Chapter Three
TURNING FULL CIRCLE back from those memories and returning to the present, Tabby stared down at that positive pregnancy test and tossed it in the bin. The deed was done, the wondering at an end and full reality had set in.
That very same morning she had had an appointment with her future husband’s lawyers to sign the pre-nup.
She had forged her sister’s signature in Violet’s usual scrawl and shame covered her from head to toe because she had let her twin down badly.
She was the single one of the two of them, free of dependants and a business, and naturally it would have been easier for her to make that commercial alliance.
Now Violet, with the baby daughter she was adopting and a very demanding bakery, was about to be thrown in at the deep end to marry Tore Renzetti instead and, of course, Tabby felt terrible about that.
Her unfortunate sister would be forced to make many more compromises than would have been demanded of Tabby, whose life had been more fluid and free of responsibility.
Tabby followed that act up with a visit to her twin, needing to confess her sins as soon as possible.
She greeted her twin’s childminder, Joy, who was also Violet’s tenant, who told her that her niece, Belle, was down for a nap, having eaten.
Tabby told Joy that she could leave early, leaving Tabby free to pace the floor in the tiny lounge.
Before Violet had even adjusted to her unannounced visit, Tabby had to dart off to the bathroom in haste where she was sick, an ever increasing reminder of her condition, she reflected unhappily.
‘It’s not a bug,’ Tabby revealed tautly when she reappeared, her lovely face troubled and embarrassed. ‘I wouldn’t be visiting if I had anything contagious. No, the truth is that I’m pregnant.’
‘Pregnant?’ Violet gasped in disbelief. ‘But how? I mean—’
‘Not a virgin any more,’ Tabby cut in somewhat bitterly. ‘You have to remember me saying that there was no way I was going into this marriage a virgin and staying that way for another three years!’
‘So, if you’re pregnant, who’s the father?’ Violet asked worriedly.
Tabby grimaced. ‘Someone I met at work who I believed was just passing through. I thought he would be perfect as I’d never see him again but the birth control let me down.’
Her twin studied her with sympathy. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘It’s more a question of what you are going to do,’ Tabitha stated, turning the question back on her sister.
‘After all, I can’t marry Tore Renzetti now that I’m pregnant.
It would be a breach of the contract I signed and I can’t hide it, so I’ll have to ’fess up and then the marriage won’t go ahead and that means we don’t get the money upfront to cover Mum’s clinical trial. ’
Like Tabby, Violet was horrified by that idea because everything they had agreed had been for their mother’s benefit to enable the older woman to get further treatment unavailable in the UK.
‘I’ve already committed you,’ Tabby admitted with a grimace of apology. ‘I signed the pre-nup in your name. We can’t take the risk at this stage that Renzetti will back out—’
‘But would he? He must want those shares pretty badly to agree to this in the first place. And how am I supposed to pretend to be you when I’m six inches shorter and as dark-haired as you’re fair? His legal team has seen you,’ Violet reminded her in dismay.
‘For the wedding, we’ll stick you in high heels and a blonde wig with a veil on top. We can swing it if we try hard enough,’ Tabby declared with characteristic fortitude.
The worst of her challenges accomplished, Violet’s forgiveness for the bride swap freely given and gratefully accepted, Tabby returned to her shared flat.
Her sister had already suggested that she move in with her because her tenant, Joy, was moving out.
And Tabby could then easily take over running the bakery when Violet was absent.
The offer had only reminded Tabby that she had no permanent employment, no security.
Not a good place to be in with a child on the way, she acknowledged, but she didn’t want to be a burden on Violet, who had quite enough on her plate now with that horrid marriage ahead of her in less than two weeks.
Three years at the mercy of some guy who neither of them knew a thing about.
He was very good-looking too, likely slick and a womaniser, Tabby assumed, having already done her social media exploration on the father of her child.
There was nothing good to be found out about Aristide Romanos online.
He was never seen with the same woman twice which said it all, she thought grimly.
Surely only a rampant playboy would be worrying about a virgin scamming him with a faulty contraceptive?
Or had some unsavoury event turned Aristide bitter and suspicious?
It was a struggle but she was trying to be fair, trying not to hate and demonise the guy who had turned a single wild night, as it were, into a mere hour of humiliation.
She wouldn’t forgive him for that in a hurry, even if he was going to be the father of her child.
She didn’t care how rich and successful he was. That wasn’t an excuse.
At work several weeks later, she received a call back from the doctor’s surgery for another visit and groaned out loud.
Being pregnant certainly seemed to run up the medical attention she required, although if they were able to give her something to combat the terrible nausea with which she was already suffering she would decide to be grateful.
Now that she had taken over managing the bakery, she was surrounded by the fumes of food all day and it exacerbated the morning sickness.
That same evening, feeling like death warmed over, she was on her way out to keep her medical appointment when she walked out of the door of the flat and was confronted by the sight of Aristide in the flesh at the top of the stairs.
‘Oh!’ she gasped in panic, taken aback by the disconcerting sight of him when she had never expected to see him again.
‘Tabby…’ he positively purred, the benevolent tone ill matched to the slanting tension of the smile he dared to accompany it.
‘What the heck are you doing here?’ Tabby demanded sharply, in no mood to pretend that he could ever be a welcome visitor. ‘I don’t want to see you… I don’t want to speak to you either!’
‘Whatever else I may be, I’m responsible,’ Aristide informed her, falling behind her as she clattered on downstairs, ignoring him. ‘Obviously I need to speak to you again to address what happened between us last month.’
Although, in truth, Aristide was thinking that he probably wouldn’t have bothered had it been any other woman in the starring role.
But this was Tabby, Tabby the curiosity, whom he still couldn’t get out of his mind, even if it was very possible that she was a gold-digger.
How did he know? How could he even find out without seeing her again?
So, it was a case of acting responsibly, he assured himself.
‘Not as I see it,’ Tabby said breathlessly as she headed down the next flight of stairs.
‘I need to know if you’re all right,’ Aristide bit out impatiently.
All right? Being sick all the time and tired every hour of the day was all right?
‘No, I’m not all right!’ Tabby snapped back without thought or any more patience than he had. ‘I’m pregnant and that is definitely not all right with me!’
Aristide was stunned, frozen to the spot as she disappeared ahead of him.
By the time he reached street level there was no sign of her and frustration swelled inside him, threatening to overflow like a tidal wave.
How could she just drop that on him and then disappear without another word? What sort of woman was she?
A young woman of twenty-one without anyone to fall back on for support, his sane mind recalled.
He now knew almost everything there was to know about Tabby Blessington.
He didn’t know the details of the planned marriage she had flung in his teeth two months earlier but, more importantly, he knew that the wedding had gone ahead without her as the bride.
He was also aware that she had quit her job as a temp and was in the process of moving out of her current accommodation into her sister’s apartment above the bakery, which she was currently running.
Tabby submitted to another blood test at the health centre with poor grace.
The nurse mentioned the need for her to make another doctor’s appointment to see if anything could be done to help her with the morning sickness.
Tabby made that appointment at the desk but she was really running on automatic pilot because everything after Aristide’s appearance had taken on the oddest sense of unreality.
Aristide, standing there as if he had stepped out of a dream, looking exactly the same as he had looked that day they first met.
Ridiculously tall, impossibly handsome, black hair a little ruffled and long enough to start curling, something she suspected he usually curbed by keeping it shorter.
Nothing had changed for him but everything had changed for her.
And it would’ve been a lie to deny that she was somewhat bitter and resentful over the truth that a woman suffered more than a man when she fell pregnant.
A glimpse of Aristide, untouched by all the chaos that had engulfed her, had infuriated her and betrayed her into an honesty she would never have given him in any other circumstances.
So, now that he knew there had been consequences, she wouldn’t see him for dust, she assumed with satisfaction.