Highland Fling (24 page)

Lizzie held her breath.

‘Y ... you know the stag weekend I arranged?’

As if she could forget. ‘Yes.’

‘Well – and I swear to you Lizzie I had no idea – it seems it was Kim’s fiancé’s and it was Kim who had the accident!’

Lizzie didn’t say a word; she fiddled with the stem of her wine glass and dropped her eyes to the table.

‘You knew!’

Lizzie nodded. ‘I found out the day they were leaving. Phil told me her name and that she worked at the same bank as he did. That’s when I realised he was the one who knew you. He ... he didn’t know about your affair though, did he, or that we were married?’

Max eyed her thoughtfully, then shook his head. ‘No. Kim knew she’d lose her job if that was made public. I did think I had told Phil you were my wife but maybe I just assumed he knew, anyway, it doesn’t matter now does it?’

Lizzie shook her head. ‘Not now.’

‘It must have been quite a shock when he told you it was Kim who was getting married.’

Lizzie nodded. ‘It was. That bloody woman seems to ...’

Max glanced at her over his wine glass. ‘Seems to ...?’

‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’

Max sipped his wine. ‘Did you also know she’s pregnant?’

Lizzie almost tipped her wine glass over. The colour drained from her face and her mouth fell open.

‘Obviously not,’ Max said. ‘Then again, neither did she, apparently. Only found out because of the accident.’

‘How ... long?’

Max looked confused. ‘How many weeks pregnant is she, d’you mean?’

Lizzie nodded.

‘I think they said five weeks but I could be mistaken.’

‘And ... she didn’t know? Neither of them knew?’

‘Total surprise. I assume you mean Kim and her fiancé? Kim didn’t have a clue but then, she isn’t the brightest lamp on the street.’ Max poured them both more wine. ‘The gossip is, apart from the pregnancy, that the wedding’s off, or at least, it’s postponed until Kim gets out of hospital. Not sure about that. Anyway, it was originally this coming weekend but now it’s not – oh, and, she won’t be coming back to work. Her fiancé, Ross insists she stay home and rest! Bit difficult with crutches anyway I would have thought. She’s broken her leg or something –’

‘Jack. Her fiancé’s name’s Jack.’ Lizzie corrected him in a dazed tone.

‘Really? I could have sworn they said Ross.’ Max shrugged. ‘Makes no difference. Anyway, I just wanted you to know I had no idea the stag do was connected with Kim in any way, shape or form. I wouldn’t have got involved if I had, believe me.’

‘I do believe you Max.’ Lizzie rubbed her temples with her fingers. This news had stunned her. ‘Would you mind if I went and lie down? I’ve got a headache coming.’

‘No, of course not. I’ll take you up.’

Lizzie’s sprained ankle wasn’t giving her anywhere near the pain her broken heart was. She was being ridiculous, she knew that but she couldn’t shake herself out of the lethargy she felt.

 The weekend came and went. The weekend Jack would have been getting married. At least she didn’t have to face that thought for now. Max had said it had been postponed but he hadn’t said when to. Not that it made any difference. Kim was pregnant, Jack was going to be a father and whether he married Kim this weekend or three weekends from now, he would marry her and he’d be out of Lizzie’s life forever.

Lizzie could picture Jack as a father and somehow, she knew he’d be great at it. She had visions of him playing in the snow with his son – it would be a boy, of course, Kim would naturally give him the son that every man secretly wanted.

Lizzie realised one strange thing. She no longer thought of Kim as
that woman
. It was as if she just didn’t have the energy to hate her anymore or maybe it was because Kim was going to be a mother,
the
mother, of Jack’s child. Maybe she just couldn’t bring herself to think of Kim in her usual derogatory way.

It didn’t matter what she called her anyway, in Lizzie’s mind, Kim had ruined any chance of happiness Lizzie might have had. First, by having an affair with Max, second, by being engaged to Jack and third, by being pregnant.

Lizzie had thought about little else since Max had told her about the baby and she had suddenly realised something. Something that made her blissfully happy, then unbelievably sad. Jack had not lied. When they had made love on that Friday night, which now seemed so long ago, Jack had every intention of calling off his engagement.

Lizzie was certain of that. She now recalled with clarity everything they’d done, everything they’d said and how he’d behaved when he woke up that fateful Saturday morning – before he’d answered the phone. That call had changed everything and Lizzie now knew without a shred of a doubt that during that call, Jack had been told Kim was pregnant.

That was why he had turned his back to Lizzie, not because he didn’t want to be with her but because he couldn’t look her in the face and tell her that, whilst he was making love to her, his fiancée was lying in a hospital bed with his child inside her. It must have turned his world upside down.

One minute he’d been planning to end his engagement, the next, he’d been told he was going to be a father. All his words, all his looks came flooding back and she suddenly heard them and saw them in a totally different light.

But it didn’t change the outcome and it didn’t matter whether Jack had feelings for her or not. Lizzie may have only known him for a couple of days but she knew one thing about him. He was not the sort of man who would walk away from his own child – or the woman carrying it.

This knowledge did not improve her mood and by the following Tuesday, almost two and a half weeks after she’d arrived, Lizzie decided it was time to go home. Her foot was considerably better; she couldn’t yet walk without crutches but the swelling had reduced and there was now very little pain, unless she put pressure on it.

Max insisted he would travel up with her and stay a few days to make sure she could manage.

‘No arguing,’ he said. ‘I know Jane will happily stay with you Lizzie but somehow, I just can’t see her carrying you upstairs to bed. I want to be sure you can manage.’

‘I can’t ask you to take time off work for me Max.’

‘You didn’t ask sweetheart, I offered.’ Max still couldn’t get out of the habit of calling Lizzie sweetheart.

‘I know you did but that’s not the point. You’re busy and it’s not fair on you.’ Lizzie hobbled to the kitchen on her crutches and made them both a cup of tea, balancing on one foot whilst she did so. ‘You see. I can manage, honestly.’

 Max stood in the doorway watching her. He leant against the frame, his arms folded in front of him, an amiable expression on his handsome face and just a hint of a smile at one corner of his mouth.

‘And how, exactly, do you propose to carry even one of those cups into the sitting room, let alone two? Do you intend to balance them on your head?’

Lizzie frowned then her smile brightened her blue eyes. ‘We’ll drink them in here,’ she said.

The grin spread slowly across Max’s face and Lizzie got a flash of the man she’d fallen in love with, more than seven years ago. It unsettled her but a little voice in her head said, ‘He isn’t Jack,’ and the moment was gone.

Max pushed himself away from the doorframe and strolled to the kitchen table. Pulling out a chair opposite Lizzie he watched her limp with one crutch and one cup at a time. She managed, with a little effort, to balance her crutches against the back of a chair and drag another out to sit on. Max seemed relaxed but he was poised ready to catch her should she fall.

Only when she was safely seated did Max sit down. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I can see you can manage admirably – but I’m still going with you.’

Chapter Fifteen

Max booked their tickets for Thursday, giving himself a day in the office to get things organised for his time away. He had a lot going on and would need to delegate efficiently; he could stay in touch via his Laptop and video conferencing but there were some things that had to be dealt with in person. Not everything was handled electronically, even in a bank as cutting edge as Brockleman Brothers.

If he was honest, this wasn’t really a good time for him to be away from the office but he’d let Lizzie down badly once and he had no intention of doing that again. Their marriage may be over and they might be in the process of divorcing but she was still his wife and she mattered more to him than a couple of multi-million pound deals. That was just money after all, and money could always be made in the City, especially if you were Max Bedford.

Despite the fact that she would be returning home tomorrow; or perhaps because of it, Lizzie felt she just had to get out of the apartment, even if only for a few hours. She could walk fairly well with the crutches and, providing she avoided stairs, she should be fine.

She wouldn’t mention it to Max though; he was being very “mother hen-ish” and she thought he would either insist that she stay indoors or, on going with her, and that would defeat the object; she wanted some time alone in the fresh air. Well, maybe not “fresh air”, this was the City after all.

Sitting on Max’s balcony had been the only time she’d spent out of doors since the day she went to the hospital, seventeen days ago and she was craving freedom – in more ways than one. London couldn’t offer her the wide open spaces of home or the breathtaking vistas or scent of pine on every intake of breath, but it could at least, give her a change of scene and for some strange reason that she couldn’t quite fathom, today, she really needed that.

She could pack the few things she had tomorrow. There would be plenty of time before their flight and she didn’t have much. Originally she’d only intended to stay for a few days so had brought just a couple of changes of clothes and underwear. Since she’d been here, she’d been washing and drying them to wear again or, more precisely, Susan, Max’s daily help had.

Lizzie made it safely to the hall and dealt with the lift with no problem whatsoever. In the foyer, Preston, the concierge, called a taxi for her, then, when it arrived, he held her arm whilst she shuffled on to the seat. She hadn’t realised that getting into a taxi would be such a problem but having started this little expedition, she was determined to go ahead with it and neither Preston or the taxi driver seemed to mind helping her – or that it took almost ten minutes to achieve.

She wondered whether she should have just taken a slow “limp” down to the river bank and sat on one of the many benches to watch life drift by on the Thames, but she wanted people, throngs of people and you didn’t get that around Max’s luxury apartment block.

Getting out of the taxi in Covent Garden, proved to be a little less fraught. She shuffled to the edge of the seat, placed one arm around the taxi driver’s neck and he lifted her out. He kept his arm around her until she got her balance.

After click-clacking with her crutches around Covent Garden market, which was also more difficult than she had expected, she stopped at the Piazza cafe for a pot of tea and a cream cake. She felt she had earned herself a treat. The afternoon sun was gloriously warm for the end of March and she closed her eyes and basked in the soothing rays. By the time she was ready to move on; her cheeks had recovered their usually healthy glow.

She decided to surprise Max. It would prove to him that she was able to get about by herself and although she knew it wouldn’t change anything and that he would still insist on going back with her, it would at least show him that she was determined to manage as much as possible on her own.

She hailed a taxi and with some assistance she took less than last time to get herself settled on the seat. Then she sat back and watched as they negotiated the busy streets of central London and headed towards Brockleman Brothers Bank in the heart of the City.

It was just before five when she arrived and for one dreadful moment, she worried that Max may have already left. She asked reception to call him and his secretary said he was still in the office but was unfortunately held up in a meeting.

As if on cue, Lizzie’s mobile rang. It was Max.

‘Where are you Lizzie? I’ve been worried sick. I’ve been calling home for the last fifteen minutes and keep getting the answering machine.’

She hadn’t thought of that. ‘I’m so sorry Max. I should have called you sooner but I lost track of time. I’ve popped out for a bit.’

‘What ... what do you mean? Popped out for a bit.’

Lizzie sniggered. ‘Precisely that. I wanted to get out of the apartment for a couple of hours. I’ve been basking in the sun in a cafe in Covent Garden.’

‘Covent ... how the hell did you get there?’

‘Well, it was a major expedition Max and I know I took my life in my hands but I was very brave and faced every danger that getting in the taxi and then drinking tea in the sun threw at me. You should be very proud of my achievement.’

‘Yes. Very amusing. But you could have hurt yourself.’

‘But I didn’t.’

‘That’s not the point. Did Susan go with you?’

‘Um. No. I asked her not to tell you so don’t get stroppy with her.’

‘Lizzie ...,’ Max took a deep breath then let it out. ‘Well, there’s no point in telling you that you shouldn’t have gone. You did and that’s that, I suppose. At least you’re home now ... you are home now aren’t you?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I’m downstairs. In the foyer.’

‘That’s good. Get Preston to help you to the apartment. He won’t mind.’

‘Not that foyer Max. Brockleman’s foyer.’

It seemed to take a second or two for this news to register. ‘What? You’re here? Why didn’t you say so?’ Then the line went dead.

Less than a minute later Max appeared from the express lift and marched towards her, a less than pleased expression etched across his incredibly handsome face.

‘You don’t look very pleased to see me,’ Lizzie said now wishing she had gone straight home.

‘I’m always pleased to see you Lizzie, you should know that by now. The thing is, I’m stuck in a meeting and I won’t be able to get out for at least another hour. That’s why I was calling you. To let you know I’d be late.’