‘I’d rather go alone,’ Freddie muttered, biting at her lip. ‘Because afterwards I’m planning to visit the cemetery where my sister is buried. It’s the anniversary of her death.’
‘Why am I only hearing about that now?’ Zac queried, relieved to have grasped what had probably caused the tears he suspected. ‘You know, you hardly ever mention her.’
‘Doesn’t mean I don’t miss her. She was so good to me when I was a kid. But everything went wrong for her,’ Freddie responded tightly, suddenly dangerously on the edge of tears again.
‘She’d be proud of what you’re doing for her children.’
Freddie said nothing because sadly her last memories of her sister only reminded her that Lauren would have sacrificed anything and anybody for her next fix. Lauren had been too lost in drugs to care about her children.
‘I’m definitely coming with you to the cemetery,’ Zac decreed. ‘Give me a time and we’ll meet up.’
Freddie gave way on that point and headed straight out to buy a pregnancy test at the pharmacy only down the road. She then retreated back to the hotel cloakroom to get the test done. Well, actually, the three tests done because she didn’t want to get all worked up about a possible mistake, did she? And, one after another, each test put up an unmistakeable positive and tears rolled down her cheeks. And she hated herself but she hated Zac even more for getting her pregnant so quickly. She should be happy that she had conceived and somehow that aspect had been stolen from her by their situation.
Why was that? she asked herself. Shouldn’t she be rushing back up to the penthouse in the lift and sharing her good news? Zac would want to celebrate. He would be surprised it had happened so quickly for them. As he had said weeks back when she had realised that she hadn’t conceived. ‘We’re not in a hurry.’ Of course, he had had to say that, hadn’t he? He didn’t want her to feel stressed out about the conception plan, having already mentioned that stress wouldn’t aid that goal. How had he known that? Had he been reading up about pregnant women?
She looked down at her flat tummy and tried to imagine a little jumping bean like Jack nestling inside her and warm acceptance spread through her at last. A little Zac or a little girl, she didn’t care, only that it would be his child. And that was the point when it finally dawned on her that she was head over heels in love with her husband. She had broken the rules! She had gone and fallen for him in spite of all his warnings and against all common sense. The tears bubbled up again and she blinked them angrily away.
She was happy about the baby but terrified of losing Zac, and her pregnancy had to mean the beginning of the end for their marriage. There, now she knew what was wrong with her. It was fear of the massive changes ahead of her, of rebuilding a life that would seem empty without him. No more Zac. No more smiles or jokes or kisses. No more unexpected gifts. No more envious looks from other women. No more stories about Brazil. She would never visit Brazil now. Zac had been planning to take her there once the adoption was finalised but it wouldn’t happen now. She had missed that boat.
She would never see the horse ranch where he had spent his early years. She would never meet his grandmother on the Amazonian rubber plantation where the old lady still lived in her retirement. She would never attend the carnival in Rio with him or see the beautiful women strolling along Copacabana beach in scanty swimwear, whom Zac had admitted fantasising about as a teenager. He had shared so much with her about his background and homeland but now he would never take her to Brazil because she was pregnant and what would be the point? From now on he would see everything through the prism of the reality that he would soon be splitting up with her.
Dear heaven, would he expect her to be all jolly and friendly about the divorce? Well, she would look like an idiot if she got upset and he realised she had become extremely attached to him. She remembered the young woman in Klosters whom he had shunned for fear that, given encouragement, she would cling to him like a limpet. Freddie had no desire to be Zac’s limpet in life. She would be strong and sensible. She wouldn’t let him guess how she felt.
Zac was waiting at the cemetery gates for her with his bodyguards. He told her off for not using the limo or taking her bodyguard out with her.
‘I felt like a walk alone,’ she mumbled, walking through the gates with only the hum of a mower and the traffic beyond the walls infiltrating the emptiness.
‘It was such a waste. She was so young,’ she told him as she laid down her flowers and backed away to sit on a bench nearby.
Zac didn’t voice any of the empty clichés that were often utilised in such moments. He settled down beside her and closed a soothing arm round her taut shoulders.
‘I still feel so guilty,’ Freddie admitted convulsively. ‘I kind of used to blame her for falling into drugs but, the last year of her life, she told me something that has haunted me ever since. I wish she had told me a lot sooner and then I would’ve understood better, but she thought I was too young and she didn’t want to upset me.’
‘What did she tell you?’ Zac prompted when the silence dragged on.
‘We were put in a care home the first few weeks after our parents died.’ Freddie struggled to control her turbulent emotions. ‘When Lauren was pregnant with Jack, she told me that she was raped there but she didn’t report it because she was threatened and she was scared something would happen to me. It’s so ugly.’
‘But not your fault. You were a child,’ Zac soothed.
‘You see, she changed but I didn’t know why. Wherever we were she looked after me like a mother hen and then, when she got old enough to leave foster care, she fell in with a bad set of people and everything went downhill after that. She couldn’t cope with life on her own.’
‘You did everything you could to help her,’ Zac interposed. ‘Freddie... I’ve lost friends to drugs and not everyone is capable of what it takes to get clean. I think you need to believe that she’s gone to a better place and forgive yourself for not being able to save her.’
‘Yes,’ she mumbled tearfully, loving him so much at that instant that she almost sobbed all over him.
‘And perhaps we could get her a nicer headstone,’ Zac suggested lightly.
‘It was the best we could afford at the time. Claire paid for everything. Gosh, I still owe her the money for that.’ Freddie sighed.
‘I’ll take care of it. Shall I wait at the gates for you?’ Zac asked. ‘Maybe you’d like to spend a few minutes here on your own.’
Nodding jerkily, Freddie watched the love of her life stride away, tall and straight and full of innate power and confidence. Lauren had said that Cruz was ‘the one’ for her and Freddie, who had never been in love, hadn’t really understood the strength of such emotions, had not grasped that her sister simply didn’t have the power to break away from her toxic boyfriend. But she understood now.
And for the first time she saw a clear path in front of her. One of the elements she most valued in her relationship with Zac was the level of honesty with which they dealt with each other. She had to tell him that she was pregnant immediately, she decided heavily. She couldn’t keep secrets from him. But she could act on her own behalf like a strong, independent woman and walk away first.
It would hurt like hell, she knew it would, but at least it would cut out any ‘will he, won’t he?’ scenarios in which she hoped for more from
