CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVEN
Shifting back on his elbows against the sand, Harris tipped back his head and stared up at the black velvet of the sky, his gaze tracking the disappearing lights of a plane.
It was nearly one o’clock in the morning and it was a calm, cloudless night. Perfect for stargazing and he had already done a quick scan of the sky, ticking off the various stars and planets that were currently visible in this hemisphere. There was the Crux and Centaurus, and that was the Carina Nebula, a beautiful interstellar cloud that couldn’t be seen in New York.
But he always came back to that bright speck of light.
Perhaps because of his navy training, or maybe it was just his natural reticence, but his father had never talked much about his working life. He had an office with the usual certificates and photos that men like him accumulated over their careers and even the odd souvenir of his time in space, but he’d never talked about his life up there.
Not with his son anyway. But then, out of all those photos, there was not one of his family.
Maybe that was why when his father had bothered to sit down one crisp winter evening and show Harris the light from the space station, it had stayed with him. Most days, when it was visible he would look up at least once during the evening to stare at it just as he had done when he was a kid.
Back then, those few minutes of gazing at that small but luminous pinprick of light had often felt like his only connection with his father.
It still did.
But there was another reason now that he kept up with his old habit. He liked to think that somewhere on the other side of the world, his daughter might be looking up at the brightest star in her sky and that her gaze and his would somehow meet in the middle.
Maybe she was looking right now. Looking for him.
Except he knew that she wasn’t. Why would she be looking? She had a father.
It was a physical pain.
But at least she was alive.
He thought back to the moment when Eden had told him about her miscarriage and the pain in his chest made it hard to swallow. She had looked like a wounded animal, not just stricken but stunned, as if she were still there in the hospital losing her baby.
She had been so scared and alone and up in her bedroom it had been clear that she still felt that way now. He didn’t know how to make it happen, but he knew he wanted that to change. He needed to do something so that she would feel safe, and know that she wasn’t alone, that he would be there for her.
His pulse slowed as he remembered holding her close. She had felt right in his arms, so familiar, which made no sense because they hadn’t even met six weeks ago.
Maybe it was because so much had happened in such a short time that it felt longer. It wasn’t just the baby, it was the mess he’d made of his life trying to cage Tiger, and beneath it all an emptiness that seemed to mock his diary of prestigious invitations.
He had all this wealth and power. People hounded him to attend their events and yet he felt alone, just as if he were standing on the moon and gazing down at the Earth. But then he’d always felt alone even when he was theoretically part of a family. After his parents’ divorce the feeling had been exacerbated but school had helped him lose sight of it. There you were rarely alone for long or given enough free time to dwell on how you were feeling.
By the time Jessie was pregnant and he’d found out he was going to be a father, he hadn’t known how to let anyone get close.
And yet with Eden, it had been easy. Obviously, they’d had sex, so intimacy was a given.
Only it wasn’t just about the sex. He’d felt a connection with her that went beyond bodies and damp skin and hands gripping each other tightly. Like in his office when he had shown her how to find the space station like some science geek. He’d wanted to see her reaction, to watch the way her green eyes danced with excitement when she spotted the light.
He had almost kissed her then. If Ted hadn’t blundered in, he would have done.
He had wanted to kiss her yesterday after she’d told him about the miscarriage even though he’d known it would be reckless to do so. Kicking up the sparks from what had happened in New York would only complicate things and he hadn’t wanted Eden thinking that was why he’d brought her here, because it wasn’t.
Don’t lie , he thought, his body loosening and tightening all at once. You can lie to everyone else but not yourself. Which was maybe why he had gone ahead and kissed her.
But she was here because until he knew if that was his baby she was carrying, she had to be.
His eyes lifted once more to the glittering stars. He wasn’t going to lose another child. And to make sure that didn’t happen he needed Eden to feel that her trust in him was not misplaced.
The following morning, she came down slightly late for breakfast.
He had expected… Actually, he didn’t know what he’d expected, and perhaps that was a good thing. He’d made assumptions about Eden before and been wrong.
She met his gaze politely as she sat down opposite him and began to eat some of her fruit and home-made granola.
‘About last—’
‘I wanted to—’
They both spoke at once.
‘You go first.’
She hesitated a moment. ‘I just wanted to thank you for last night. I didn’t mean to dump all that on you.’
‘You didn’t dump anything on me and there’s nothing to thank me for,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t know how you’ve held it all together. Finding out you were pregnant and then me barging in on you when you were still stunned, press-ganging you into coming here.’
Remembering how he had frogmarched her to the waiting limo, he felt a hot wave of shame spill over him.
‘It wasn’t ideal. But if you hadn’t turned up, I think I would have just stayed stunned. I needed to talk about what happened before.’ Her green eyes were suddenly naked in a way that made him feel unhinged. ‘That’s why I got so upset yesterday. Saying it out loud for the first time. It was a bit of a shock.’
She’d never told anyone. But she’d told him. He stared down at her at the exact same moment she looked up at him and for a moment he could see himself reflected in the depths of her pupils. He knew that she must be seeing herself reflected in his and it felt so intimate and all-consuming that it took him an almost ludicrously long time to simply say, ‘I can see that.’
‘I know it must have been a shock to you too, but I wanted to tell you that you were very sweet, and kind.’
She hesitated then, and he waited, not wanting to probe or push; after all, he’d done enough of that already. Was that it? Was she including their kiss in his sweetness and kindness? Or did she not want to talk about that? His eyes flicked over her face, looking for clues.
Or maybe she just wanted to pretend it had never happened or almost not quite happened.
The latter , he thought, as she picked up her herbal tea and sipped it cautiously. She didn’t say as much but he wasn’t so lacking in empathy that he couldn’t sense how little she wanted to have that particular conversation with him.
To distract himself from how intensely he wanted to know why that should be the case, he glanced over to where she was still sipping her tea.
‘Is there something wrong?’
‘No, it’s just some things taste a bit odd at the moment, like coffee and regular tea, but this is fine.’
‘Good.’ He hesitated, feeling suddenly almost nervous. ‘Look, I don’t know how to put this, so I’m just going to come straight out and say it. I’ve arranged for us to see a doctor in St Martin this morning.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Eden was staring at Harris in confusion.
‘It’s an island just a little further south from St Barth’s. You might have seen it when we flew in,’ he added. ‘There’s a private medical clinic there that I’m confident will be able to help us.’
‘But it’s too early. They can’t tell yet—’
Frowning, he shook his head. ‘It’s not to do the paternity test.’ He reached across the table and took her hand.
‘I know you’re worried about the baby, and I did some research and found out there’s an early scan that can be done.’
The clinic in St Martin had a scanner that would be able to tell them what Eden needed to know right now. He would have preferred to use his own medical clinic in New York, and he had considered flying back, but it was the difference between a ten-minute hop in a helicopter and a four-hour flight and Eden was already stressed about the pregnancy. He didn’t want to add to that stress.
‘If you don’t want to go,’ he said quickly, ‘that’s fine. I just thought it might help.’
He felt a flicker of self-loathing because what had he done to help her so far?
Nothing.
His actions had been entirely self-serving, but he had justified his behaviour in the moment because of what had happened in the past.
Except it was his past, not hers. Hers had been unknown, irrelevant. He had looked at her pale, stunned face and seen fear but assumed that she was scared of his reaction, never once thinking that she was terrified she might lose her baby.
He had put his own needs before hers.
But then what did he know about the needs of a pregnant woman? When Jessie had told him she was pregnant, his initial reaction had been a white-out of panic and disbelief followed by a string of swear words and a pinch of blame.
Unsurprisingly Jessie had seen him as another responsibility after that, rather than the support and confidant he could have been. He had never seen her again. She had left for Australia two days later and so, in answer to his own question, he knew nothing about the needs of a pregnant woman.
His jaw tightened. Out of all the many things he’d said and hadn’t said that day, that pinch of blame was what he regretted the most. Thankfully, he hadn’t done that with Eden, which was something at least. But he had coerced and chivvied her into doing what he wanted.
And he was going to have to live with that, as he was living with the consequences of letting Jessie down. But Eden didn’t have to live with her fear. He could at least do something about that.
‘It’s called a reassurance scan. It’s carried out between six to ten weeks. They can see the heartbeat and whether the pregnancy is the right size according to the date of your last period.’
Eden was still staring at him across the table.
‘You did that for me?’
‘The first proper scan isn’t for another few weeks, but I know you’re worried and the waiting is probably making it worse. I thought seeing the baby on screen might make you worry less.’
She smiled shakily. ‘I think it will.’
It was already making her feel calmer, Eden thought as she walked back downstairs thirty minutes later to look for Harris. But it wasn’t just the appointment. It was the fact that he had arranged it. That he wanted to help.
Which was astonishing given everything she had thrown at him yesterday. Most men would have been blindsided by what she had told him.
She had certainly blindsided herself.
Yesterday was the first time that she had properly allowed herself to go back there. To start at the beginning and push through to the end. At the start it had felt so real, not like a memory at all but as if it were happening all over again. She’d felt that gut-wrenching panic and desolation of losing the baby she hadn’t had time to acknowledge.
Until Harris had pulled her close and she’d felt his warmth and strength seep through her, and her fear had subsided. Then it had felt real in a new way, a way she hadn’t anticipated.
Finally, she had felt able to admit her grief out loud for the baby she had never met but whose absence she still felt so keenly. Harris had made that happen. Made the invisible visible. He had given shape to her loss, and she had never felt so complete, so seen.
And held.
Not shouldered like a burden that someone was waiting to put down, which was how Liam had made her feel. Harris had made her feel precious and necessary.
If she closed her eyes even a fraction, she could feel his body next to hers when he’d kissed her.
Her fingers twitched by her side as she remembered how his hand had splayed against her back for a second or two and how he’d inhaled deeply, breathing her in as if she were oxygen.
Standing there in his arms, she’d been lost in his heartbeat, completely at one with him to the point where she hadn’t been able to feel where he ended, and she began.
And everything in the room, in the villa, on the island, on the planet had felt as if it had shrunk to the size of a pinprick, distant stars in the vast expanse of space.
There was just him.
Harris.
His mouth.
His pulse.
His breath.
The taste of him, and the heat of him.
The feel of his body tensing with pleasure as she’d leaned into him, deepening the kiss.
Her senses had exploded, body blooming, opening like a flower with the strength of her desire. She could have kept kissing him like that till the end of time. And she would have prised herself open or, better still, let him shuck her like an oyster.
But he had stopped it before they’d even got that far, and she should have been relieved. Things were already complicated enough between them. They didn’t need to add another sexual encounter into the mix.
She knew that and yet she had felt hugely conflicted. More than conflicted, she had felt torn in two, and when he’d stepped away from her his absence had been like a physical ache.
‘Ready?’
Harris was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. He looked casual and relaxed in cream chinos and a dark green polo shirt that emphasised the stretch of his biceps. Day-old stubble added to the whole ‘billionaire on vacation’ vibe, although there couldn’t be many billionaires on the planet who were quite as temptingly louche and sexy…
‘Yes.’ She nodded firmly to try and shake her thoughts about Harris being sexy out of her head. ‘Are we going by boat?’
He shook his head. ‘We could take the boat, but it’s quicker to fly. Not the jet, obviously. We’ll take the helicopter. It’s only around a twelve-minute flight.’
Of course he owned a helicopter. And there it was, squatting on a square of concrete like an oversized housefly. Except it was white, not black.
‘Very chic,’ she said quietly.
‘Have you flown in a helicopter before?’ he asked as he opened up the passenger door for her. ‘Are you okay with this?’ he added as she shook her head in answer to his first question.
‘Yes, I’ll be fine.’ She frowned. ‘Don’t you want to sit in the front?’
‘I will be.’
Her eyes moved over to the pilot’s seat and then back to where she was sitting. ‘How? There’s only two seats and the pilot’s going to be sitting in that one.’
Harris nodded. ‘He is. I am.’
Before she could react, he had closed the door. She watched him walk around the front of the helicopter and then he was climbing in beside her.
‘You’re the pilot?’
His mouth did that curving thing, which made the interior of the cockpit fade. ‘I seem destined to constantly underwhelm you. Yes, today I am the pilot. Getting my licence was one of the first things I did after I had money to spare. I’ve been flying for about five years now.’
‘I see.’ Except she didn’t. She just about managed to go to the gym twice a week. How on earth did anyone as busy as Harris have the time to learn how to fly a helicopter?
‘You don’t sound convinced.’ He pressed a switch on the instrument panel.
‘It’s just I was remembering what you said about people not finding it easy to speak truth to power.’
He laughed. ‘I wasn’t talking about my helicopter instructor.’
She nodded but as soon as he’d laughed her brain had seemed to lose all functionality. All she could do was stare at him because she had got her wish. She had made him laugh and it felt undeniably good and a whole lot of other things that she couldn’t give a name to.
Clearing her throat, she gave what she hoped was a casual, offhand shrug. ‘Okay, then. But I think it’s fair enough to have my doubts. I mean, I’ve watched enough movies where the hero has to fly something, and it all goes horribly wrong, and they have to use an inflatable dinghy for a parachute. What?’ He was shaking his head. ‘Is this where you tell me that helicopters are safer than cars?’
‘Not right now. I’m too busy enjoying the fact that you see me as a hero.’
Her mouth felt suddenly dry. ‘I didn’t say that,’ she protested.
He glanced over, his grey gaze resting steadily on her face, which felt hot and was probably tomato coloured.
‘I was just…never mind…now could you please stop looking at me and watch the road or the sea or whatever it is that you have to watch?’
She had nothing to base her assessment on, given that she had never flown in a helicopter before, but Harris seemed to be as expert as he’d suggested. Occasionally, he would lean forward and press some button on the instrument panel. Once he pointed out a school of dolphins in the sea below and she had pressed her face against the glass, enchanted by the perfect synchronicity of their gleaming bodies as they leapt out of the water. Other than that, he was quiet and focused and exactly twelve minutes later the helicopter touched down on a different square of concrete.
A car was waiting for them, because that was how it worked in his world, and ten minutes later she was sitting on a couch in a pleasant, south-facing room at the Concordia Medical Centre.
Samantha, the sonographer, was very smiley and friendly but Eden could feel her body tensing as she waited. The last time she’d had a scan was after losing the baby. It had been a transvaginal scan with a probe that hadn’t been painful but nor had it been particularly enjoyable.
‘Do I need to undress?’
Samantha shook her head. ‘No, not for this kind of scan. But if you could just pull up your top, Ms Fennell.’
She felt Harris shift forward in his seat. ‘I don’t have to stay if you—’
‘I want you to,’ she said quickly. ‘If you want to stay.’
Their eyes met and he nodded, and the softness of his grey gaze and the size and solidity of his body made it easier to reach down and pull up her top.
‘That’s perfect, thank you.’ Samantha smiled. ‘Now, have either of you done this before?’ As they both shook their heads, she gestured towards the window. ‘Then you might be wondering why the blinds are closed. That’s because it helps us to see the images more clearly. Now I’m going to put some gel on your skin and then I’m going to pass this probe over your tummy and a picture is going to appear on the screen.’
Eden glanced up at the monitor, her chest tightening. Please, she prayed silently. Please let everything be okay.
‘And there is the baby.’
She breathed out shakily, relief churning inside her stomach. Harris’s hand covered hers and she turned towards him and saw that he looked relieved too. Which made her feel guilty and yet oddly happy.
Samantha tapped the screen.
‘So, everything looks good. First things first. I can see one baby. Heart is beating at around one hundred and forty per minute.’
Eden swallowed. ‘That seems very fast.’
‘Babies’ hearts beat faster than ours.’ Harris’s deep voice seemed to fill the room as he spoke.
Samantha beamed at him. ‘That’s correct, Mr Carver. The foetal heartbeat is around twice as fast as an adult heart rate, so Baby Fennell is well within the normal range.’ She moved the probe, then pointed at the screen. ‘That’s the umbilical cord, and I can see that the placenta is nice and high. As far as a due date is concerned, I could give you a rough estimate or if you’re happy to wait then the twelve-week scan will be far more accurate.’
‘I don’t mind waiting.’ Eden turned to him. ‘Do you?’
He shook his head and she felt him squeeze her hand. ‘I’m happy to wait.’
Samantha turned to type something into her notes. ‘Obviously this scan is just showing us the baby’s development at this time, but I hope you’re both feeling reassured by what you’ve seen today.’
Eden nodded. ‘I am, thank you.’
But it wasn’t only the scan that had reassured her, it was Harris. The more she got to know him, the more she felt that she could trust him. That cool-eyed man with a list of demands who had pushed his way into her apartment was a hangover from the working day. Here, beneath the Caribbean sun, she was seeing a completely different side to him.
Softer. More approachable. A good man, a kind, decent man who would make a great father.
Which was more than she could have hoped for her baby, and that was all that mattered, wasn’t it?
Yes, she told herself firmly. Okay, so there was something else between them other than the pregnancy. A heated shimmer that clung to the air around them, pressing in on them, pushing them closer, but that was just something left over from that night at the hotel. It would fade.
Samantha handed her some paper towels to wipe away the gel.
‘I’ve asked Dr Krantz to step in, just to look over my notes, and if you have any questions, she’ll be happy to answer them.’
Dr Krantz was older than Samantha but equally reassuring. ‘I can see nothing of concern. Everything looks completely normal. So, keep doing what you’re doing. Get plenty of rest. Keep active. Stay hydrated. I’m sure you’re already following the guidelines when it comes to avoiding certain foods. If you’re unsure, this booklet is very helpful.’
She handed it to Eden.
‘I find that after experiencing a loss in pregnancy, many of my clients are often concerned about sex.’ She glanced at each of them in turn. ‘But unless there’s been bleeding in the current pregnancy, which there hasn’t, there’s no reason to not have sex. Although you might be more comfortable trying out different positions. Now, any other questions? No? Then, I think we’re all done. Except, would you like a photo of your scan? You can pick them up in Reception. There’s just a small charge.’
On the flight home, neither of them spoke much. She was too busy looking at the photos of the baby, and Harris’s attention was focused on the instrument panel. But as they walked back into the villa, she wondered whether he had been as focused as she thought because he still seemed oddly quiet and distracted.
She would give her right arm to know what he was thinking and feeling.
Her heart bumped against her ribs jerkily. Would he be feeling something different if he knew for sure that the baby was his? She felt a quiver of guilt that she had robbed him of that knowledge, and layered through that guilt was regret at her stupidity.
Why had she lied to him about having other partners?
But it was too late to do anything about that now. Once the paternity test had been confirmed then he would know exactly where he stood.
And then what?
It wasn’t the first time she had asked herself that question, and she had assumed, hoped really, that time would bring greater clarity, but with every passing day she felt less sure of everything.
Other than that she liked him. A lot.
Best not to think about it too much , she thought, for the umpteenth time.
It was strange being back at the villa. She felt relieved, and then confused because it felt as if she had come home. But then it had been an oddly intimate morning.
What she needed was some time alone.
They had reached the top of the stairs, and she turned to face him. ‘Thank you for arranging that. I feel a lot calmer now, but tired, so I might have a lie-down on my bed.’
‘I might do the same. On my bed,’ he added quickly. ‘And I’m glad you feel easier about it now.’
As she made to move past him, their hands brushed, and his eyes locked with hers and she felt her stomach twist and tighten. They had been touching more today than any other day. In the clinic, he had taken her hand and then helped her off the couch and somehow, they had kept holding hands until Harris had broken his grip to shake hands with Dr Krantz.
This felt different though.
It felt charged. Expectant.
Harris was still staring at her, and then he looked down and seemed to remember that he could move his hand and he reached up to oh-so-casually rub the nape of his neck.
‘Get some rest.’
He turned and walked away and she watched him for a couple of seconds before turning and walking in the other direction. The blinds had been left half down and her bedroom felt pleasantly cool. She sat down on the bed.
Rest.
She had told Harris she wanted to lie down, had thought she wanted to have some space, but his absence felt tangible and she had to curl her hands into the bedspread to stop them from trembling.
Restless.
That was what she was. Her skin felt twitchy and too tight and just as it had when she’d walked into that bar all those weeks ago and seen Harris.
He’d scratched that itch in the way it’d needed to be scratched and then some.
She stood up and was moving out of the room before her brain caught up with her legs. Harris’s door wasn’t quite shut. Maybe if it had been, things might have turned out differently but, with her pulse racing and her mind clearly offline, it didn’t seem like a big deal to just push it open a little further and walk straight in—
The room was empty.
Her stomach plummeted with disbelief and a disappointment that knocked the wind out of her so that she had to grab hold of the door frame.
‘Eden—’
She blinked. Harris was standing in the doorway to what was probably his dressing room or bathroom. Or some other place where you might get undressed, because he had taken his shirt off.
He was staring at her, his expression pitched somewhere between shock and panic.
‘Are you okay? Has something happened?’
Her heart folded in on itself because she loved that he cared. Loved that he cared enough not to hide his concern.
‘Yes…no, I mean yes, I am okay and no, nothing’s happened.’
Yet.
The word reverberated loudly inside her head, so loudly that she was surprised he didn’t hear it. But maybe he did because now he was looking at her intently as if he might have misheard.
‘You’re not wearing a shirt.’ Her gaze moved over his bare, muscled chest. The blinds were down lower in his room, but the sunlight loved touching him as much as she did and so a few stray rays were licking the curves and lines of his torso, gilding and illuminating them so that he looked like a painting by Caravaggio.
‘I was getting changed. I thought I might go for a run.’
‘In this heat?’
He cleared his throat. ‘I can’t seem to settle so I thought it might help.’
‘I can’t settle either. But I can’t go for a run—’
He cleared his throat again, but his voice was still hoarse as he spoke. ‘Perhaps something else might help.’
‘Yes, I think it would.’ She hesitated. ‘I was thinking about what Dr Krantz said.’
His pupils widened and she knew that he wanted what she wanted, needed her as much as she needed him, and knowing that almost knocked the air out of her lungs. There was a moment of silence, a kind of charged stillness pulsing with possibilities. But really there was only one.
There had only ever been one.
They moved at the same time. He reached her first, pulling her against him with one hand and pushing the door shut with the other as he fitted his mouth to hers. Her fingers curled over his shoulders, scrabbling at the smooth, warm skin with relief and a hunger that was both rampant and infinite.