The Best Man for the Job

SEVEN


Half an hour later Marcus had crossed London and was at the top of the steps that led up to Celia’s building, thinking that here he was unexpectedly standing on yet another doorstep he’d had no intention of gracing a week ago.

As the taxi had pulled up at her address he’d noticed that her lights were off and for a split second he’d contemplated leaving her be. But then Lily and Dan had shot into his thoughts, and his conscience—which had never given him much trouble before—had sprung into life, propelling him out of the taxi and up the steps.


So he’d do what he was here to do. He’d check on her, and then go, and with any luck he wouldn’t have any reason to see her ever again, bar the odd Dan/Zoe occasion that might require both their presence.

Marginally reassured by that, he pressed the buzzer and waited. He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels for a couple of minutes. Was just about to give up when the intercom crackled to life.

‘Yes?’ came the muffled voice.

‘Celia,’ he said, leaning forwards. ‘It’s Marcus.’

There was silence. And then a grumpy, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

Yup, as he’d thought. No more pleased to have him visit than he was. ‘To see if you’re all right.’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘You tell me. I heard you had a headache.’

‘I do. I was asleep.’

‘Then I apologise for waking you up.’

‘Not accepted,’ she said crossly. There was a rustle, and then, ‘Wait. How did you hear about my headache?’

‘Dinner. Kit and Lily’s. You were meant to be there.’

A pause while she presumably processed this fact. ‘That’s right,’ she said slowly, as if realisation had only just dawned. ‘I was. Have I missed it?’

‘Half of it at least.’

‘How rude of me.’

‘Not that rude. You cancelled.’

‘Did I?’

OK, so this was getting a little odd, thought Marcus with a frown as a flicker of concern edged through his frustration. Celia sounded confused, disorientated. Which was possibly a consequence of being abruptly woken up. Or possibly not. ‘Apparently so.’

‘Oh,’ she said vaguely. ‘So why aren’t you still there?’

‘Lily was worried.’

‘She has no need to be. I’m fine.’

At the ensuing silence he sighed and ran a hand through his hair and wished to God that her brother were here. Even either of her parents—who both unfortunately lived a couple of hundred miles away—would do because he was not the man for this job. However, something was telling him she wasn’t all that fine, and right now there was no one else. ‘Can I come up? Just for a second.’

‘I’m not a child, Marcus,’ she said, frustration clear in her voice. ‘I don’t need checking up on or looking after.’

‘Then prove it and let me in. Five minutes. That’s all I ask.’

There was a pause. A sigh. ‘Then will you leave me alone?’

‘Yes.’ If she really was as all right as she claimed.

‘OK, fine.’

The door buzzed and Marcus pushed it open. He leapt up the four flights of stairs to Celia’s top-floor flat, and at the sight of her he stopped dead, the breath knocked from his lungs.

She was standing in the doorway, her arms crossed and her chin up, and she might be channelling defiance and trying to appear all right, but she looked absolutely horrendous. Her skin was grey, her eyes dull and her hair was all over the place. She was wearing a pair of faded pink pyjamas that had seen better days, and even though she was covered from head to toe he was willing to bet that she’d lost weight. Her cheeks were hollower than they’d been the last time he’d seen her and her collarbones sharper.

Apart from that ten minutes with him in the garden, she always looked immaculate. Magnificent. Totally together and composed. Now, though, she looked like a dishevelled ghost, the energy and drive all sucked out of her, and it shocked the life out of him.

Frustration gone and concern sweeping in to take its place, he strode towards her, then, as she stepped back to let him in, past her into her flat and spun round as she closed the door behind him.

‘What on earth is the matter with you?’ he said, worry making his voice sharper than he’d intended.

Celia winced and put a hand to her temple. ‘Don’t shout at me.’

Guilt slashed through him and he swore softly. ‘Sorry.’

‘I have a headache.’

‘So you said,’ he said, gritting his teeth in an effort to moderate his tone, ‘but this looks like more than just a headache to me.’

‘I guess it might be a migraine but I’ve never had one so I wouldn’t know.’

‘Have you taken anything for it?’

‘Aspirin, but it hasn’t made any difference.’ She walked past him into the kitchen and picked up a bottle of water, holding it to her chest as if she needed the defence. ‘You really didn’t need to come over,’ she grumbled. ‘I’m sure I’ll be fine in the morning.’

‘Possibly.’

‘I’m just tired, that’s all.’

He glanced at the dark circles beneath her eyes and thought that exhausted was more like it. And she was way too thin. ‘When did you last eat?’

She frowned then shrugged. ‘Yesterday evening. The deal went through and we went out to celebrate.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I’ll make you something and then put you to bed.’

She jerked, her eyes widening and her cheeks flushing, which at least gave her some colour. ‘No,’ she said hotly. ‘Absolutely not.’

At the thought evidently going through her mind Marcus let out a sigh of exasperation and dragged a hand through his hair. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Celia.’

Her eyes flashed. ‘I don’t need a nurse.’

‘You need food.’

‘I need to be left alone.’

‘Well, that’s too bad because I’m not going anywhere.’ Two could play the obstinacy game, and with the state she was in she didn’t stand a chance of winning. How on earth could he leave her when she obviously wasn’t well at all? Dan would have his balls on a plate.

‘I hate you seeing me like this,’ she said.

He hated seeing her like this too. He’d always thought of her as so strong and resilient, and to see her a mere shadow of herself was twisting something in his chest. ‘I’ve no doubt you do, but you might as well get used to it.’

‘Well, you can’t make me something to eat,’ she said, clearly sensing that this battle was one she wasn’t going to win and, to his relief, giving in. ‘There’s nothing in the fridge apart from bread. I don’t cook, remember.’

‘Then we’ll get something in.’

‘Not sure I feel like eating.’

Ignoring that, Marcus spied the pile of takeaway menus on the immaculately gleaming counter, snatched up the one on the top and hauled out his phone. Tonight, it seemed, they’d be having pizza. Not quite the gourmet spread Lily had probably planned, but good enough.

‘What else is wrong besides the headache?’ he asked, tapping the number into his phone.

‘Nothing, really.’

He shot her a look of warning. ‘Celia.’

‘OK, sometimes I ache.’

‘Ache where?’

‘All over.’

‘And?’

She bit her lip and frowned. ‘I might have been having a few heart palpitations as well.’

Marcus froze, then blanched, his thumb hovering over the dial button. Migraines? Aches? Heart palpitations? What the hell was wrong with her? ‘A few?’

She shrugged. ‘More than a few.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No, that’s about it, I think.’

Well, it was quite enough, he thought grimly, deleting the number and scrolling through his list of contacts. Sod the pizza. Sod tucking her up in bed and keeping an eye on her till morning. She was going to see a doctor. Now.


‘I need a taxi,’ he said the second his call was answered, and then reeled off her address.

‘I thought you were calling for food,’ she said, looking a bit bewildered.

‘Change of plan.’ Then into the phone, ‘No. Half an hour’s too long. Make it ten minutes and I’ll double the fare.’ And with that he hung up.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

‘We are going to A and E.’

She stared at him in surprise and then gave a weak laugh. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to go to A and E, Marcus. I’ll just take some more aspirin and go back to bed. You’re overreacting.’

He looked at her steadily. ‘Heart palpitations, Celia?’

‘Stress,’ she said firmly, dismissively, and he wanted to shake her. ‘Which will undoubtedly diminish now that the deal’s gone through.’

‘What if it isn’t just stress?’

‘What else would it be?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, struggling to keep a lid on his temper because she just didn’t seem to be taking this seriously and it was threatening to make him lose it. ‘How about burnout? How about a breakdown? How about a bloody heart attack?’

She recoiled. Went as white as the walls of her pristine flat, and he bit back an instinctive apology because he was glad he’d shocked her. She should be concerned.

‘Fine,’ she said, coolly rallying and pulling her shoulders back. ‘You win. I’ll go and get dressed, then, shall I?’

* * *

By the time Celia’s name was called four hours later and she went off to see the doctor Marcus was practically climbing walls.

She’d been quiet while they’d been waiting. Monosyllabic in her answers to his occasional question about how she was feeling, but that was hardly surprising since he must have put the fear of God into her with talk of burnout, breakdown and heart attacks. Not to mention the way he’d practically bullied her into coming, even though he’d had no choice because, God, he’d never met a more stubborn woman.

But she hadn’t commented on his methods or his motivation, which was actually something of a relief because he wasn’t sure he could explain the reason for the sky-high level of concern that had gripped him when he’d laid eyes on her earlier. He could tell himself as much as he liked that it was Lily, or Dan, or his conscience, but he had the vague suspicion it was something else. Something he didn’t want to investigate too closely.

Instead she’d just sat there, calmly flicking through leaflets and then absorbing herself in her e-reader. She’d drunk the coffees he’d bought, and worked her way through half a sandwich, an apple and a chocolate bar that he’d picked up from the canteen. She’d even had a nap, stretching across four of the uncomfortable plastic chairs and point-blank refusing the offer of his lap as a pillow.

In short, she couldn’t have been more composed.

He, on the other hand, had been going increasingly nuts. When not occupied with the job of going for food and drink, he’d spent practically all of the past four hours pacing, shoving his hands through his hair in frustration and wishing he could just barge in and insist she be seen then and there. But this was a Saturday night in London, and a woman with a headache and the odd palpitation—as she’d insisted on describing herself when asked about her symptoms—came pretty low down on the list when it came to emergencies.

He didn’t like hospitals; the smells, the lighting, the sounds made him shudder. He’d spent quite enough time in them when his father had been ill. He didn’t like the memories they stirred up much either. Memories of his mother’s grief following his father’s death and the way she’d shut him out. The way he hadn’t understood that and so had reciprocated by shutting her—and everyone else—out.

As an only child with an emotionally absent mother he’d been alone with his grief, and, unable to handle it, he’d gone off the rails, partying too hard, drinking too much and sleeping with too many girls. He hadn’t noticed that his mother wasn’t coping either. She hadn’t displayed any sign that she wasn’t and he hadn’t realised she’d been caught in the claws of deep depression until the day he learned she’d locked herself in the garage with the engine of his father’s car running and had had to identify her body in yet another hospital.

But where else could he have taken Celia at this time on a Saturday night? It was the only option he’d had because maybe she was right and he was overreacting but the symptoms she had worried him, and if it came to it he was not going to have another woman’s death on his conscience.

Given that they’d been waiting so long, the fact that Celia emerged a mere fifteen minutes after she went in was unexpected. He didn’t know if the speed of her appointment was a good thing or a bad one. He scoured her face but her expression gave nothing away. She didn’t look happy. Or sad. She just looked blank.

As she went and sat down, Marcus strode over to her, his heart pounding and his blood draining to his feet as something like dread began to sweep through him. God, if there was something really wrong with her he didn’t know what the hell he’d do.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

She looked up at him. Blinked as if whatever the doctor had told her hadn’t sunk in yet, and he got the impression that she wasn’t really looking at him. That she was miles away.

‘Celia? Tell me. What is it?’

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Frowned. ‘Stress, mainly,’ she said finally.

Marcus sank into the chair next to her, almost sagging with relief. Not a breakdown. Not burnout. Not a heart attack. ‘Thank God for that,’ he said roughly.

‘I wouldn’t go thanking God just yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s not just stress.’

‘Then what else is it?’

‘I’m pregnant.’

* * *

Celia watched as the news she’d barely registered herself hit Marcus’ brain. Watched him reel as she was still reeling. Watched the shock cross his face and thought that it couldn’t be anywhere near as great as the shock she was feeling. The shock that had made her throw up in the doctor’s wastepaper basket, not that she’d be sharing that delightful detail with him.

‘Pregnant?’ he echoed faintly.

She nodded. ‘Six weeks, they think.’

‘Mine?’

‘Couldn’t be anyone else’s.’

Marcus swore brutally and shoved his hands through his hair.

‘I know,’ she muttered.

Except she didn’t really know anything about anything that had happened in the past six or so hours. She didn’t know why when Marcus had rung her buzzer she’d wanted him to leave, not because she’d thought she was fine, but because she hadn’t wanted him to see her in such a state. She didn’t know why she’d secretly been so pleased that he’d refused to take her hints and go. Why she was glad he’d insisted on her coming to A and E. Why she was grateful for his support now.

She was a modern, intelligent, self-sufficient woman. She shouldn’t need looking after. She shouldn’t like it. It didn’t make any sense. But then nothing about her behaviour around Marcus made much sense. Her reaction to him after a month of not seeing him certainly didn’t. He ought to have no effect on her at all, because she was so over him and what they’d done, yet he’d mentioned tucking her up in bed—platonically, obviously—and she’d nearly gone up in flames. He’d suggested she rest her head in his lap and she’d practically scooted over to a row of seats on the other side of the waiting room.


Despite the composed front she’d put on she’d been almost unbearably tense. And not just because of the effect Marcus had on her. Deep down the way she’d been feeling for the past couple of weeks had terrified her. Not that what she’d found out once she’d been called to see the doctor had dispelled any of the tension.

She’d gone in there imagining that maybe she’d be told to ease up on work. Perhaps be prescribed the beta blockers that most of her colleagues seemed to be on.

The appointment had started normally enough. The doctor had taken a note of her symptoms. He’d asked her about work and then her menstrual cycle. When she hadn’t been able to tell him the date of her last period he’d asked her whether she’d had sex recently.

And then it turned a bit chilling. The questions began to head in one horrible direction, terminating with her peeing on a white plastic stick and two blue lines appearing.

What had come after that was a bit of a blur. All she’d been able to hear was a sort of rushing in her ears through which the doctor’s warning about the dangers of stress and the instruction to make an appointment with her GP had only very dimly filtered. Then she’d stumbled out on legs that felt weak and wobbly and wholly unfit for purpose, and collapsed into the nearest chair.

‘What the hell happened?’

At the sound of Marcus’ voice, shock and horror evident in every word, Celia snapped to and blinked. ‘Condoms are only ninety-eight per cent safe,’ she said, recalling the statistic she’d read in one of the leaflets she’d flicked through earlier and what the doctor had reiterated. ‘Seems like we’re one of the unlucky two per cent.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe it had expired. Maybe it wasn’t on properly. Maybe it broke. Who knows?’

As they lapsed into silence she could hear the plasticky tick of the clock on the wall, the hum of a busy hospital A and E department and the distant chatter of staff, but the sounds of the cogs and wheels of her brain were fast taking over and her head was beginning to ache more than it had at any point today.

‘So what the hell do we do now?’ he said, still sounding a bit stunned.

‘I have absolutely no idea.’ And now, with all the adrenaline draining away and events catching up with her, she suddenly felt very, very tired. ‘And you know what, Marcus?’ she said, getting to her feet and hauling the strap of her handbag over her shoulder. ‘It’s late, I’m shattered and I don’t think I can deal with this right now.’

He glanced up at her, frowned as he scanned her face, and then stood. ‘I’ll take you home.’

‘I’d appreciate that,’ she said with a weak smile. And then, just in case he got it into his head that he’d be staying and fussing over her when she wanted nothing more than to sleep and then process the news and figure out what she wanted to do about it in her own time, added, ‘But then, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone.’

* * *

Marcus did mind. Very much. Still. Even though he’d got home a couple of hours ago and Celia probably hadn’t given him a moment’s thought the second he’d driven away.

He hadn’t wanted to leave her. He’d wanted to stay the night. He’d wanted to put her to bed and then keep an eye on her to make sure she was all right because she’d had quite a shock and in her fragile state he wasn’t sure how she’d cope with it.

But she’d thanked him for dropping her off, told him she’d call when she was ready to talk and said a very firm goodnight. And now he was at home, sitting in his study, staring out into the garden and working his way through the bottle of whisky that had been gathering dust unopened at the back of a cupboard in the kitchen.

Thinking.

Remembering.

Wondering.

And, the more he thought about that afternoon, going into such mental detail that he could recall every move they’d made, finally realising what had probably happened.

Celia had been wrong in only two of her answers to his stunned enquiry into how she’d got pregnant. The condom hadn’t expired. And he had enough experience to be able to put it on properly, however desperate he was.

But he had ripped at the packet with his teeth.

He could see it now. His body shaking. His hands trembling as he fumbled for the condom and he bit at it, his teeth very likely nipping a hole in the latex...

He swore again and shoved his hands through his hair. How the hell had he made such a schoolboy error? He’d never been so heavy-handed. So damn careless. What was it about Celia that had made him lose his mind so completely that for the first time in his life he’d screwed up? And how the hell hadn’t he noticed something was amiss afterwards?

Her pregnancy was his fault, he thought grimly, refilling the glass for perhaps the sixth time although he’d stopped counting at three. Entirely his fault. She’d just had her life turned upside down because of him and his complete and utter loss of control and there was no one to blame but him.

Which meant that what happened next wasn’t up to him. Back in the hospital he’d asked what the hell they did now, but there was no ‘they’ about this. It was up to her. Wholly up to her.

How he did or didn’t feel about fatherhood—and he couldn’t allow himself to think about it—was irrelevant. He didn’t have the right to form an opinion about it either way. Whatever course of action she chose she was the one who’d have to physically go through it. He’d put her in a position he was pretty sure she’d never expected to find herself in, so all he could do was accept whatever choice she made and offer his support.

The best thing he could do now, he thought, screwing the lid on the bottle and taking it and his glass through to the kitchen—the only thing he could do, in fact, if he didn’t want to drive himself insane with speculation and impatience—would be to put it from his mind until she was ready to talk.