’ MsPat says, emerging from the kitchen and handing him a strip of paper. ‘You go, I look after Miss Ariella.’
I really don’t want Caleb to leave and, by the look on his face, neither does he.
‘MsPat, can we pick it up tomorrow?’ Caleb asks.
‘No, MrCaleb. Please go. Now.’
MsPat has never asked for anything, and looks after us so lovingly, the forcefulness of her request takes us both by surprise.
‘I guess I’d better go then,’ Caleb says and kisses my head. ‘I’ll be quick.’
‘Hmmm,’ MsPat says as she frowns at him. I must be imagining it. She loves him.
As soon as Caleb has left, MsPat returns to the kitchen quickly, then joins me on the sofa, holding a cup of fresh ginger tea.
‘Drink,’ she says as she sits.
‘MsPat, I really don’t feel like?—’
‘Drink.’
I sit up and take a sip of her tea. She motions for me to have more with a couple of flicks of her wrist, and I do. Only then does she take the tea from me, place it on the coffee table, reach for my hand and clasp it in hers.
‘Good. Miss Ariella,’ she starts, looking at me with love and warmth in her eyes. ‘You not sick. You have a baby.’
‘Well, I guess Caleb’s pull-out game sucks,’ Lara says from where she is sitting on the side of the bath, flicking the pregnancy test around like a mercury thermometer.
‘Lara, you have to leave it alone on the side or I’m going to have to do another one.’
I’m sitting on the loo with my knickers round my ankles, still reeling from the shock.
‘Do another one now just in case. I don’t think I’ll be able to wait for another three minutes.’
‘We’ll have to wait for another three hours. That’s how long the urine needs to be in my system for an accurate test.’
Lara drops it immediately.
‘So, I’m thinking Elsie if it’s a girl. To be fair, I’m also thinking Elsie if it’s a boy. What do you think?’
It’s times like this that I love Lara and I’ll be forever grateful that she’s my best friend. If she wasn’t here distracting me by making ridiculous suggestions, I’d be unable to cope with the anxiety that is currently threatening to take over.
When MsPat told me her theory, I went completely numb with the shock. It was her who called Lara from my phone and asked her to discreetly bring two pregnancy tests so we could know for sure before I told Caleb. Lara arrived with Honey, just after Caleb returned with MsPat’s fresh ginger and mint.
Lara picks up the test and her eyes widen.
‘What?’
‘Yup. MsPat was on the money. You’re knocked up.’
The chaos and confusion in my mind explodes and the tears start to fall. How can I have a baby now? I’m thousands of miles away from home, tied to a two-year contract, in love with someone who I have a short, intense but tumultuous history with, and I’m not ready. I’m only just discovering who I am, how can I possibly look after another human being?
‘Lara, I don’t know if I can have this baby,’ I admit, bursting into tears.
‘Oh babe, you don’t have to know right now.’ Lara comes over and kneels by the loo to hold me, underwear round my ankles and all. We stay like that until I feel I need to stand under the shower for a while.
Lara carefully wraps the test for disposal and promises to confirm MsPat’s suspicions quietly to her. By the time I return to the couch downstairs she, Honey and MsPat are gone.
‘Lara told me you wanted me to give you some time to become less disgusting from all the puke, or I’d have come up to check on you. She said it was like the Exorcist pea soup scene up there. She did the sound effects and everything.’ Caleb smiles sympathetically. ‘Come here.’
He arranges himself at one end of the couch and stretches out his arms so that I can cuddle him as I lie down. I go straight into him and curl up, pulling our couch blanket over us.
‘Seeing you sick is awful, Aari.’ He pulls me closer. I can’t not tell him.
‘I’m not sick, Caleb.’ I exhale softly to rid myself of the nerves as I sit up to face him. ‘I’m pregnant.’
I have never seen Caleb so shocked or silent. I curl back into him and wait. After a while he holds me tighter.
‘What do you want to do, Aari?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Whatever you want, I’ll support you. All the way.’ He kisses my head.
‘What do you think?’ I ask him.
‘I think I’m in denial because I really want to take the piss. It hasn’t sunk in yet – but it explains why MsPat had a go at me earlier.’
‘She had a go at you?’
‘Yeah. She gave me a dirty look, said I play too much and that I was a grown man now. All I did was juggle the ginger before I gave it to her. She looked sad and I was trying to cheer her up.’
It starts as a little laugh and ends up building to a point where I can’t stop. Caleb joins in and we hold on to each other, laughing.
‘I love you, Caleb.’ And I do. I really, really do.
‘I love you too. And let this be a warning to naughty girls who do what they want. They don’t get to escape the consequences of their actions.’ He hugs me tightly. He has pinpointed when it could have happened.
‘You were a willing participant!’
‘For sure, but let’s not forget that I was also the voice of reason. I told you what good girls would do.’
‘I haven’t been a good girl since that first night on the kitchen counter, Caleb.’
‘I doubt you were a good girl before that!’
My shocked look makes him laugh.
‘Thank you for making this feel lighter, Caleb.’
‘Don’t thank me just yet. I don’t trust my judgement when it comes to you, Ariella Mason. I’d literally commit to raising a colony of rabies-infested vampire bats in the middle of any war-torn country of your choice, as long as I was doing it with you.’
I believe him. I close my eyes and he hugs me to sleep.