Reluctantly Home(35)

But she would know. She would know, and that knowledge would eat away at her for the rest of her life. Children had always been in her future. There had never been a time when she hadn’t assumed she would have some one day, and she couldn’t imagine herself growing old without children around her. And somewhere deep inside her, she knew she would make a wonderful mother – she had learned enough about how to be a terrible one from her own.

The trouble was, she hadn’t imagined it would happen just yet. She had no husband, wasn’t even close to getting married, and more importantly, she had just landed the job of her dreams, which would open up a whole world of possibilities. Evelyn Mountcastle was on the cusp of everything she had ever wanted for her career. Surely, that ought to make her decision an easy one. And yet . . .

She stood up and shivered as she reached for a towel. The bump was more obvious when she was upright. She looked down and marvelled at it, the way it proclaimed the existence of new life, impossible to ignore.

But her timing couldn’t have been worse. This was precisely the wrong moment to be pregnant. Julian would kill her for a start, his big fat agent’s fee going up in smoke when they had to recast her role. There was no way the production company would wait for her to have the baby, and in the meantime her dream job would be gone. But if she hung on to the part, then she would lose the baby. She was no spring chicken – thirty already. In fact, this might be it. The egg that was busy dividing inside her right now could be her only chance to be a mother.

As she got dressed, she thought it through for the hundredth time: the logistics of how she could make it work. She would have to go back to Suffolk. With no job and no savings behind her, she couldn’t afford to live on her own in London. She’d need to speak to Joan and demand her share of their parents’ inheritance. Until now she had shown no interest in it. She’d been so determined to be independent and make her own way in the world that to make Joan sell the house and release her share would have looked like a failure, and there had been no way she would give her sister the satisfaction of that.

But a baby would change everything. She couldn’t afford to be independent when there weren’t just her own needs to consider. Puritanical Joan would be horrified, but she wouldn’t kick her out on the street, and even if she wanted to, Peter wouldn’t let her. She would make Evelyn’s life hell, though. There would be all the snide comments about having to come home – and come home in disgrace to boot. There was no way Joan wouldn’t make the very most of any opportunity to make Evelyn look small and cheap, but that was just the price she would have to pay if she decided to keep the baby.

It wouldn’t be forever, though. When the child started school, Evelyn would be able to go back to work. That was what modern women did, wasn’t it? Women like Detective Constable Karen Walker. Evelyn would only lose four years of her career, five at the most, and she would emerge at the end of that time with a beautiful child and a whole host of new life experiences on which to draw for her acting. Sacrificing the role in Into the Blue would be a very, very great shame, but it would be worth it in the long run.

As she brushed her hair, Evelyn realised she had made her decision. It wasn’t a surprise. If she was honest with herself, she had known all along that she wouldn’t be able to let the baby go. She would never tell a living soul who the father was, though. She had her reputation to think of, and she definitely didn’t want him to find out. Her baby was nothing to do with him. She had been so very naive, but she had learned her lesson and she would never let anything like that happen again. If there was ever a next time, she would walk into it with her eyes wide open.

So now all she had to do was . . . Evelyn felt sick at the thought of it. Julian, Joan, Ted. She would have to tell them all that she, Evelyn Mountcastle, was going to have a baby on her own.





20


‘You want to do what?!’

Julian whisked his stockinged feet off his desk, sat forward in his chair and stared at her open-mouthed.

Evelyn swallowed and then repeated what she had just said. ‘I want to resign from Into the Blue . Well, it’s not that I want to, but I’m going to have to do it all the same. I’m very sorry.’

She dropped her eyes, trying to look contrite, but Julian was having none of it.

‘You can’t just “resign”,’ he snapped, his voice harsh, spiked, as his delicate fingers made quotes in the air around the word. ‘That is not how it works, Evelyn. You signed the contract. We all signed the contract. You can’t just change your mind.’

Evelyn raised her gaze to look at him and he met her eyes and then softened a little, falling back against his chair and sighing deeply.

‘What is going on here, Evie?’ he asked her, his tone now exasperated more than angry. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’

Evie nodded and swallowed hard. This would be the first time she’d say the words out loud, and once she did there was no going back. It would no longer be her secret.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she said in a voice so quiet she feared he wouldn’t have heard, but she could tell from his reaction that he had.

He dropped his head into his hands, knotting his fingers through his thinning hair. ‘Oh, my dear God,’ he said. ‘Of all the stupid . . .’ But then he sat up straight again, his eyes shining. ‘Well, that’s not the end of the world, Evie,’ he said. ‘There’s no need to panic or do anything knee-jerk. We can fix this. I know people. Obviously, this isn’t the first time I’ve had this happen and it’s easy enough to sort. I’ll just make a few phone calls and . . .’