Chapter 12 #2
‘What?’ he snapped. ‘What aren’t you telling me, Bella?’
‘It was… um… a bit past its use-by date. I didn’t think it would matter.’
She was looking stricken now. A guilty child knowing she’d done something really bad.
But it was so like her, wasn’t it? Slap-dash. Seizing the moment and not worrying about something that was unlikely to happen that might trip her up. Trusting her instincts, which, he had to admit, were often exactly the right things to trust.
Like the approach she’d taken with his mother.
If it hadn’t been for Bella’s often outrageous disregard for convention and consequences, his mother might still be in a hospital bed, too depressed to consider attempting rehabilitation.
Oliver would never forget the sight of those bright pink track pants stuffed into the rubbish bin.
Even now, he could feel his lips wanting to curl upwards.
‘I know it was irresponsible,’ Bella was saying now. ‘And I’m sorry.’
Oliver was sorry too. Sorry that he’d started this conversation in such an angry and negative fashion. What his mother wanted had nothing to do with this but how was Bella to know that at some point during the long and sleepless night he’d just suffered, he’d realised that he wanted to marry her?
That this pregnancy might be a blessing in disguise. The prod he needed to get past all the… stuffiness he’d surrounded himself with for so many years as he did the ‘right thing’ and avoided painful emotional involvements.
Maybe the thing that had tipped the balance was knowing that if he didn’t marry her, she would disappear.
He understood now why she’d been so quiet and unusually well behaved in the last few weeks.
She’d known about the pregnancy. Part of her had gone AWOL then and he’d been haunted by it, hadn’t he?
Constantly thinking about her when he was supposed to be focused on his work. Knowing that something wasn’t right.
Missing her.
If she disappeared from his life, how much worse would that feeling that something was missing become?
It would become unbearable, that’s what.
Because, at a somewhat later point in the night, probably when dawn had been about to break, the pieces had fallen into place, followed by a sense of peace that had led to him finally falling deeply asleep – the reason he hadn’t been upstairs and ready for Bella’s arrival, as he’d intended to be.
That peace had come from knowing that the feeling that he’d always burned off with his exercise had gone, and it had gone for good.
That feeling that something was missing from his life and he didn’t know what it was – had he really only experienced it again yesterday when he’d been watching Bella with her family?
He knew what it was now.
Not simply family, even though he knew his mother was right and he had the chance here to become a part of a real family. One where there was a bond between every member and not an island of protection like the bond he’d had with his mother as a child.
No. What had been missing had been the kind of love you could only have with someone who wasn’t a member of your family. The kind that gave birth to a new generation. A new family.
The kind of love he had for Bella.
Now was the time to tell her. Not to do the ‘right thing’ but to put things right. To make them as they should be. But he had some explaining to do first, didn’t he?
‘We come from very different backgrounds, Bella, don’t we?’
She was eyeing him warily, as if she was expecting him to accuse her of fortune hunting.
Oliver gave his head an unconscious shake, denying the suspicion.
‘My parents got married because it was expected of them,’ he said. ‘Not because they had ever been in love with each other.’
Bella made a soft, huffing sound. ‘Are you about to tell me they got married because your mother was pregnant?’
‘What? Good God, no.’ The idea was just as bizarre as imagining Lady Dorothy wearing bright pink track pants with an elasticised waist. ‘No. They came from the same social circle. People who shared the same aspirations and values. Everybody thought it was a perfect match.’
‘And was it?’
‘No. Far from it.’
‘Well… there you go, then.’
‘Sorry?’ The comment was incomprehensible enough to fuel a gathering confusion.
What was it he’d been intending to say? Something about having told her a relationship between them was inappropriate but not because she didn’t fit the expected mould of the people who’d always been in his life.
The inappropriateness was because he wasn’t the kind of man she should probably be with.
Oliver was afraid to tell her how he felt, he realised, because it was entirely possible that Bella would tell him it couldn’t possibly happen. That he would be a dead weight in the kind of life she had planned for herself. That he would hold her back and make her life less exciting. Less fun.
‘Expectations aren’t reliable, are they?’ Bella’s question was crisp.
Was she referring to his parents’ marriage?
‘No,’ Oliver agreed. ‘They’re not.’
Bella was standing straight and tall in front of him. Her gaze was intense. Fierce, even.
‘I’m not the same as that girl you knew at university, Oliver. I’m not after your money and I certainly don’t expect you to offer to marry me.’
She drew in such a decisive breath it sounded like a sniff.
‘And you can forget any expectations that you need to marry me because I’m pregnant,’ she added, turning on her heel. ‘We live in a very different generation from your parents, Oliver, and I wouldn’t consider marrying anyone who wasn’t in love with me. Or who I wasn’t in love with.’
Oliver found himself left standing alone, staring after Bella as she wrenched the door open and marched through it. What had that meant?
That it wouldn’t make any difference if he told her that he was in love with her?
Because she wasn’t in love with him?
He couldn’t leave things like this. Oliver strode after Bella. His mother was coming out of the conservatory and he couldn’t ignore her expression.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I forgot that the door was open. Bib ran away into the garden and she might get lost. Bella looked terribly upset.’
Bella was probably upset about a lot more than the cat. With good reason. He’d made a complete mess of trying to talk to her, hadn’t he? Oliver headed into the conservatory and towards the open French doors.
‘Stay here and don’t worry,’ he told his mother. ‘I’m going to see what I can do to fix things.’