“I thought you said you were stressed.”
“I am stressed
now,
but I wasn’t stressed when I went off …gave up coffee.”
“And you keep crying …”
“That’ll be the stress and PMS probably,” Sophie said, shrugging.
“And, darling,” Iris added timidly. “You’ve gained a little weight.”
“Ah well, yes, I know that,” Sophie said. “I have a lot of cream teas, Mum. Besides, you don’t put weight on in pregnancy until you’re quite far along so …”
“So when
was
your last period?” Iris asked her carefully, accepting Tripod’s paw that batted at her knee and shaking it as if they had only just been introduced.
“Well, it was …” Sophie trailed off as she thought. She had never been especially in tune with her body’s biological rhythm, her cycle had never been that regular. “I don’t know, a few weeks
ago. Three, or so I expect. Like I said, I’m premenstrual probably, that’s why I’m doing all the crying and stuff.”
“Sophie.” Iris looked serious. “Think of a thing you were doing the last time you had your period. An event, something you were doing with the girls maybe.”
Sophie crossed her arms and huffed out a sigh, exactly as she had when Iris used to tell her to tidy her room.
“Fine,” she said. “I was at the roller disco with Bella and Izzy in the guildhall. I remember because it hadn’t stopped raining even though it was July and those two were whizzing around like maniacs and all I wanted was a hot water bottle and a good book.”
“July,” Iris stated. “When in July?”
“It was summer holiday obviously, Louis was doing this big wedding out of town, it was a really big deal, his first large commission, and that was July seventh, which was …” Sophie stopped talking.
“Over two months ago,” Iris finished for her.
“Oh god,” Sophie said very quietly. “I’m having an early menopause.”
“No, you’re having a lot of sex. Darling, I think you need to get a test.”
“I just …I don’t feel pregnant and we are always very careful …”
“Do you have any idea what it feels like to be pregnant? And how careful? Were you on the pill?” Iris asked.
“No,” Sophie confessed. “But we always use a condom …more or less.”
“More or less?” Iris asked.
“Well, maybe once or twice we got a bit carried away and …well, we went for the Catholic method instead—oh god, Mother, I thought you said no details.”
“Darling, you need to go and buy a pregnancy test today,” Iris
told her. “Babies come when you least expect them. Look at Tripod here. He was supposed to have had the snip but he still managed to get Miss Pickles pregnant. The vet said it was a modern miracle. Either that or Miss Pickles has been playing around with another black-and-tan spaniel.”
“I can’t go and buy a test. I’m going out for lunch,” Sophie told her. “In fact, I have to go and get ready now, so, sorry, can’t discuss this anymore.”
“Sophie, I know that you like to push things to the back of your mind rather than face them full on but …” Iris stalled as Sophie glared at her. “Get a test on the way back,” Iris advised Sophie as she dashed upstairs. “And stay away from raw fish!”
Fifteen
As Sophie entered the wood-paneled finery of J Sheekey’s, she pushed her mother’s crackpot theory to the back of her mind. She was not pregnant. She would know if she was pregnant. There would be a feeling, a prescient knowledge that she was about to become an actual full-blown biological mother to another human being. Something that profound, something that life changing couldn’t just creep up on you when you weren’t looking, surely? It would have to announce itself in your psyche with some sort of intuitive fanfare, otherwise it simply wasn’t fair play. It was true that Sophie had not been especially clear on a lot of things that had been happening in her life recently. She wasn’t clear about love and what that meant exactly about marriage or commitment. But one thing she was totally, completely, and utterly clear about was that she was not ready to have a baby. And so she dealt with it in the way she had always dealt with worries or problems that had overwhelmed her since she was a child. She decided not to think about it.
The concierge took her coat and led her to a table in a corner booth where Jake was waiting for her, wearing his weekend uniform of light blue button-down shirt topping a pair of chinos.
“You look radiant,” he said, half rising to kiss her on the cheek as she slid into the booth next to him. Sophie had to admit that she did look good. She looked like her old self, only a bit hippier and with a new and improved cleavage. After her mother had aired her preposterous theory, which probably had a lot more to do with Iris’s longing for a grandchild and her HRT, Sophie had made a special effort to dress like a woman who was certainly not pregnant. She had slipped on her loyal and steadfast black Dolce & Gabbana heels, which she teamed with a black knit dress that set off her pale complexion and blond hair, her cake-enhanced curves filling out the dress much more satisfyingly now. She’d never have the cleavage of Miss Stephanie Corollo, but she was more than pleased with how she filled out the dress. The absolute truth was that she had tried on another skirt she’d brought with her, only she hadn’t quite been able to zip it up, and even if she had, it would have made her newly round tummy look even bigger than it was. But even so, here she was, a modern, stylish woman. A woman who was most definitely free of any sort of reproductive type of condition of any kind.
“Hope you don’t mind,” Jake said. “I’ve ordered champagne and I thought we’d start with some Colchester oysters; a dozen are on their way, is that okay?”
“Um.” Sophie wanted to say, “Yes, fine, oysters, I love them,” but a little nagging part of her wouldn’t allow it. “The only thing is, I’ve become allergic to shellfish.”
“No! Not now that you live right by the sea where you can practically scoop up crustaceans with your bare hands?” Jake commiserated. “You should have mentioned it when I suggested we come here!”
“I know, but I’m still getting used to the idea,” Sophie told him. “It’s come as a bit of a shock.”
“No problem, I shouldn’t have been so presumptuous.” He called over a waiter. “I’ll change the order—how about their deep-fried white bait, it’s to die for. And you can enjoy the champagne.”
When Sophie thought about champagne, all she could think about was the taste of sweaty socks. Bile rose in her throat.
“Except that I’m on antibiotics,” Sophie said. “I can’t drink. I mean I literally can’t drink. I keep trying, but nothing seems to go down.” Jake laughed and Sophie wondered what chemical outlets were available to potentially gestating people and decided that probably there were none. Except that she wasn’t a potentially gestating person. She was sure of it. Almost.
“So you’re back in London visiting your mother?” Jake said.
“Yes, duty calls.” Sophie smiled. They were almost sitting side by side in the booth, his thigh barely six inches from hers. J Sheekey’s was a busy, exclusive place, this had to be a table Jake had specifically requested and he would have had to have some considerable clout with the management to get it on such short notice. Which meant that not only did he want to impress her, he wanted to sit as close to her as possible, a fact Sophie found intriguing.
“No trouble in paradise then?” Jake asked, with just the merest hint of hope in his voice. He picked up her left hand and looked at her ring finger. “Wow, you’re engaged too—congratulations. You should have said the other night.”
“Oh well,” Sophie said, dropping her lashes coyly. “I didn’t want to steal your thunder. Congratulations to you—Stephanie is lovely.”
“Yes, she is, isn’t she?” Jake smiled fondly. “She’s pretty stunning in every respect.”
“Why doesn’t she stay with you at your apartment while she’s in London?” Sophie asked.
“Appearances. She’s from a very old New York Italian family. She’s got a great-grandmother, who’s about a hundred or something and who sets a lot of store in appearances, that’s filtered down to Stephanie. She’s an old-fashioned girl at heart. We spend pretty much every night together, but we need to do it at two separate addresses.”
“I think that’s sweet,” Sophie said. “I’ve started to think that no sex before marriage is probably an excellent idea.”
“Really? You surprise me, you don’t look like a woman who’s not …” Jake stopped himself, blushing. “You look very happy.”
“So will you buy a house when you’re married?” Sophie asked, mildly disconcerted by the way he was looking at her while talking about his fiancée.
“Stephanie’s got this amazing penthouse overlooking Central Park. We’ll live there.”
“What, you mean you’ll go back to the States at weekends or something?” Sophie was surprised.
“No, I mean I’ll go back to New York for good. Stephanie didn’t want to live in the UK. She’d miss her family too much, and I couldn’t think of anything to stay here for, much as I love this town and its people …especially some of them.” He paused to smile at her and Sophie found herself smiling back at him. Despite gorgeous, successful, and independently wealthy Stephanie, despite the ring on Stephanie’s finger and her own, Jake still found her attractive and she found that, in this instance, what with the late-period debacle and Louis’s overly complicated personal life, she liked it. She liked it very much.
“She seems like a woman worth moving to another continent for,” Sophie said softly as Jake slid a few millimeters closer to her.
“She is,” he told her, leaning toward her a little, as if he were breathing her in. “She’s the perfect match for me …which makes me wonder why …”
“Why what?” Sophie asked him in what she thought would widely be considered a seductive tone. She felt inordinately proud of herself. Until very recently a seductive anything would have been well out of her reach.
“Why I’ve never quite been able to get you out of my head,” Jake said. “You never really wanted me, we barely did more than kiss a couple of times, yet here you are sitting in front of me and all I can think about is how much I’d like to kiss you.”
“Well, I’ve got to say I’m not surprised,” Sophie said, making Jake sputter out a mouthful of champagne.
“No?” he asked her.
“Well, you know, there’s this place, this table—oysters, champagne. This is not a lunch that one friend throws for another. It’s a seduction lunch, Jake, whether you realized it or not. You planned to get me here for one last little spin before you marry Stephanie. Next you’ll be telling me you booked a hotel room so that we can have coffee in private.”
Jake stared at her openmouthed for a second, as if he were about to protest, and then he laughed.
“You’re right,” he said. “I think that in the back of my mind I was hoping for something …but I promise you, I didn’t plan it— there is no hotel room. It’s just that you look stunning, Sophie. Being in love really agrees with you, and when I saw you it reminded me of how much I liked you. How different things would have been if you’d liked me back, and that got me wondering, I guess. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Sophie told him, reassured that he still found her attractive despite herself because it meant there was no way on earth she could have any kind of bun in her oven. Pregnant women couldn’t be beguiling and seductive. Mother Nature wouldn’t allow ladies to go round flirting when they had an actual baby inside them, that would just be
wrong
. Sophie was certain that being
knocked up meant sexiness went out the window. And she was definitely sexy, she was on fire with desirability. If only her so-called fiancé found her as hard to resist as Jake did.
“I think it’s because you’ve changed.” Jake’s voice was low. “It’s as if something or someone has switched you on, you look alight with life. You look incredible.”
“Thank you,” Sophie said. “It’s the same for me, seeing you, you know. I think that if things had been different, if we’d met at another time, then maybe we would have rubbed along pretty well together. But I don’t think we would ever have really been in love. Not like you are with Stephanie …not like I am with Louis.”
“Stephanie is amazing,” Jake said. “And I do love her. It’s just …I really like kissing you, Sophie.”
“You know, it could be useful,” Sophie said thoughtfully. “To kiss someone other than our fiancés just to be able to compare and contrast. You know, to make sure that the feelings we think we are feeling for our significant others are real.”
Sophie raised her eyebrows, surprised by what she had half suggested.
“Are you suggesting we kiss each other purely for scientific research?” Jake asked her.
“Am I suggesting that?” Sophie hedged.
“I think you are.” Without warning Jake grabbed her hand and all but dragged her out of the booth and through the restaurant, turning heads as he went.
“We have to make a call,” he told the waiter, who looked astounded as Jake rushed past. “Back in a minute.”
Sophie followed Jake, not absolutely certain of what was going on until they emerged into the alleyway that ran behind Tottenham Court Road.
Without pausing to take a breath, Jake put his hands on her shoulders and backed her against a graffiti-covered wall. For a second
he looked at her, breathing hard, and then he kissed her. And Sophie kissed him back in a way she never would have before, her body hungry for intimacy, responding to Jake long before her mind could process what was happening. For several seconds everything about the kiss felt wonderful, incredible. And then Sophie realized—the lips that sought out her neck were not Louis’s, the hands that had traveled down from her shoulders and across her breasts weren’t the ones her body longed to be touched by, and, most of all, she was standing in an alleyway kissing a man who wasn’t the father of her baby. Not that she was pregnant, but if she were, then that would have been bad.
Sophie pushed Jake away.
“Wow,” Jake said. “Not exactly sure the results of that experiment went the way they were supposed to.”
“Aren’t you?” Sophie asked him.
“Not if I was supposed to discover that I don’t like kissing you, because I do. A lot.”